Frustrated by an epidemic rate of truancy, the City Council is considering whether to hold parents responsible for the school-skipping sins of their children.

At-Large Councilor John Connolly and council President Maureen Feeney are pushing a proposal to haul parents of chronically absent teens and other students into court to answer for their child’s empty desk.

“We need to address this problem, and I think we’ve tried everything else,” Feeney said yesterday.

Asked whether the proposal could be viewed as overstepping, Feeney said, “We’re not going to let another generation of students be lost.  If that means crossing the line, so be it.”

Feeney and Connolly are planning a public hearing on the issue by the end of next month.

Connolly, a former middle school teacher, said the proposal is based loosely on a truancy program in Waterbury, Conn.  The program targets parents of elementary school students.  Thomas P. Brunnock, probate judge at Waterbury Regional Children’s Court, said it showed instant success.

At the Chase Elementary School, one of two Waterbury schools in the program, the number of absences among chronically truant students went from 500 last year to fewer than 45.

Under the program, a parent whose child has more than four unexcused absences in a month receives a summons to appear – in school, but with potential legal consequences.

For Brunnock, the experience has been eye-opening.

“I had a stereotype of truancy before I started this that some people are just not sending their children to school,” he said.  “Then you find out there’s more to it.”

Connolly said his proposal would put parents before a probate court judge.  There would be no punishment unless a parent did not show up to court, he said.

Boston Public Schools spokesman Christopher Horan said truancy in elementary schools is difficult to track, and could not immediately provide statistics.

As for the middle and high schools, from November 2007 to May 2008, members of the MBTA’s truancy watch found 612 students at Downtown Crossing and the Forest Hills T station who were not in school.

A handful, about 10 students, hadn’t gone to class in weeks or months.  A total of 59 students said they didn’t go to school because they either “didn’t feel like,” wanted to go shopping or had family issues.