LANSING, Mich. — Sen. Michael Webber introduced legislation as part of a bipartisan effort to better protect Michigan children and strengthen school enrollment accountability following the discovery of three Pontiac children living in squalor after their mother allegedly abandoned them years earlier.
“This tragic case was compounded because these children fell through an enormous gap in the enrollment system that should not be there,” said Webber, R-Rochester Hills. “The Legislature has a duty to close this record-keeping loophole and equip our schools with a solution to safeguard vulnerable children across our state.”
Webber’s Senate Bill 506 would work with SB 492, introduced by Sen. Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield, to prohibit public and nonpublic schools from dropping a student based solely on a record request and instead require that written confirmation of a student’s enrollment in the new school is received before the pupil is removed from the previous institution’s rolls.
“The bills will ensure our schools have the means to keep track of the students who have been entrusted to their care,” Webber said. “We build stronger, healthier and safer communities when we work to protect our students.”
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard recently told the Senate Committee on Education that he believes the Pontiac case could have been prevented when the mother, who now faces three charges of first-degree child abuse, had allegedly told her children’s former school that they would be enrolling in a different school and their current school disenrolled them.
“When these children’s mother withdrew them from the school or asked for the transcripts to be sent, there was no follow up or safeguards in place to ensure they were actually enrolled elsewhere,” Bouchard said. “They simply vanished from the system.”
SB 506 is the companion to House Bill 4416, sponsored by state Rep. Tom Kuhn, R-Troy.
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