Truant Girl’s Parents Face Criminal Trial in O.C.

SANTA ANA —  The Orange County district attorney’s office has taken the rare step of filing criminal charges against the parents of a 6-year-old child who repeatedly skipped class.

The misdemeanor allegations of contributing to the delinquency of a minor were leveled against Roberto Lua and Flora Diaz of Santa Ana after continued attempts by educators and social workers failed to improve the girl’s sporadic attendance. They also were cited for an alleged violation of the state education code governing truancy.

“Criminal prosecution in these types of cases is something that we use only as a very last resort,” said Assistant Dist. Atty. Jack Sullens.

But this girl’s case was extreme, according to a police report. The girl, a first-grader at the time, missed class 29 days within two months last year.

Lua and Diaz pleaded not guilty to the charges in March and are scheduled to appear in court Friday for a pretrial hearing. Sullens said prosecutors would like to strike an agreement with the parents at the hearing to get the child back in school and avoid a trial.

According to the police report, Lua and Diaz never followed through on offers of help from school officials for their troubled daughter, who consistently cried, screamed and threw tantrums while in school.

In an interview earlier this year, Diaz said she and her husband were being unfairly prosecuted. They wanted their daughter to attend school, but she simply refused, sometimes spinning into temper tantrums when told to put on her clothes.

Once, the child scratched her husband when he tried to drag her to school, Diaz said.

“The only thing we can do is to drag her to school, but even that doesn’t work,” said Diaz, who has four other children.

Diaz, who does not drive, said a health crisis with another child contributed to her 6-year-old daughter’s truancy last year. The mother said she did not have time to take her child to school because their 1-year-old daughter had been in the hospital for three weeks after being burned by scalding soup.

At a meeting with the district’s Student Attendance Review Board last December, Lua and his daughter both signed a paper pledging that she would attend school on time and visit community agencies that could help with her behavioral problems, the police report said.

After the hearing, she missed class every school day from Jan. 3 to Jan. 13.