SARB Mission
California law requires children between the ages of 6 and 18 years to attend school.
In 1974 the School Attendance Review Boards (SARB) was created to help truant students and their parents or guardians solve school attendance and/or behavior problems with the help of available school and community resources.
The purpose of SARB is to work collaboratively on developing strategies (prevention, intervention, and enforcement) that will help students improve school attendance and behavior while diverting cases away from the juvenile justice system.
Goals
“The goal is early intervention and to stop, prevent and intervene.”
Communities work together to monitor and promote good attendance and address hurdles that keep children from getting to school.
About
School Attendance Review Board (SARB) was established by the California legislature in 1975 for the purpose of:
- Making a better effort to meet the needs of students with attendance or behavior problems.
- Promoting the use of alternatives to the juvenile court system.
To achieve these goals, the legislation provides for a multi-agency SARB which includes the following agencies:
- Children and Family Services
- Probation
- Law Enforcement
- Youth Services
- Community-Based Organizations
- Child and Welfare and Attendance Personnel
- School Administrators
- Health Representative
SARB – the process starts with the identification of attendance and/or behavior problem followed by classroom, school site and district level interventions.
SARB – is specifically charged with funding solutions to unresolved student attendance and disciplined problems by bringing together, on a regular basis, representatives of agencies that make up the board.
SARB – further surveys available community resources, determines the appropriateness of their services, and makes recommendations to meet the needs of referred students.
SARB – seeks to understand why students are experiencing attendance and behavior problems which have not been resolved through school and community efforts.
Specified Laws Related to Attendance
- Education Code, Section 48200. Students, between the ages of 6 and 18, are required to attend school full time, unless otherwise exempt.
- Education Code, Section 48263. Habitually truant and habitually insubordinate students may be referred to SARB.
- Education Code, Section 48292, and Penal Code, Section 272. Failure to attend school as required may result in the filing of a complaint against the parents with the District Attorney’s Office.