A Michigan woman is serving 20 days in jail for failing to send a young child to school.

Muskegon County District Judge Maria Ladas Hoopes sentenced 62-year-old Angela Ingersoll to 20 days in Muskegon County Jail in early March. Ingersoll is the guardian of a young child who missed dozens of school days at Orchard View Elementary School dating back to 2017, MLive reports.

Muskegon County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Timothy Maat told the news site school officials first contacted the prosecutor’s office about Ingersoll in September 2017, after the child missed 11 days of school.

School officials allegedly attempted to contact Ingersoll on seven occasions, which included offers to meet to resolve the absences in four of the contacts. Prosecutors also reached out to Ingersoll several times with no response, according to MLive.

“Jail for truancy is always an absolute last resort,” Maat said. “But when a court’s orders are violated and a child’s educational needs are being neglected, real consequences are necessary.”

Ingersoll was arraigned in June 2019 and pleaded guilty a month later, but prosecutors offered to dismiss the charges if the child missed no additional days of school.

This school year, up until Ingersoll’s Feb. 27 sentencing, the child was absent a total of 47 days, officials allege.

Ingersoll certainly isn’t the first parent or guardian to spend time behind bars over student absences.

In November 2018, another Muskegon County mother spent a week in jail after her 6-year-old child missed 26 days of school.

Twin Lake mother Brittany Ann Horton, 28, initially pleaded guilty to truancy on May 17, 2018, but the Muskegon County Prosecutor’s Office agreed to delay her sentencing on the condition her child did not accumulate any more unexcused absences, Mlive reports.

But the kid continued to miss class, and Horton was sentenced to five days in jail on Nov. 16, 2018.

In March 2018, a Muskegon County judge sentenced 24-year-old Amanda McEntaffer to 15 days in jail after she ignored eight chances to avoid criminal charges and nine chances to avoid jail, Mlive reports.

McEntaffer’s 6-year-old child racked up 31 unexcused absences and 27 unexcused tardies at Whitehall Elementary School before she was locked up.

“Our office believes that keeping kids in school is the best way to reduce crime before it occurs,” Maat told the news site at the time. “Our truancy diversion program has been very successful keeping kids and parents out of the criminal justice system.”

Others have died in jail while serving time for student truancy.

In 2014, Pennsylvania mother of seven Eileen DiNino, 55, was found dead in her jail cell while serving a sentence for failure to pay mounting fees and court costs related to her children’s truancy issues.

DiNino “faced fines from nine active truancy cases, which spawned 55 citations,” according to the Associated Press.

“This woman should not have died in prison,” District Judge Dean Patton, who sentenced DiNino to jail, told the Reading Eagle at the time. “Our ultimate goal is not to fine people or put them in jail, but that is the only tool the legislature has given us when people can’t afford to pay.”

DiNino – who was reportedly unemployed, on welfare and overwhelmed by her children – “had racked up $2,000 in fines, fees and court costs since 199 as the Reading School District tried to keep her children in class, most recently at a vocational high school,” according to the AP.