My municipality has been approached by the local school superintendent with a request to establish a truancy court. For those of you who currently operate a truancy court, I would appreciate your insight. Would you recommend it? Has it proven to be effective in addressing absenteeism? I’m also interested in any pros, cons, or lessons learned from your experience.

Thanks,

Amanda

Amanda Mullins

The Law Firm of Amanda Mullins PLLC

401 W Chickasha Ave., Suite 405 | P.O. Box 533

Chickasha, OK 73023

T (405) 224-0237

amanda@amullinslaw.commailto:amanda@amullinslaw.com

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Amanda

I was the municipal prosecutor in Oklahoma City's truancy docket for about three years. Yes, I thought it was effective. I also prosecuted the parents for failure to compel their children to attend school. But we had a lot of resources that we relied on. For example, we have an in-house probation department that would follow up on certain cases. OKCPS also had a representative at every docket and could provide information about the student's attendance, class schedule, and could meet directly with the parents. In short, it was a team effort, totally different from our regular criminal docket. I typically didn't file on students aged 16 and older because at that age they can legally drop out of school.

Sincerely,

Dustin Parris

From: Amanda Mullins via Oama oama@lists.imla.org
Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2025 12:23 PM
To: Jeff Edwards via Oama oama@lists.imla.org
Subject: [Oama] Truancy Court

My municipality has been approached by the local school superintendent with a request to establish a truancy court. For those of you who currently operate a truancy court, I would appreciate your insight. Would you recommend it? Has it proven to be effective in addressing absenteeism? I'm also interested in any pros, cons, or lessons learned from your experience.

Thanks,

Amanda

Amanda Mullins

The Law Firm of Amanda Mullins PLLC

401 W Chickasha Ave., Suite 405 | P.O. Box 533

Chickasha, OK 73023

T (405) 224-0237

amanda@amullinslaw.commailto:amanda@amullinslaw.com

Note: Privileged/Confidential information may be contained in this message and may be subject to legal privilege. Access to this e-mail by anyone other than the intended is unauthorized. If you are not the intended recipient (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not use, copy, distribute or deliver to anyone this message (or any part of its contents) or take any action in reliance on it. In such case, you should destroy this message, and notify us immediately. If you have received this email in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail or telephone and delete the e-mail from any computer. If you or your employer does not consent to internet e-mail messages of this kind, please notify us immediately. All reasonable precautions have been taken to ensure no viruses are present in this e-mail. As our company cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage arising from the use of this e-mail or attachments we recommend that you subject these to your virus checking procedures prior to use. The views, opinions, conclusions and other information expressed in this electronic mail are not given or endorsed by the company unless otherwise indicated by an authorized representative independent of this message.

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