CalCoastNews: The California Senate passed a bill Thursday that allows prosecutors to send parents of children in kindergarten through eighth grade to jail if their kids miss too much school.

Senate Bill 1317 allows prosecutors to charge parents with misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine if their children are truant from school.

"Three-quarters of our state inmate population are high school dropouts," Leno was quoted as saying by the Fresno Bee.

To be found guilty under the new law, prosecutors would have to show parents did not reasonably supervise their children. Chronic truancy means a childhas missed more than 10 percent of the school year with out a valid excuse.