Honor student jailed for missing school

Ok first...where the HELL are her parents? They divorced so...she's supporting herself and two siblings through school? WHAT?? And it just boggles my mind that she's supporting her brother...in college. Please, tell me he is has a job too at least. I mean really! ARGH.

Second, I fully support Shadow Dragon's sentiment on the judge. He can sit on it and rotate. Unthinking bastard.

Miss Tran should be given a medal indeed. I'd also like to know what her grades are like. If she's an honors student, they can't be too bad. I can't see where there's any call to punish her at all if she's got consistently high grades. Clearly, she's learning what she's supposed to if she's keeping up and in fact excelling in school. Some arbitrary rule about her having to spend a certain number of hours sitting her butt in the class-room is BS.

Geez. So grumpy now, after this story and the video.

This story has a good ending at least. People have been so angry about this that helpdianetran.com has already raised $100,000. Maybe now the poor girl can get some sleep!

FUCK THAT JUDGE!!!

He gave that girl a PERMANENT record!! What a fucked up dick he is!! I hope to God that judge reads my very words. FUCK YOU YOU FUCKED UP ASSHOLE!

Truancy is NOT a horrible crime. Truancy is a very modern nuisance that exists only in very modern times. But things like theft and murder are as old as time immemorial. That judge has a very warped understanding of what truancy is and why it's even to be bothered with.

Truancy --you fucked-up dick twat piece of shit-- is the word used when a child is skipping school to be an irresponsible little hoodlum. Truancy is supposed to be acted upon by school administrators AND eventually by the law, in order to prevent juvenile delinquency stuff from cropping up at the hands of the truant child --delinquency stuff such as vandalism. Do you honestly think --you messed-up, unfeeling, clumsy, oafish, pencil-pushing, beurocratic piece of stinking rancid horse carcass-- do you HONESTLY think that the modern concerns over truancy apply to this young lady??

You gave her a record, you ass! You did the one thing that no judge is EVER supposed to do, by the very definition of even being called a "judge". You checked your brain at the door, threw all discernment out the window, and went on with a mindless auto-pilot stance by adopting a letter-of-the-law roboticalness, devoid of any judicious parsing out of the facts. You need to hang up your robe PERMANENTLY, you total fuck up!

And what's worse here is that she was old enough to be a drop-out. If she had been younder than 16 years of age, then yes, school is mandatory. But she's 17, so school is optional and the law allows her to choose to be a drop-out. Jailing her when she is old enough to legally choose for herself just makes no legal sense.

Chalk up another vote for that judge can go fuck himself sideways. I'm glad that people are stepping up to help this incredibly responsible and burdened young woman, and I hope that some nice lawyer will step up and offer pro bono to do whatever it takes to get that ruling overturned and that record expunged. Seriously, that asshole of a judge should be publicly shamed.

What a dipshit.

It's such a trivial thing to give someone a permanent record over I understand if you burned down the school? But missing a few classes?

At most you'd get detention at my school and maybe a talk with your tutor.

And her parents split and left town, leaving her to care and raise for her siblings.

She needs help, young carers don't get much help I know.

I'm uncomfortable with criminalizing minors for missing school in the first place. I've always thought that attendance laws were more about holding parents accountable for doing their part in having their children educated.

Not to mention, at 17, why is this even an issue? As Plot Device points out, this girl should be old enough to decide whether or not to go to school in the first place.

I hope this girl's record is expunged and all charges are dropped. And I dearly hope this judge does not get re-elected.

Hell, I missed way more than a few classes during college and no one jailed me...and, frankly, college courses are MORE important to not miss (most of the time) than high school classes. I remember a lot more days of "filler" in high school, while in college, the classes tended to have more meat because they were only once or twice a week.

Zoombie said:

Hell, I missed way more than a few classes during college and no one jailed me...and, frankly, college courses are MORE important to not miss (most of the time) than high school classes. I remember a lot more days of "filler" in high school, while in college, the classes tended to have more meat because they were only once or twice a week.

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I agree. And legally making minors under a certain age receive schooling seems partially based in the idea that children aren't mature enough to make adult decisions about their education or be held responsible for such choices. College students, who are usually at least 18, are treated like adults -- no one makes them go to class, but if they miss too much, they're held responsible come grading time.

So if minors aren't old enough to make these decisions, how is it fair to hold them so responsible that they can be put in jail?

muravyets said:

I hope that some nice lawyer will step up and offer pro bono to do whatever it takes to get that ruling overturned and that record expunged.

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If I know my lawyers, one almost certainly will. In fact I bet they're beating down her door right now. This case has publicity and publicity means new clients. At the bare minimum, there're lots of young attorneys out there eager to make a name for themselves. My best friend would take this on pro-bono in a heartbeat if he lived in Texas.

Question: was it not illegal for the parents to abandon their children like that?

I was going to write about this on my blog. Glad someone posted the story here. And I agree - that judge is a dick. He really needs to get a real case to rule on (maybe not). It burns me up to see someone so young in our society, who works so hard, still pulls excellent grades and they get hammered for some small detail.

He doesn't want to appear soft? Soft on what? A kid who is beneficial to society? That guy needs to retire immediately because he has no grasp on the punks who are running around out there as opposed to those who work hard.

What is the legal age in Texas for leaving school and getting a job? Is there a requirement to stay in school fulltime until the age of 18 or something? In my state of Australia (NSW) the legal age of leaving was raised from 15 to 17 in 2010. This has mostly been an attempt to manipulate the unemployment figures, rather than improve life prospects for the students concerned.

Rather than go after the judge for being an asshat, I'd like to see someone go after the homeroom teacher who consistently marked this girl absent and set the absentee wheels in motion. The homeroom teacher who would have known this girl's situation. Who would have known that the girl had already been before the judge for absenteeism and would face time if she was absent again for the crime of putting food on the table for her siblings while maintaining exemplarily grades. The homeroom teacher who knew all of this and yet still marked the girl absent, when they could have just as easily 'accidently' ticked the present column? That homeroom teacher is an asshole of the highest order.

Looks like the tale has a happy ending.

I suspect the District Attorney's request went something along the line of, "Jesus Christ, you dipshit! We don't need this bad publicity. Vacate that conviction."

I also suspect that the conviction had a lot to do with the JP thinking, "You know those people. We better teach them how to do things in America."

Seems that the judge had not heard of the Eighth Amendment, that's the one about cruel and unusual punishments. He has certainly never heard of mercy.

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that givesand him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Judge
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
M of V IV i

Thank god he retracted on it. That was so much unnecessary upset for someone who's just trying her best.

I wonder if she's working two jobs because of mortgage etc on the house her two parents left? If so I hope the money raised can relieve her financial burdens.

I think the laws are a bit tough on young students:

According to Texas law, if a student has ten or more unexcused absences within a six-month period, the school district may refer the student to a juvenile court. "In such cases, resolution of the issue is entirely in the hands of the court," reads a statement on the website of the Willis Independent School District.

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but there's always good people around:

Tran's case has spread online, with dozens of news outlets across the country picking up her story. HelpDianeTran.com, a site set up by the Louisiana Children's Education Alliance in partnership with Anedot and Gatorworks, has raised over $28,000.

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I hope she comes out of all this as a stronger person.

Let's hear a cheer for mandatory schooling and a state-monopolized "justice" system!

rah!

Shadow Dragon said:

There's one thing that article doesn't address which I still find incredibly odd, why the hell aren't her parents helping her financially? It says that her father visits her but nothing in there about him also helping to fund his kids' education and the mother isn't mentioned at all. That part of the story has seemed really strange.

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Because they cut and run leaving their kids to fend for themselves. Her father is probably like my dad, talks to me but in no way does he help financially, shows up when its convenient for him and then leaves. Maybe she doesn't know where her mother is as her mother left too?

fireluxlou said:

Because they cut and run leaving their kids to fend for themselves. Her father is probably like my dad, talks to me but in no way does he help financially, shows up when its convenient for him and then leaves. Maybe she doesn't know where her mother is as her mother left too?

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That is awful! The dad ought to be put in prison not Diane.

fireluxlou said:

Thank god he retracted on it. That was so much unnecessary upset for someone who's just trying her best.

I wonder if she's working two jobs because of mortgage etc on the house her two parents left? If so I hope the money raised can relieve her financial burdens.

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According to the article, she's not even planning on keeping all of it for herself:

Wice said she has no control over the fund but has undisclosed plans in the future to "earmark some of it for a greater need than her own."

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That's just... wow. I have no words for this girl's selflessness. Is she going to be a teacher when she graduates? Can I send my kids to learn from her?

Katrina S. Forest said:

According to the article, she's not even planning on keeping all of it for herself:


That's just... wow. I have no words for this girl's selflessness. Is she going to be a teacher when she graduates? Can I send my kids to learn from her?

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She is studying to be a doctor I read from another article

Somewhere along the line, being physically in the school building during the school day has become as important as, if not more important than, the grades one earns. This story is proof of how abjectly ridiculous the emphasis on attendance has become.

In my school district, at least at the high school level, if a student misses more than three days per grading quarter without an excuse, they automatically fail all the classes they've missed. Even if they'd earned A's. And a parent's call or note saying "My kid is throwing up and has a fever" doesn't count as an excuse. It has to be a doctor's note, or proof of a family emergency, or something like that.

This has resulted in me having to take my 16-year-old to the pediatrician nearly a dozen times this year; she gets migraine headaches and has food intolerances which are still being diagnosed, and she's prone to pneumonia and bronchitis. The school tells me, "She can't be here if she throws up" and "She can't be here if she has a fever," and when I follow those guidelines, I get phone calls chastising me for her absences.

The only reason I haven't pulled her out and let her do online high school like she's been begging for since ninth grade is that her father (from whom I've been divorced for five years, but who shares legal rights over the kids) won't let me. He's afraid it will affect her social skills.