The purpose of this research was to examine court cases dealing with compulsory attendance laws, also known as compulsory education laws, for the purpose of establishing the issues, outcomes, and trends in compulsory attendance litigation. In this manner, school officials could be provided guidance on dealing with issues surrounding the attendance…

School absenteeism and truancy have been of concern to schools, courts, communities and researchers since compulsory education laws were first put into effect. Despite the attention given to this problem and significant effort aimed at improving student attendance, school absenteeism remains a serious problem. A number of qualitative reviews of…