The importance of school attendance in relation to achievement, engagement, and educational success has been well researched and documented. As a result, the general philosophy is that the more time students are in school, the better chance they have to be personally and academically successful. Students miss school for myriad reasons. While some absence is health related, much of it is due to family circumstances, truancy, suspension, and expulsion. Persistent disruption in a student's education can have serious consequences. In a 2002 report commissioned by the Colorado Foundation for Families and Children, juvenile delinquency is linked to school absenteeism. This report illustrates a synchronous chain of events from truancy, suspension, expulsion, and dropping out leading to delinquency, and cites the potential for diminished outcomes for students caught up in this cycle, such as lower lifetime earnings, adult criminality, family dysfunction, and unemployment (Gonzales, Richards, Seeley, 2002, p. 3). This issue of "A Legal Memorandum" examines compulsory education, truancy, and truancy-reduction strategies.