Cutting school can have some very serious legal consequences.
In most situations, you are required to attend school until you graduate from high school or you turn eighteen. If you miss a lot of school, the school may able to make you attend a different school, make you be tested for drugs or alcohol, fine your parents or even send you to juvenile detention. The best way to avoid all this is to talk to your caseworker or school counselor to find a way for you to keep going to school.
If you are cutting school, a police officer can pick you up without a warrant and take you home, to school, or to another school district program.
Do I have to go to school until I am eighteen?
You must go to school until you are eighteen unless you have one of the following exceptions:
 | You have already graduated or you have passed a GED test. |
| You are sixteen and you have a legal job and either a parent/guardian agrees that it is ok to not go to school or you are legally emancipated. |
| You are enrolled in some other type of approved program or approved home-schooling. |
What will the school
district do if I miss school without an excuse?
| If you miss one day, the school district will notify
your parent/guardian |
| If you miss two days of school within one month, the
school district will schedule a conference with your parent/guardian. |
| If you miss five days of school with one month, the
school district may either make an attendance agreement with you,
refer you to a community truancy board, or the school district or your
parents/guardians could begin legal action (see below). |
| If you miss seven days in a month, or ten in a year, the school district will file a petition in a court to have them intervene. There will be a hearing at which the court may order you to attend school or another program. If you violate this order, the court may order you to do community service or to be put in juvenile detention. |