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Discussion to adopt a municipal truancy ordinance took place at the Dewey City Council meeting on Monday night.

Dewey Police Sergeant Jimmy Gray said truancy is a state-wide issue, but in Dewey specifically, he said 32 parents could be cited for truancy for not taking their children to school. 22 of those parents have students that are enrolled at Dewey Elementary.

In the State of Oklahoma's neglect statute, it states that parents can be charged with neglect for not taking their child to school. According to Sgt. Gray, the District Attorney's Office does not want to push the matter. He said they have tried three times to pursue neglect on three different parents to no avail.

The municipal ordinance, Sgt. Gray said, would be more of an incentive to get the DA's Office to pursue neglect in these cases. He said if they can handle this municipally, the Dewey Police Department would have a way to punish truancy other than giving "an empty thread of 'I'll bring a warrant back.'"

The truancy issue has Dewey Public Schools worried as well. Sgt. Gray said they are worried because chronic absenteeism from students could result in a loss in state funding for some school programs. Whether DPS is to blame or not, the State Report Card will come back negative and it will hurt the school district.

Dewey Superintendent Vince Vincent planned on being at the discussion on Monday night, but had a prior engagement in Oklahoma City that he needed to attend to. Either way, the matter was discussed at lengths because, as the Dewey City Council pointed out, it is sad to see this problem grow in Dewey.

Sgt. Gray said the site principals and assistant principals have have been spearheading the multi-person effort with him and Superintendent Vincent. They will continue to look at solutions with the Council.

Essentially, the municipal truancy ordinance will follow state law and will allow the Dewey Police Department to write fines. Eventually, they could pursue a municipal warrant to put someone in jail if they do not pay the fines.

Sgt. Gray said issuing fines is a way they can get some parents to take their kids to school. He in the past decade, only one person has been charged with neglect for refusing to take their child to school, but they were also charged with other things as well.

In one current case, Sgt. Gray said a 4th Grade girl has missed 12 of the 23 days Dewey has been in school. Last year, the same girl is said to have missed 68 days in the 183 day school year. It is suspected that the mother stays up late because of either alcohol or narcotics. That is believed to be the cause of her to stay in bed well into the day, and the child does not wake up and go to the bus stop that is 100-feet away from her home because her parent does not wake up.

No action was take on the matter since it was simply a discussion. This could be brought back to the Dewey City Council's attention in a future council meeting.