Truancy has been shown to be a significant indicator of other problems in our community.  Truant children are more likely to be involved in delinquent behavior, less likely to graduate from high school, more likely to have lifelong problems related to poverty and crime and cost our communities significant resources.

Each school district involved with the courts of the Seventeenth Judicial District participates in graduated programs intended to keep children in school.  The Adams County Truancy Consortium utilizes in-school case management facilitated by highly trained truancy case managers in an attempt to keep children in school.  Mental health services, counseling, substance abuse treatment, and tutoring are some of the many services utilized by participating schools to keep children in school.  The Boulder Valley School District uses the same approaches in addressing truancy problems for children within its district without the truancy consortium case manager.

If school district based approaches do not work, then the family is summonsed into the district court in either Adams County or the City and County of Broomfield for formal truancy proceedings.  In each court, the family is afforded an opportunity to resolve a child's school attendance problems informally even after a case has been filed.  When those efforts are  not successful or if a family elects to proceed to a formal truancy adjudication rather than take advantage of the services available to them, parents and child must appear before a judge or magistrate.  Where a family has a child adjudicated a truant, the court can order the family to insure the child attends school as well as order participation in a truancy case plan that addresses the underlying problems that led to the child's truancy.  If a parent or child does not comply with the court's order, they may be held in contempt of court and punished for violating the court order.

Ultimately the goal is to get a child into school and educate the child in order to avoid the multiplicity of problems that truancy creates.

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