Dive Brief:

• Fort Bend Independent School District in Houston has announced it will suspend the practice of sending truant students to court. 
• The news from the 70,000-student district follows a much-read BuzzFeed investigation into the practice, as well as a report by Texas Appleseed that found Texas prosecutes more than double the number of student truancy cases than any other state in the U.S. 
• Separate from this decision but still of note: Fort Bend Independent School District is currently being investigated by the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights about possible Title VI violations due to a complaint alleging that black students are disciplined "more frequently and more harshly than other similarly situated students."

Dive Insight:

While the Education Department's investigation is not directly tied to the decision to suspend the truancy court, there are still connections. In March, state Senator Rodney Ellis wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asking for an investigation into racial disparities around truancy cases that end up before a judge.

According to BuzzFeed's investigation, over the course of the last three years, more than 1,000 Texas high school students ended up in truancy courts and were ultimately sentenced to jail time when they couldn't pay fines, thus missing more class time.