Nothing stirs George Martin enough to make him wake up and attend his eighth-grade classes regularly -- not even the threat of his mother going to jail because he won't go to school.
Virginia Martin said she has tried everything. She has pulled George's thin, gangly 14-year-old body off the bed, stood him on his feet and walked him to the bathroom. Once she poured ice water on him in bed. But George still managed 34 unexcused absences in the first 68 days of school. Fed up, Baltimore County officials are taking Ms. Martin to District Court in March.
The charge: failure to send her child to school. She could face 10 days in jail and a $50 fine for each of her son's absences.
Since September, school officials have charged 36 parents of truant children -- compared with an average of 30 per school year since 1990. And administrators are not prosecuting just the extreme cases. Parents are being charged when their children miss as few as five days without an excuse.
School officials cite two reasons for the increase: fear that attendance will fall below the state's acceptable level and rising enrollment.
They also say they are concerned about what truant children do at home alone. But George said his mother doesn't need to be concerned. He spends his days playing Sega video games and strumming his electric guitar.
Virginia says the school system is placing undue pressure on her. School administrators argue that she's negligent.
"I think it's wrong," said Ms. Martin, a single parent who works early morning and late-night shifts as a machinist in Essex. "The school system thinks we are still in the 1960s and mother is around to kiss the kids before they go to school. We have to work to support these children. Unfortunately, a roof over their heads is a little more important than readin', 'ritin' and 'rithmetic."
Nancy Foulk, who supervises a team that works with truant children and their parents, said she understands that parents have jobs. But she said getting a child to school should be the first priority, even if parents lose pay because of it.
"I feel the biggest part of that child's life is being in school," Mrs. Foulk said. "The responsibility has to be there and this may have to happen if the parents have to take time off and go through this hardship. The law doesn't make exceptions that take into account jobs."
Baltimore County is not the only jurisdiction that has taken steps to deal with chronic truancy.
In Baltimore City, which has a far more serious problem with 15,000 truants a day, police have assigned an officer in each district to find truants and return them to school.
Baltimore County truants are handled by 25 pupil personnel workers who first try to work with parents.
"We view attendance as a sign of another problem," said Pete Stankoski, the school system's court liaison. "When we can't resolve the problem of attendance, then the last resort is court."
That's where school officials will meet Bernetta Middleton, a name the school system had on record for five of her eight children. For the other three, she used another name, Vernetta Rivera.
Five of her eight children -- ages 6, 8, 12, 14 and 15 -- had missed 65 days at Dundalk Middle and Logan Elementary schools by the time school officials stopped counting in mid-December. The other three children -- 7, 10 and 11 -- were marked as unlawfully missing seven days at Logan.
Ms. Middleton would not discuss her case, but her daughter, Patricia Torain, 14, said she and her brothers and sisters attend regularly.
Most parents charged since September have not yet come to District Court. Of the few who have, none has gone to jail. Most have received probation or had their cases placed on an inactive docket.
Parents are rarely incarcerated, "but it happens," Mrs. Foulk said. Last year, two parents were jailed.
The possibility of jail scares Rita Schneehagen. Her son, who turned 16 last month, has not seen the inside of his ninth-grade classrooms at Overlea High. After 54 absences, officials charged her in a case scheduled for Feb. 28.
"I'm very worried," Mrs. Schneehagen said. "I don't know why they didn't charge my son instead of charging me. He is the one breaking the law, not me."
But truant children can't be cited and threatened with incarceration. Instead, school officials and juvenile services try to identify why the child is not attending. They offer counseling and check for learning disabilities and chronic illness.
When hearing truancy cases, judges say, they look at the parent's efforts.
"I take into account if the child is awfully difficult and the parent has demonstrated that they have done all they could to get them out of bed and off to school," Judge Patricia S. Pytash said. But she said she will jail a parent "who is lazy and just doesn't feel like getting the child up."
Ms. Martin said she doesn't worry about going to jail.
"I am a fighter," she said. "I won't get anything for this. Parents can't be in two places at one time. What if I lose my job? He'll be smart and starving."