If your child doesn't go to school, you could end up in jail.
It happens rarely, but an Horry County parent found out this week, the school district is serious about making sure students stay in school.
The solicitor's office says the parent, who has not been named, will have to pay a $150 fine before the end of the week or go to jail for her child's truancy.
School officials and the solicitor's office say they do everything they can to avoid taking this drastic step but sometimes jail is the only thing left.
Attendance officer Karen Fowler says she will use volunteer mentors, intervention plans, diversion programs - anything she can to keep children in school.
"If kids aren't there, they can't learn," says Fowler.
But in a few cases, nothing works.
In two separate cases this week the parent of an 8-year-old was fined, and a 14-year-old was sentenced to the department of juvenile justice for 80 days because the students missed too many days of school.
Fowler says these were chronic cases - one student had 30 unexcused absences, the other, 28.
"We cannot drag them to school. We do everything we can to encourage it and help them to solve the family issues so that we can have a successful child academically," added Fowler.
At the solicitor's office, officials say they get involved only as a last resort.
"We're probably the muscle for the school district, the strong arm of the law that is required to get kids into court. A lot of times, if a kid knows what is hanging over their head they're more likely to comply," said Caroline Fox, with the 15th Circuit Solicitors Office.
Fox says it's more often a parent problem than a kid problem. The parents didn't go to school themselves, and now the kids don't see the need.
Often, cutting school leads to bigger crimes.
"The children that we see, that we're proceeding against their parents because they're eight years old, for truancy problems, we are gonna see those kids again when they hit 11, 12, 13 years old. we just know it," added Fox.
The solicitor's office handles about 300 truancy cases per year. Only a few make it to the fine or jail stage.
Officials say they wish it never happened at all.
If a child is under court order to attend school, the parent can be fined up to $50 for each day the child has an unexcused absence.
