VIDEO: Haley Questions Logistics Of Obama's Compulsory Attendance Proposal

Gov. Nikki Haley visited Hillcrest Middle School on Thursday to laud the effort of its current and former students to stop bullying, but also took time afterward to react to President Barack Obama's proposal from two days before to make school attendance compulsory for every student in every state until graduation. 

"So tonight, I am proposing that every state — every state — requires that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18," Obama said Tuesday night during the annual State of the Union address. 

Haley, who visited Hillcrest Middle to meet Angel McGowan and Matt Linn - two former students who have since teamed up to develop a book that teaches against bullying - said Obama's proposal was a lofty one hypothetically, albeit one unlikely to be made into a reality. Every state, Haley said, wants to graduate its students. 

"The problem is that's not happening," Haley said. "We can't have government go pick them up and bring them to school. What we can do and what we want to do in South Carolina is give them options." 

Those options, Haley said, include technical and occupational avenues, as well as GED programs.

"I  think we've tried this for years. To say it is very easy, but to actually do it, we've got to put more into it, and options at the end of the day is the only thing that is going to work."

Principal Keith Russell, who introduced Haley to the school's seventh graders at Hillcrest's cafeteria to talk about bullying, called the president's proposal a good one in theory.  

"I think that proposal is a reasonable proposal in theory," Russell said, calling the idea "nobel." 

"Some students, particularly when they get into high school, are going to have difficulty with it unless there are certain safety nets there for them."

"If we have alternative programs that can be easily funded, and can get easily staffed it could very well work. I would like to see something like that, but unless we have these safety nets, I would really worry about that working the way it should work."