Texas Truancy Law: Warning Notices, Truancy Prevention Measures and the 90% Rule

Verified as at 4 August 2026 for the structure and the section numbering. Attendance committee procedure under §25.092 is substantially set by local policy on top of the statute, and the precise wording of the §25.095 notice has been amended over time — confirm current text with TEA and your district's counsel before adopting a template.

What HB 2398 changed, and what it did not

What changed. The criminal offence of failure to attend school, which had applied to the student, was repealed. Student truancy became truant conduct handled as a civil matter under Family Code Chapter 65, in truancy courts, with remedial rather than punitive tools. Truancy prevention measures became mandatory rather than encouraged, and districts were required to apply them before referring.

What did not change. The parent-facing offence at Education Code §25.093 — contributing to nonattendance — survived. So did the district's obligation to send the warning notice, to refer at the statutory threshold, and to run the 90% rule for credit.

Which produces the specific danger for Texas districts using an old template: a letter that tells a family their child may be prosecuted for failure to attend school is stating something that has not been true for over a decade. It is also the kind of error that a defence attorney in a §25.093 case will find useful.

Check any Texas attendance letter for these three tells:

• A reference to a criminal charge against the student for nonattendance.
• A citation to Education Code §25.094, the repealed section.
• No mention of truancy prevention measures, which are now the precondition to the referral the letter is threatening.

Truancy prevention measures: the document you are probably missing

§25.0915 requires districts to adopt truancy prevention measures and to apply them before making a referral. The requirement is not satisfied by having a policy; it is satisfied by applying measures to the specific student and being able to show it.

A workable TPM documentation sheet, one per student, capturing:

• Date the pattern was identified and the count that identified it.
• The barrier identified, and how — conference, call, home visit, counsellor referral.
• Each measure applied, with its date, its owner, and whether it was actually delivered rather than merely offered.
• Parent contact attempts with date, channel, language and outcome.
• The behaviour improvement plan or attendance contract if one was used, with its review dates.
• The outcome, and the reason a referral is or is not being made.
• The truancy prevention facilitator's name and signature.

This sheet is what a truancy court will look for, and it is the one artefact Texas districts most often cannot produce at the point of referral. Build it as a running document from the first intervention, not as something assembled at referral time from memory and email.

The 90% rule, which is a different process entirely

§25.092 is about class credit, not about truancy. A student must be in attendance for at least 90% of the days a class is offered to be awarded credit or a final grade. A student who falls below that, but at or above a lower statutory floor, may be awarded credit through an attendance committee with a plan to make up the work.

Three documents cover this, and they are school-side documents that the parent-facing "attendance appeal" search results do not serve at all:

• Notice of credit-loss risk. Sent when a student's attendance in a specific class approaches the threshold, naming the class, the current figure and the date by which it becomes irrecoverable. Sent early enough to be actionable, which in practice means well before the end of the term.
• Notice of attendance committee review. States the date, the classes under review, that the family may attend and present information, and what the committee can decide.
• Committee decision letter. The decision per class, the plan to regain credit if one is granted, the deadlines, and the appeal route to the board.

Note that the 90% rule counts attendance generally, so documented absences count toward it in the same way they count toward chronic absenteeism. A student can therefore be at risk of losing credit while having no unexcused absences and no truancy exposure at all — and the letter that goes to that family must not be written in truancy register. See excessive excused absences.

Questions people actually ask

How many unexcused absences is truancy in Texas?

The statutory trigger for a referral is absence without excuse on 10 or more days or parts of days within a six-month period in the same school year, under Education Code §25.0951. Note that it counts parts of days, and that the window is six months rather than the school year, both of which differ from many other states.

Is truancy still a crime in Texas?

Not for the student. House Bill 2398 in 2015 repealed the criminal offence of failure to attend school and moved student truancy to a civil process under Family Code Chapter 65. The parent-facing offence of contributing to nonattendance at Education Code §25.093 survived, so parental exposure remains.

What is the 90 percent attendance rule in Texas?

Education Code §25.092 requires a student to attend at least 90% of the days a class is offered in order to be awarded credit or a final grade. A student below that may be granted credit by an attendance committee with a plan to complete the work. It counts attendance generally, so documented absences count toward it — a student can be at credit risk with no unexcused absences at all.

What are truancy prevention measures and are they required before a referral?

Truancy prevention measures are interventions a district must adopt and apply under Education Code §25.0915, and applying them before a referral became mandatory in 2015. The requirement is satisfied by measures applied to the specific student and documented, not by having a policy. This is the evidence Texas districts most often cannot produce at referral.

When must a Texas district send the attendance warning notice?

Education Code §25.095 requires written notice to parents about the consequences of nonattendance, at the beginning of the school year and again on qualifying absences. The precise wording and timing have been amended over time, so build the notice from the current statutory text and confirm it with your district's counsel.

Can a Texas parent still be charged over their child's absences?

Yes. The offence of contributing to nonattendance at Education Code §25.093 was not repealed in 2015 and applies where a student is absent on 10 or more days or parts of days within a six-month period. The student-facing criminal offence is the one that was removed.

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