Woman sent to jail for not sending child to school

A Red Bay woman will be spending time in jail for continued failure to send her child to school.

Jennifer Six, 24, 807 Wilson Place, Red Bay, pleaded guilty to failure to send a child to school, which is a Class C misdemeanor.

The guilty plea was entered on Aug. 17 and Six was sentenced to serve 90 days in jail. 

According to Franklin County Assistant District Attorney Doug Evans, the sentence was suspended on the conditions that the defendant’s minor child have no further unexcused absences or tardies and that the defendant attend the mother’s program through the Department of Human Resources.

On Sept. 14, the District Attorney’s office filed a motion to impose the defendant’s 90-day jail sentence because the minor child incurred six unexcused absences and at least two tardies in less than a month and Six refused to attend the mother’s program, Evans said.

At the motion to impose hearing held last Thursday, District Court Judge Paula McDowell found that the defendant had violated the court’s order by failing to send her child to school and ordered Six to serve out her 90-day jail sentence.

“This is becoming a more serious problem than it was just five years ago,” Evans said, “but it’s not like these parents are sent to jail for the first offense. Every month the county and the city school systems, through the Juvenile Probation Office, hold an early warning day where children with a certain number of unexcused absences have to come to the courthouse with their parents.

“In Ms. Six’s case, she had plenty of opportunities to start sending her child to school before she was ultimately sentenced to jail time.

“We are under state and federal mandates to prosecute these kinds of cases because it is unfair to the child. A child can be very smart but be forced to repeat a grade just because their parent wouldn’t send them to school.

Prosecuting these cases is a tool we don’t like to use, but sometimes we have to resort to it.” 

Evans said that there are at least two other cases of a similar nature pending against parents who have failed to send their child to school.