Resources for Students & Families

Resources for Students and Families

For truancy-related resources, please click the various links below. Both English and Spanish versions of some documents are available.

For more information on Pennsylvania’s truancy laws, please contact the PA Department of Education.

 

York County Medical Excuse Form and FERPA Release Form

We feel that it is vitally important for all parties interfacing with the problem of truancy stand united on keeping children in school and helping them obtain the best education possible.  As physicians, we recognize that illness may occasionally interfere with the learning process and that school is always a place where diseases may potentially be spread.

The physician’s role in preventing truancy is to make sure that students obtain medical excuses when AND ONLY WHEN they are so ill that the illness would seriously impair their ability to function in school, or when their presence in school would constitute a serious threat to the health of other students.

The physicial should see the child and rely on objective data when making this assessment.  School excuses should cover only one episode of illness based on in-person examination.  The student or his/her parents should have burden of convincing the physician that the illness has a serious negative impact on the child's ability to perform.  The excuse should cover only a limited period based on the physician's professional opinion on the usual duration of such an illness.

Finally, the school should keep the physician informed of problems of school attendance so that this can be entered as a problem in the student's medical record and taken into consideration in future medical evaluations.

Dr. Robert Fawcett

Medical Director, Thomas Hart Family Medicine

 

FERPA Release Form

York County Medical Excuse Form