County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency HHSA CalWORKs Program Guide School Attendance Penalty Number Page 42100H 1 of 3 Revision Date February 1 2019 Background CalWORKs provisions require penalties for those families in which children are not meeting the school attendance requirement unless good cause exists This revision is due to the document passing the Sunset Date no policy changes Policy 42100H1 Eligibility Worker Action Effective January 1 2015 if a child age 16 years of age or older has not been attending school and is deemed a chronic truant pursuant to Section 482636 of the Education Code the Assistance Unit AU will not have their grant immediately reduced Instead the child must be referred to Employment Services ES to develop an ES Plan 42100H2 School Attendance Review Board SARB Referrals SARBs are able to independently request penalties to be imposed when a child does not meet certain school attendance criteria The SARB will request penalties be applied through Eligibility Operations andor the Family Resource Center Do not apply the penalty and instead refer the child to ES Good cause may be requested and granted if appropriate 42100H3 ES Plan Children aged 1618 and are attending school in a fulltime basis are exempt from ES Therefore when children aged 16 and older are deemed chronic truants they lose this ES exemption and must be referred to ES activities and have an ES plan Workers are required to remove the ES exemption and register them to ES as mandatory participants Employment Case Managers are expected to identify the barriers to successful attendance and provide case management services to resolve the problem and eliminate the barriers The ES activity for the chronic truant child is school attendance to obtain a high school diploma Inform the family of how to enroll the child in a continuation school if needed Refer the family to the Family Stabilization FS program for evaluation of FS eligibility requirements If the family does not otherwise meet FS program eligibility requirements or truancy services are not provided as part of the FS program but a mandatory participant is unable to complete their work requirements due to a minors truancy issues then the case should be reviewed for ES good cause and members of the family may be referred to counseling services Refer to CPG 10007D CPG 10011D CPG 10011E If after an ES plan is signed the child does not cooperate with the plan remains truant has no good cause and does not meets an exception at that time the school attendance penalty must be applied to the AUs grant the needs of the child will not be considered in computing the grant of the family Review the case file to ensure if good cause has been requested or to evaluate exception criteria and the evaluation for the request has been completed prior to taking the penalty action If good cause is County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency HHSA CalWORKs Program Guide School Attendance Penalty Number Page 42100H 2 of 3 requested and approved or if any of the exception criteria is met the penalty action will not be taken Narrate all good cause requestsexception criteria met and determinations Note The child is not subject to ES sanction for failure to follow the ES plan Only the school attendance penalty will apply in this situation 42100H4 School Attendance and SemiAnnual Reporting SARAnnual ReportingChild Only ARCO Midperiodyear action may be taken to apply the school penalties at the end of the month in which the change occurred with timely notice even if it results in a decrease in cash aid If the timely notice requirement cannot be met take action by the end of the following month If the child is the only aided member in the AU and that child is to be penalized the grant for the AU is zero Reminder The needs of a child can only be removed if the child is actually in the AU If the child is excluded ie an SSI recipient or an undocumented alien the penalty cannot be applied to that child 42100H5 Bureau of Public Assistance Investigations BPAI Referral When the penalty has been imposed for more than six months the case may be referred to BPAI to verify that the child is in the home 42100H6 Notice of Action NOA Use M40105D1 NOA to inform recipients Of the change in law and the AUs new grant amount Who have a penalty applied to the AUs grant amount and the grant amount will be increasing due to the law change Use M40105E NOA to Specify which child is not attending regularly or lacks proof of regular attendance Specify that it pertains to children age 16 and older Inform that the AUs grant will be decreased Tell clients how the can correct a penalty and when cash aid would be restored Procedure CalWORKs Processing 10005K1 WelfaretoWork Activities for High School Students Impacts None References EAS 401055 ACL No 1522 1522E County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency HHSA CalWORKs Program Guide School Attendance Penalty Number Page 42100H 3 of 3 Sunset Date This policy will be reviewed for continuance by February 28 2022 Approval for Release Rick Wanne Director Eligibility Operations