Truancy. For many students, it’s what 4th period is for, or what their friends spend their time bragging about. And for those unfortunate enough to be caught, there are severe consequences in place; even hard time.

Well, there were, anyway.

Due to a recent Texas court decision, truancy has been decriminalized throughout the state. This means that if you have a record or an outstanding warrant due to failure to attend, it’s been wiped. Instead of looking at court hearings and jail time, students could now face rehabilitation at school and can no longer be fined beyond a certain point; $100 as compared to the old $500 first time fee.

“What the decriminalisation means is that if you were a student who got filed on for failure to attend school and you did not appear in court, the court would have the right to issue a warrant for your arrest,” Carla Mullen, AHS Truancy Officer, said. “Then, when you turn 17, the warrant would be issued and if you got pulled over by the police, and if they did a warrant check, then that warrant would come up and you’d be taken into custody and you’d go to jail. That was what they wanted to decriminalize.”

It does not, however, mean that skipping is now legal. There are still punishments in place; if you miss too many days, your parent or guardian can be filed with a misdemeanor, for example, for which they might have to appear in court.

What made the state revamp it’s truancy conduct is up for debate, but Mullen believes the high number of cases played a role.

“I think what forced them to reevaluate things was the excessive number of cases being filed on students,” she said. “And of course, either they wouldn’t take care of their business, they wouldn’t show up in court, they didn’t follow through with what the court said and then they had the warrants, and then several ended up in jail because of that.”

Time will tell if the change will truly make a difference in students skipping, or if another change needs to be tried.

“I think there is alway a chance that they will reverse, and not necessarily go back to what we had over what we have now, but I think they will tinker with it to,  just again, find something that is going to give us tools to keep kids in school and prevent us from filing on students,” Mullen said.