Judge Frees Ohio Dad Jailed for Daughter's Truancy
Jailed for a week after his 18-year-old daughter failed to complete her high school equivalency degree, an Ohio man has gotten another chance.
Brian Gegner was released today by a Butler County juvenile court judge after an emotional hearing, reports the Enquirer. He now has until July 16 to see that his daughter, Brittany, who has an 18-month-old child of her own and a history of skipping school that dates back to the 5th or 6th grade according to Gegner, attends pre-college math courses at Miami University of Ohio.
“The reprieve means Gegner will keep the data-entry job he has held for 14 years at Christ Hospital and can go back to parenting another daughter, 16, who is an honor-roll student at Fairfield High School,” the Cincinnati newspaper writes.
He is among 11 Butler County parents jailed last year in such cases, 10 of whom were mothers.
Judge David Niehaus didn’t want to jail Gegner, and is usually stoic on the bench. But he choked up today as he talked about the importance of attending school, the Enquirer says. Uneducated children usually wind up in dead-end, low-paid jobs, on welfare or in jail, he points out.
Gegner was jailed May 7 after he pleaded no contest to contributing to the unruliness of a child. A law that has been in effect in Ohio since 2000 allows parents to be punished for a child’s truancy.
