At 7 p.m. tonight, members of the DeKalb community will meet in the Egyptian Theatre, 135 N. Second St., to discuss the recent shooting of Jayson Martin and community issues that surround last week’s gang-related homicide.

It is commendable that DeKalb is making an effort to increase awareness about these matters. As Bill 1463 progresses through the General Assembly, this awareness could not have come at a better time.

This piece of legislature, like our community, seeks to increase the attendance of minors in high school. When kids stop going to classes regularly or drop out of school altogether, Bill 1463 will suspend these kids’ driver’s licenses. This could be a risky move, considering the factors that usually cause kids to stop attending school or drop out are more involved than the need for another penalty.

In his 1998 book “The Dropout Problem,” Southern California University professor Stephen D. Krashen says socioeconomic factors are the real reasons why kids have a tough time staying in school.

“Several ‘background factors’ have been identified as consistent predictors of dropping out,” Krashen said. “Students in wealthier families drop out less and those who have been [in the U.S.] longer, those who live with both parents, those [with parents] who monitor school work drop out less, and those who do not become teen parents drop out less.”

Illinois truancy outreach worker and NIU alumna Stephanie Vela also recognizes the importance of the family role in kids’ attendance records.

“In my experience, the reason for a lot of kids’ chronic truancy is because their parents don’t place a value on education,” Vela said. “In the cases where it is a real problem, the parents won’t bother to get up and make sure their kids get to school. After a while, the kids are like ‘Why should I care?'”

If students are dropping out and missing school because of their parents, how will making it illegal for these students to drive solve anything?

No one can argue a means to improve chronic truancy should be taken — according to the Illinois Board of Education, 1.3 percent of DeKalb high school kids regularly miss school, and that figure rises to 2.8 percent for the state. However, by restricting a freedom that has nothing to do with students’ actual misbehavior, neither students nor parents will learn their lessons. In fact, this bill creates the potential to make the problem even worse. Not only will chronic truancy persist, but student who feel threatened will rebel.

In the March 31 edition of the Northern Star, State Rep. David R. Leitch (R-Peoria) said high school kids most likely will drive even with a suspended license, and the bill only will help to make kids “become part of the criminal justice system.”

Although the government does not offer statistics on the amount of minors who drive with suspended licenses, having been a minor, I remember the excitement of learning how to drive. Very little, usually including a suspended license, could stop my peers from getting behind the wheel.

It is no doubt that legislators view this bill as an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone by keeping kids in school while simultaneously lightening the roads of inexperienced drivers. But this far-fetched castigation fails to address the socioeconomic factors that cause kids to drop out of school and become chronically truant in the first place. While doing this, the bill also poses increased legal risks for minors. Tonight, as our community seeks to further its social awareness, it should do its part in finding a better and more educated way to address this pertinent issue.