AN ACT directing the state board of education to adopt rules providing for excused absences from school for legislative and governor's pages.

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

SECTION 1.  G.S. 115C‑379 reads as rewritten:
"§ 115C‑379.  Method of enforcement.
It shall be the duty of the State Board of Education to formulate  the rules that may be necessary for the proper enforcement of the provisions of this Part. The Board shall prescribe (i) what shall constitute unlawful absence, (ii) what causes may constitute legitimate excuses for temporary nonattendance due to a student's physical or mental inability to attend or a student's participation in a valid educational opportunity such as service as a legislative page or a Governor's page, and (iii) under what circumstances teachers, principals, or superintendents may excuse pupils for nonattendance due to immediate demands of the farm or the home in certain seasons of the year in the several sections of the State. It shall be the duty of all school officials to carry out such instructions from the State Board of Education, and any school official failing to carry out such instructions shall be guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor: Provided, that the compulsory attendance law herein prescribed shall not be in force in any local school administrative unit that has a higher compulsory attendance feature than that provided herein."
SECTION 2.  This act is effective when it becomes law and applies beginning with the 2007‑2008 school year.
In the General Assembly read three times and ratified this the 27th day of June, 2007.

	s/	 Beverly E. Perdue
	 President of the Senate

	s/	 Joe Hackney
	 Speaker of the House of Representatives

	s/	 Michael F. Easley
	 Governor

Approved 9:50 a.m. this 7th day of July, 2007