Almost like clockwork, the end of the summer months sparks a lot of curiosity about what’s in store for their children and teenagers when returning to school after an extended break from their education.

For parents and their offspring alike, the start of a school year marks a new beginning and a return to routine normalcy after the relative chaos of the summer break.

But their attitudes toward returning to school are likely in stark contrast, with kids and teens dreading the start of a new school year as their parents celebrate the respite from caring for their children all day, every day. 

But for many school-aged children, going back to a classroom environment can be an anxiety-inducing and dreadful prospect. Perhaps they’ve been bullied by their peers or traumatized by ill-treatment from an awful teacher.

Or, as many parents have likely noticed, returning to school after years of pandemic-era online education is just generally difficult for kids who lost out on some of their most important and prime times to socialize with others both in a classroom setting and outside. 

Do you need to show up for a class?

The effect of prolonged isolation on a young person’s developing brain can surely be devastating, leading to all kinds of problems including anti-social behaviour, depression, anxiety, and a host of other mental illnesses and cognitive impairments.

In both severe and mild cases, many kids and teens might just want to opt out of going to school altogether, paralyzed by fearful feelings of insecurity, loneliness, and general malaise.

 Obviously, for parents, the thought of their child dropping out of school is not something they’re willing to entertain. Every child, of course, needs and deserves a decent education. But for young people, the compulsory nature of going to school goes against their youthful and rebellious spirits.

With all this in mind, many people end up wondering about the laws forcing young people to go to class. Is it against the law to not show up for a class? What consequences do kids face if they don’t go to school? What about parents who don’t adequately attempt to get their children to attend school? 

Compulsory school attendance

Historically, the laws around compulsory school attendance and truancy were rooted in both religious and anti-child labour advocacy.

Early laws in England and the American colonies before the revolution made compulsory education the norm for children aged five and over, though some places made exceptions for families who were said to be in extreme poverty.

Before the industrial revolution, of course, children were often employed by their families to help with farming duties. After and during the industrial revolution, however, the use of child labour in factories was not uncommon as young people were seen as both a source of cheap labour and a necessary evil for the survival of impoverished families.

In other words, children had to pitch in and do their part to keep their families afloat financially, regardless of how unseemly and dangerous the work was. 

Face a variety of punishments

Public attitudes toward child labour and the need for education continually evolved, with corresponding laws in many countries and states that eventually made compulsory education the norm for most children in the democratic world.

Although enforcing laws around truancy and compulsory education was always challenging, children found skipping school or working during school hours could face a variety of punishments and corrective measures. 

Parents of school-aged children who failed to enrol their kids could also face a number of consequences from fines to jail time, as well as the prospect of losing custody to government child welfare agencies.

With the rise of the labour movement and big unions, the push against child labour was also coupled with a corresponding push for compulsory school attendance.

Organized labour rightly fought against the practice of employing children in factories and other industrial activities on both moral grounds and out of self-interest, since factories that used child labourers did so to keep labour costs down. 

Early captains of industry disturbingly viewed young people as a source of easily exploited cheap labour who they could use and abuse at their whim. 

Attend school every year

As many modern democracies edged their way into the 20^th century, laws around compulsory school attendance and anti-child labour laws continued to be passed with varying characteristics such as age requirements and differing lengths of time young people were required to attend school every year.

Early public policies around compulsory school attendance, meanwhile, focused on basic and universal literacy for children by providing general education in reading, writing, and arithmetic. 

Fast forward to today, and laws around compulsory school attendance still share many characteristics with their early iterations. In the United Kingdom, for instance, parents can face both fines and jail time if their child is absent from school “without authorization.”

The U.K.’s Education Act provides for fines of up to a thousand pounds for a “strict liability” offence” for parents found guilty of failing to ensure their child’s regular attendance at school.

The act also provides for “aggravated” offences for parents who knowingly allow their child to be absent from school without a valid reason, carrying a fine of up to 2,500 pounds and jail time of up to three months. 

Is it legal to not go to school?

In Canada, provincial governments are constitutionally responsible for administering education to their residents. Provincial truancy laws provide for punishments for both children and parents, such as in the province of Ontario where parents can face charges for failing to send or allow their child to attend school.

Students aged 12 to 15 years old who are found to regularly skip school or refuse to attend can also face a fine of up to $1000, in addition to a probationary period of up to a year. During that probation period, if a student continues to skip school, they can be charged with truancy and sent to jail for up to a month. 

Send their children to school

Laws compelling parents to send their children to school are longstanding and rooted in the idea that everyone has the right to education early in life.

Legal challenges to compulsory school attendance laws have often been related to religious beliefs, such as a landmark case in the United States that allowed Amish parents to take their children out of school after the eighth grade.

Modern legal challenges to compulsory education laws are not unheard of, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic forced many schools to close and shift to online education models.

But despite the history of controversies surrounding compulsory school attendance laws, the value of providing citizens with a basic level of education remains high in the digital age of weaponized disinformation that threatens to erode democracies around the world.