Most legislative proposals are at least well-intentioned, no matter how misguided. And so it is with Senate Bill 245.
Proposed by state Sens. Dennis Nolan, a Las Vegas Republican, and Joyce Woodhouse, a Henderson Democrat, the measure would allow school districts to impose fines on parents whose children are sent to detention.
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The two lawmakers argue that the Clark County School District doesn't have the money to adequately staff detention centers, so imposing a cost on parents might help narrow the budget gap and even reduce the number of kids who misbehave.
But the bill is completely devoid of details and would likely create a bundle of unintended consequences.
What would be an appropriate fine? Sen. Woodhouse said $20 an incident wouldn't be out of line, but the proposal doesn't say.
Would the district have to create an expensive appeals process to respect the due process rights of parents who get fined? The bill doesn't say.
How would the district reconcile the fact that the range of offenses for which students are sent to detention can vary tremendously? The bill doesn't say.
What would the district do if a parent refused to pay? The bill is silent.
The only specific offered in SB245 is that parents must be able to request a waiver for "good cause, including, without limitation, financial hardship." Otherwise the task of formulating the details of this proposal would be left entirely to the local school boards.
In fact, the best way to deal with kids who repeatedly misbehave or disrupt class is to remove them from campus entirely. If the Clark County School District adopted precisely such a policy, that alone would likely solve the problem.
In addition, this bill would almost certainly generate expensive challenges over the legality of trying to extract fees for mandatory programs from parents who have already paid their public school taxes.
But in the end, state Sen. Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, hit the nail on the head about Senate Bill 245. "I think," he said, "this is about trying to fund something that the school districts chose not to fund based on priorities in their budget."
