KRS 159.150: Definitions of truant and habitual truant -- Attendance record

requirements -- Adoption of truancy policies by local school boards --

Implementation of early intervention and prevention programs.

(1) Any student who has attained the age of six (6) y ears, but has not reached his or her

eighteenth birthday, who has been absent from school without valid excuse for three

(3) or more days, or tardy without valid excuse on three (3) or more days, is a

truant.

(2) Any student enrolled in a public school who has attained the age of eighteen (18)

years, but has not reached his or her twenty-first birthday, who has been absent from

school without valid excuse for three (3) or more days, or tardy without valid

excuse on three (3) or more days, is a truant.

(3) Any student who has been reported as a truant two (2) or more times is an habitual

truant.

(4) For the purposes of establishing a student's status as a truant, the student's

attendance record is cumulative for an entire school year. If a student transfers f rom

one (1) Kentucky public school to another during a school year, the receiving school

shall incorporate the attendance information provided under KRS 159.170 in the

student's official attendance record.

(5) A local board of education may adopt reasonable policies that:

(a) Require students to comply with compulsory attendance laws;

(b) Require truants and habitual truants to make up unexcused absences;

(c) Impose sanctions for noncompliance; and

(d) Collaborate and cooperate with the Court of Justice, th e Department for

Community Based Services, the Department of Juvenile Justice, regional

community mental health centers, and other service providers to implement

and utilize early intervention and prevention programs, such as truancy

diversion, truancy boa rds, mediation, and alternative dispute resolution to

reduce referrals to a court-designated worker.