Travis County Commssioners Court
December 30, 2003
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Item 22
Number 22, consider and take appropriate action regarding request to approve amendment number 2 disagreement to truancy court pilot project and my understanding all it does is extend the present contract from September 30th, '03, through I guess the end of September '04. Commissioner Daugherty has a question.
>> given that we have budgeted all of this, this may not be the right time to go asking these questions. But I would like to get a few things answered if I could. The number of cases that we deal with in the truancy court, is that somewhere between 200 and 400?
>> notion. No, sir. It's more between on, a given day, anywhere from currently we're at about 80 cases. It can fluctuate from 80 up to 100. It's been as high as 125. So it's a fluid because kids are coming in and kids are going out. So depending on when the intake comes in, you will be lower at the beginning of the year, towards the -- you are having some folks coming off the program, some folks on probation and new referrals. So we have approximately about 12 kids who are on probation. So that remains constant for the period of time in which they were on probation, which is generally three months and it can go to six months. So the officers are also working the probation cases as well as the school cases.
>> but the number of cases that you are saying that we deal with out of the truancy court --
>> right.
>> -- judge, is 80 a day?
>> no no,, it's not 80 a day. We're currently at 80 now. It depends whether we get the referrals from the school because legally they have to miss so many days, the warning has to go out, there's a process before they can file on a child. What I'm saying is it's a fluid number of cases that goes through the process f you are looking at in terms of a number of cases filed last year in the school year, not this school year, but the '02-'03 school year, for instance, there were 29 cases filed at mendez. Truancy court was in there for the spring so there was a 89% reduction because we were there. In terms of preventive stuff, those numbers would have happened if not for us being there working with the schools and the collaborative effort we've had with the schools and all the resources we've had. What has happened at fullmore, the last six weeks, the numbers they report for the first time in the school's history they had a thousand students and 497 of them had perfect attend answers. So we are seeing a dramatic immaterial exact by being there and working -- impact by being there and working with the community and having the effect. The caseload is down from nuers filed in the school year before. I anticipate if we keep going the way it is we will see much of the same. We still have a handful of cases at mendez we're working as well. At travis we've seen a reduction in cases, but we're focusing on the 9th grade where we're having the most impact on the dropout rate.
>> okay. So, judge, I mean the kind of things that I probably need to discuss would be with judge fines and I'm sure judge meuer just from a fill solve calf and that's not what we're here to do today, but the more I learn about this, i've always questioned, I mean why is the county in truancy, and I realize, you know, with the ones that we are dealing with, we are making a great impact. Now, you know, for half a million dollars, I mean we would hope that we would be getting bang for the buck with that. But, you know, at this stage, judge, no use in me carrying on.
>> if these [indiscernible] in the program result in a reduction in a number of from certain schools, why wouldn't we add other schools to the program?
>> well, and that's why we went from mendez to fullmore, judge, is because last year at fullmore they had approximately close -- over 200 cases. And so to take on a whole new school without being there, and there's also a program called positive behavior, it's positive behavior, but it's called different things. Basically what it is it's the way the school operates and moves. Mendez has been doing that for a couple years. And fullmore has just started doing that. So when we go to schools doing that we're seeing higher impact so that's why we're there. If that goes well, I could conceivably see us going to other schools. But that's why we're at fullmore in terms of the resources because there's not the need at mendez at this time.
>> do we know what the, I guess, desired number of cases would be for us to have maximum impact?
>> the average for the officer, I would say, is 35 -- between 35, that's on the high end, but at times it's gone up to 40 per officer.
>> probation officer?
>> truancy officer, correct.
>> and we have four?
>> we have four.
>> four times 35 is 140.
>> correct.
>> so is that our goal to get to about 140? You may have 110 one time, 160 the next, but is our goal roughly 100?
>> that's the capacity. The goal is have such an impact we have lesser cases so we can go on to school. We've had times sometimes we've been beyond capacity. Just because of the fluid way it works. But I think to answer your question, I don't want to see such an up swing. Hopefully we'll have lower cases so we can cover more territory.
>> the county's contribution is about $237,000. The other partners kick in basically a like amount. It would seem to me that if the success of the program reduces the number of cases from certain schools, we ought to add others. See what I'm saying?
>> right.
>> otherwise at some point we ought to determine the per student cost.
>> correct.
>> and in terms of whether or not it's a good investment, you know, we want to help as many kids as we can, right?
>> yes, sir.
>> the reason we implemented this on a pilot basis was to see whether it would work, and it seems that it is working. But in order to maximize the return, it does seem to me that the better we do at one school, there is more pressure at another one -- to add another one.
>> correct. And the thing, judge, too, is unknown factors. When you going to a whole campus if they've had 250 cases the year before, you don't know if you are getting in bed with a full 200 cases. It's that unknown factor. As we go into this more, that's exactly why we moved.
>> in terms of the enforcement of kids not going to school that is correct does fall as a mandated duty of counties, those court cases are getting filed in the j.p. Courts. We tried the asap program for a number of years to see if we could get positive message about attendance and converted our asap dollars into this program as a different way to tackle the ones that weren't coming to school. Stella, could u plea remind me how much of Travis County's dollars or at least the line item dollars here are reimbursable under the -- what is it 4 e, 4 c?
>> yes, ma'am, title 4 e funds and the county's contribution is coming from the 4 e dollars. And because these are caseloads and officers assigned, then those too are reimbursable.
>> we're kind of recycling these dollars. We get a reimbursement back and put it right into the program.
>> the j.p.s are overwhelmed by the cases and I guess still are. Except for these. That's why we created this pilot program.
>> and judge, they are and they do great work, but we also -- I have worked together with them to share their resources that the schools have and the community have and some of the ideas that are working with truancy contract, like we have a night with the judge and speak to students and parents and we have seen a reduction by doing. That some of the j.p.s have been open to doing that. There's different idea some of them are trying and they are seeing -- they just don't have the time because they doo many other cases and so overworked that we are having an impact. I wish we could do more.
>> do we have a breakdown of the j.p.s that are actually looking into these cases as far as workload is concerned? The.
>> the number of cases they have filed?
>> yes. It quite a few.
>> oh, yes. I mean it's --onight's the thousands. -- it's in the thousands. The school would have all that information, but from what i've seen, some schools can have 400, 5, some schools 300.
>> total with j.s were in the thousand range.
>> seconded by Commissioner Sonleitner. Any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you for coming. Thank you very much.
Last Modified: Tuesday, December 31, 2003 6:52 AM