D.C. Council Member Wants Businesses To Help Combat Truancy

Interim Council member Sekou Biddle says he wants to make it easier for stores and other businesses to report truants during school hours. Biddle's measure provides signs for businesses to put up in their stores and creates a hotline so shop owners and others can report truants.

The long-term goal, Biddle says, is to not only make it hard for students to skip school, but to get the community more involved in the issue.

"We begin to build public awareness that trickles on to Metro and anywhere else so that the public begins to have the sense that we have a role and responsibility to report seeing truants," Biddle says.

The bill does not require businesses to either report truants or hang the signs.