Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Education:

Board advances proposal to tie driver’s licenses, school attendance

Driving and School

Steve Marcus

Members of the audience and media wait for discussion on a proposal designed to reduce the high school dropout rate during a School Board meeting Wednesday, August 4, 2010. The Clark County Board of School Trustees voted 6-0 to approve “in concept” to make a driver’s license dependent on attending high school.

Updated Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2010 | 5:03 p.m.

Driving and School

Clark County Board of School Trustees, from left, Linda Young, Terri Jannison, and Carolyn Edwards listen to Joyce Haldeman (lower left), CCSD associate superintendent of community and government relations, as they discuss a proposal designed to reduce the high school dropout rate during a School Board meeting Wednesday, August 4, 2010.  The Board voted 6-0 to approve Launch slideshow »

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The Clark County Board of School Trustees today voted 6-0 to approve "in concept" to make a driver’s license dependent on attending high school.

If a student doesn’t go to school, according to the proposal, he or she can’t drive. If the teen is deemed a “habitual truant,” his or her parents must go to a form of detention, compulsory “Saturday intervention sessions,” to improve their parenting skills.

Parents could also lose recreational licenses for hunting, fishing and other pursuits.

The idea will be voted on by the board Aug. 26 and then submitted to the Legislature next year for possible passage as a law.

The exact wording of the proposal is open to revision.

Truancy is a serious problem in the district. About a third of the class of 2009 failed to graduate.

Specifically, the truancy proposal under consideration would require “proof of high school enrollment including demonstrated attendance and evidence of passing grades” to get — and keep — a license until the age of 18.

A license would be “an annual privilege subject to renewal.”

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