School Board favors mandatory attendance to keep driver's license

PALMER -- A resolution to support a requirement for mandatory school attendance in order to obtain and maintain an Alaska driver's license passed at the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School Board meeting earlier this month, in an attempt to support age-appropriate incentives to better enforce attendance at Mat-Su high schools.

Board Member Robert Johnson proposed the resolution, which passed five to one, with Board Member Dan Contini in opposition.

The resolution supports the addition of regular school attendance and participation in the High School Graduation Qualifying Exam and/or a qualifying waiver as conditions of obtaining and maintaining a driver's license. The resolution outlines that the Alaska Statutes require all children ages 7-16 to attend school, that more than 1,000 students drop out of Alaska schools each year and that school district's "lack the ability to truly mandate and enforce attendance." The resolution states that high school attendance rates may be increased by using a driver's license, a well-known stepping-stone to adolescent freedom, as an incentive to stay in school.

"This shows our general support to an addition to state law regarding driver's licenses and school attendance," said Johnson, who first brought the issue up years ago, when he first heard of Oklahoma's similar policy. "All I am looking for is another avenue to encourage kids to be in school."

Eighteen states, including Oklahoma, Florida and Oregon, have laws requiring school-age children to show proof of school enrollment before obtaining a driver's license or instruction permit. Johnson initially suggested that the license be married with school enrollment; brainstorming by other board members resulted in the HSGQE qualification.

Contini, however, does not support the resolution, saying that it supports "more unnecessary hoops" for students to jump through.

"I just don't think the two should have anything to do with one another," he said.

The board stressed that such a law would not only create incentives for students to stay in school, but would also create an incentive for parents to better enforce their child's enrollment. The board said Valley parents are also given new freedoms when their child has a driver's license and "home-bus services" are no longer required, and that enforcing enrollment to keep that new freedom may have positive effects on the state and district's attendance level. Support from the board for such a law will now be sent to legislators and policy makers throughout the state.