COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa – An Iowa mother of two has been repeatedly arrested and continuously threatened with jail time over her children’s absences from school.

Sherry Holmes told KCCI she’s been arrested at least three times because her twin sons, who were born prematurely and have health complications as a result, missed too many days during the school year.

“They just happen to get sick often,” Holmes said.

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Holmes signed a mediation agreement with the Pottawattamie County attorney in 2011 to avoid the threat of a month in jail, but was arrested during the 2011-12 school year, and again last spring, when her children missed more school than the agreement allows.

“They’re taking my parenting ability away by telling me what I have to and have to not do,” she told the news site.

A judge dismissed the charges in her most recent arrest and ruled that the mediation agreement is “unenforceable,” Holmes said, but the county attorney and the Council Bluffs Community School District continue to threaten the mother with arrest, citing the agreement they believe is still valid.

“I’m just fed up with the whole thing because I’m not on the contract anymore,” Holmes said. “I have a court order that says I’m not on the contract.”

“Nobody cares more about my kids’ education than me,” she told KETV. “And for them to tell me that I’m not doing my job as a mother …”

District officials declined media requests to discuss its attendance policy, but assistant Pottawattamie County attorney Dawn Landon told KCCI that “each school district in the state of Iowa is responsible for setting their own guidelines as to what is considered a truant child.”

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Landon said the court’s ruling dismissing the most recent charges only applies to the charges themselves, not the mediation agreement.

The Iowa State Department of Education, meanwhile, does not monitor school attendance policies or mediation agreements, KETV reports.

“Holmes’ lawyer said their next step would be to sue the school district,” according to the news site.

Holmes’ experience with Council Bluffs schools isn’t unique.

A Pennsylvania mother died in jail last June while serving a 48-hour sentence over the absences of her seven children in the Reading School District.

Elieen DiNino, 55, “had racked up $2,000 in fines, fees and court costs since 1999 as the Reading School District tried to keep her children in class, most recently at a vocational high school,” the Associated Press reported.

The judge who sentenced DiNino to jail was disturbed by her death, and chastised lawmakers for providing limited options to deal with student truancies.

“This woman should not have died alone in prison,” judge Dean Patton told the Reading Eagle. “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.”

About 110 parents in the county where DiNino lived are jailed for truant students every year.

Salon.com likened the practice to the debtor’s prisons from the nation’s colonial days.

“The circumstances of DiNino’s death are a stark and tragic reminder of how being poor is considered a crime worthy of punishment in the United States,” according to the site.