Travis County Commissioners Court
November 30, 2004
Item 5
Item no. 5 is to consider and take appropriate action on recommended terms
and special conditions for certain social services contracts.
>> judge, that was proposed to be on the consent items this
morning, but I wanted to basically discuss this a little more, not that I
believe I disagree with what's here today as far as the social service contracts
that are before us, but I had a chance to attend a meeting with the community
in schools work group. I guess it was on the 19th of November on an early
Friday morning. Commissioner Daugherty had a representative there, barbara
was there, and a representative of representative naishtat and others. And
there were very interesting statistics that were revealed there. I do not
have those statistics right here in front of me, but it was concerning the
dropout of students in our schools and how cis is involved in being proactive
in preventing dropouts. Education, of course, in my mind is very key and I
think in a lot of folks' minds is very key. Of those social service contracts
I wanted to know how many of these social service contracts deal with persons
that are in a dropout status, they drop out of school, and we're having to
basically serve at this time? And the reason why I’m asking that is because
of the fact that tis has done -- community in schools have -- are doing such
a great job in preventing dropouts and trying to look at the overall big picture
whereby those persons that are being served in one community, have they been
sefbd in another capacity as far as dropping out of school? And I really don't
know exactly what those numbers are or if there's any way we can find out
the persons that are going to be serving currently under these social service
contracts as far as the missed opportunities as far as dropouts are concerned.
And let me give you a couple of things that I did find out. And the reason
why I’m posing this particular question is because of the fact that they said
97% of the 24,000 students that are seen and visited intentionally by the
community in schools case managers, 97% of that 24,000 population that they're
seeing stay in school. That is very significant to me, so staying in school
meaning that there are other services that may not be required for us to deal
with at Travis County as far as having to fund and things like that. Number
2 is that there's 88% of those same students, of that same 24,000 population,
88% had great academics, improvement in academics. They had an improvement
in attendance. And also an improvement in behavior. And it's very significant
because of the fact that because of the high dropout rate here in the state
of Texas and not only within Travis County, because of that we're losing millions
of dollars of federal funding because the attendance and persons dropping
out of school. And that's another significant factor I think. And of course,
the other statistics were a little more in the same direction of what I’m
basically saying now. In other words, the community in schools effort dealing
with the youth and family assistance centers in the different school settings
here apparently are doing a remarkable job, so my question to you is if you
can answer -- you don't have to do it today, but I would like to know the
dropout, if possible, the persons that have dropped out of school and we're
now having to serve in the capacity of some of the social service contracts
that we're dealing with right now. And I know those are probably contracts,
but they still may be part of that population, so I think it's all encompassing.
And I would like to get a response, please.
>> [inaudible - no mic]. We'll be happy to provide your office,
Commissioner, with information on the social service contracts that deal specifically
with dropout prevention. Specifically with the cis contract, I think it's
important to note that the dropout prevention activity a year or so ago we
negotiated with our city partner to have the city fund the pebble project.
And we took our county funds and encouraged cis to participate and care coordination,
which goes along with the youth and family assessment center. And in doing
so, by having the care coordinators as part of the cis program, it provides
families in addition to access to the cis program itself, it provides access
to the services that are available through the youth and family assessment
center, which include services that might prevent students from dropping out
from school. So we have those services as a part of that network of services
that are available for families when they meet with their care coordinators
and talk about what the the needs of the children and the family are, they
can access those services by design with they're care coordinator.
>> and I’m trying to be proactive instead of having to react
to a situation where a person has dropped out and falling into some sort of
situation, maybe into gardner-betts and a whole lot of other things that end
up happening to that person because they have dropped out of school is something
I think that we need to kind of track and being proactive to ensure that that
person is not going to be a person dependent on Travis County services because
they remain in schools. The last statistic was 90% of the persons of the 24,000
that received intense case management from the cis, 90% of those persons actuallied
advanced to the next grade or were promoted to the next level or the next
grade. So those are again startling statistics and that means to me that we
need to really focus in my opinion on preventive measures to keep our youth
in school because I think that helps us in the long run overall. But that's
basically where I was coming from. I would like to have those numbers.
>> we'll be happy to provide them, sir.
>> thank you very much.
>> any more discussions of item no. 5.
>> move approval, judge.
>> with special conditions, which are really just a recapitulation
of what we've already been doing.
>> yes, in answer to your question. All in favor? That passes
by -- all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> can I get clarification? Are there any others that are
not in this packet that are left outstanding? You had left a little notation,
sherry, that the salvation army was off of there for now. Are there going
to be others that are in the category of they're coming, but they're not in
this packet?
>> my guess -- not with a definite answer is that there probably
are a few others that are out there that we're still working through some
negotiations with those agencies, but I don't anticipate them being very far
behind.
>> right, because we're coming up on the January 1 date.
In terms of the count, 39. I have looked at 39 of these over the last year.
And it was one of these things where I wanted to say I know what these folks
do and they're not just a line item. I'll let you know when I finish them
off.
>> thank you very much.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, October 26, 2005 2:48 PM