Travis County Commissioners Court
October 13, 2009,
Item 16
Now let's call back to session the voting session of the Travis County Commissioners court.
we note on the agenda that we would call up item number 16 at roughly 1:30.
16, receive presentation from the council on at-risk youth, cary.
good afternoon.
>> thank you very much.
good afternoon, judge Biscoe and Commissioners.
my name is adrian Moore.
i'm director of the council of at-risk youth.
we celebrated our 10th anniversary about two weeks ago so we're pleased to be with you.
we would like to do three things this afternoon.
one, I would like to show you a rotary club video entitled an ounce of inter investigation.
this is a documentary film that was developed by the Austin rotary club and by the houston rotary club.
i think you'll enjoy it.
14 minutes, it's pretty brief but pretty much to the point and very indicational.
secondly, we would like to spend a little bit of time talking about our program regression replacement training, some of the elements of that program.
and then we would like to turn to three of the students we have from bedichek middle school and adobe middle school who will spend some time with us this afternoon on a few comments.
let me say a little about the rotary club video.
this was funded by a grant from the houston club and the Austin club.
there is an at risk youth committee ongoing for about three years now with the Austin rotary club.
a production company here in Austin called castle view productions did the film.
this is not a cary film, it's a thoroughly a rotary club documentary.
so with that if we could roll the film.
__
>> it's our responsibility, the type of society that you have is directly attributable to the effort that you put into it.
>> if you can keep a kid from getting in trouble in the first place, that's what we need to do as a society.
>> we are losing generations of kids because we're not intervening.
>> children seldom start off committing acts of violence, but whether they come face to face with the threat of violence in schools.
>> what are you going to do about it?
>> in a broken home.
>> are you going to hit me again?
>> or in a street gang, the lure of violent behavior traps thousands of young texans in a cycle that often ends behind bars.
it's easy to think violence is someone else's problem, but the rotary clubs of Austin and houston believe it's an issue for all texans.
as rotary international has helped eradicate the polio virus around the world, the rotary clubs want to eradicate violence in our society.
we believe schools are in a unique position to intervene with programs that teach children how to respond threats of violence.
>> if we can intervene at an earlier age, we are far better off.
>> five decades ago, johnny rogers was a child who desperatelyneeded someone to ine and show him he was the wrong path.
he had dreams of becoming a history teacher.
>> every day I would think about what it would be like to be a teacher, you know.
but I would suppress it.
i couldn't allow it to grow, to bloom, because it would interfere with what I was about.
>> like so many young people today, johnny joined a gang when he was barely a teenager.
his gang was notorious for armed robbery.
it was his way of making people too afraid to tease him.
childhood polio left johnny with a deformed arm.
>> children can be vicious.
i hated that.
and the feeling, that mind set, and it made me angry.
it made me a violent person.
>> johnny spent 30 years, half his life, behind bars for committing violent crimes.
>> just think maybe, maybe if someone had spent more time with johnny talking about the merits of being a teacher.
>> so many children because they don't have the structure at home, the nurturing at home, begin to act out.
it's small things and then it escalates.
you know, birth is such a miracle, life is such a miracle and we're squandering our children.
>> today more than 300,000 people are confined in state prisons and county jails in Texas, many for violent crimes.
did these inmates fail?
or did our society and our schools fail them?
some experts believe well intentioned efforts to crack down on violence have turned schools into a pipeline to prison for children with behavioral problems.
in the '90s, an increase in drugs on campuses and horrifying incidents of school violence across the nation led many school districts to adopt zero tolerance policies.
>> in fact, the law said that if children did certain things, they had to be removed from classroom.
there wasn't any choice on the part of the teacher or the principal or anyone else.
>> remember I can't lightsy studies school discipline and helped publish a report Texas' school to pipeline.
>> when you take a kid and suspend them out of school, what are they doing?
probably nothing.
especially now, I mean, you know, 30 years ago there was probably a mom at home.
there's not a mom at home anymore.
they are just sending the kid to the street.
it's completely unstructured.
plenty of time to get into trouble and no time to keep up with their class work.
>> under zero tolerance, students can be kicked out of school and even arrested for fighting.
>> I mean one thing is for a kid to pick something up and hit a kid over the head, but all things being equal, a couple kids guest into fisticuffs, we don't want to put them in the criminal justice system.
>> if they are not kicked out of school, students who commit violent acts are often sent to disciplinary alternative programs.
but research shows as soon as in these programs often don't get the help they need.
almost athyrea of Texas students who return from daeps are September back for repeat offenses and the dropout rate for daeps is five times higher than mainstream schools.
>> they are essentially being warehoused.
when they come back into the class, they further behind.
they are stigmatized, less motivated and youth start on a downward spiral.
>> that spiral starts with dropping out and often leads to a jail cell.
one-third of all youth commission detainees are dropouts and 80% of all inmates in Texas prison dropped out of school.
many experts believe we can reverse this trend.
>> you've just got to figure out how -- how to reach them.
>> judy brisco spent 30 years developing programs for the state u.s.
juvenile justice system.
she sees an opportunity for schools to respond proactively to minor offenses by providing quality violence intervention programs.
>> they are based on what the research says works with kids at particular ages.
they teach kids problem solving skills, they teach kids coping skills, leadership skills.
all of those things need to be in place.
>> that was a resounding yes.
has anybody at this table ever been aggressive.
if you have, raise your hand.
is that every single one of us including me?
>> these students at Austin's garcia middle school admit they've made some bad choices, but in this classroom they get to assess their actions.
>> I realized what I did and I was like -- I just felt --
>> [inaudible].
>> some Texas school districts are turning to outside experts specially trained to help students who can't control their anger.
this council with the council on at risk youth or cary is teaching students the difference between passive, aggressive and assertive response to conflict.
>> using assertive and aggressive at the same time.
>> it's a lesson that can keep them out of trouble now and in the future.
>> when I got into the program, like they taught me ways, like, to handle a situation in a more mature way.
>> this boy, he was kept on bothering me trying to get me to fight him.
i walked away and I counted to 10.
>> true group sessions and role playing, students are learning how to control their tempers.
>> please leave me alone.
>> why?
>> so is it better to stay calm in this kind of situation or get mad?
>> stay calm.
>> why?
>> because once you start getting aggressive, it can escalate into things you don't want to escalate into.
>> the school's principal, dr.
helen johnson, sees the counseling sessions as transforming for individuals and a benefit to the entire school.
>> administration can always do discipline but we want to change the behavior.
if you want to change the behavior, oftentimes it requires counseling to help children just to analyze what that problem is, and within a few weeks you can see a tremendous growth and distance.
>> aside from regular teachers from the program, I've had a lot of altercations and she's helped me.
>> honestly if it wasn't for the cary program, I don't know where I would be right now.
it definitely showed me ways to be more approachable, not aggressive.
and I think that will take me a long way in the future.
>> in 2006, luling isd was facing a conduct crisis.
>> we had 26% of our students were being removed from the classroom.
from direct instruction, which is a high number.
that's in junior high and high school.
this is -- so we reached out and decided we've got to do something.
>> the luling school district contacted with cary to help students avoidant I social behavior and to prevent bullying.
the impact was immediate.
today luling isd has been able to cut the number of students removed from class by more than half.
however, the state grant that's paying for this program is going away.
>> these are declining grants.
they decline 20% each year.
>> in major Texas cities like houston, schools also report having success with violence intervention programs.
hisd's superintendent wishes there was more grant money available for intervention.
>> we very closely monitor those opportunities and more opportunities coming from state government would be a great benefit to the students.
>> representative jerry madden is convinced programs can commit at risk children from committing their first acts of violence.
madden sponsored bills in the 2007 and 2009 sessions to allocate for funding for Texas schools to start violence intervention programs.
>> can you solve it 100% for every child in the state of Texas, I think the answer is probably no.
i think we can do a lot more than what we've been doing and that's what we've been trying to do.
>> the bills failed in both sessions.
many other lawmakers didn't see funding programs as a top priority.
but if violence intervention is successful, it can actually save taxpayers money.
the annual cost to keep someone in a county jail, state prison or tyc facility are staggering when compared to relatively small investment we could make in intervention.
the annual cost for a program like cary, only $600.
of course, housing offenders is not the only way crime costs us money.
>> every juvenile delinquent who becomes a habitual adult criminal will cost us between $1 million and $3 million in their lifetime.
>> that's taking into account the cost of law enforcement, the criminal justice system, courts, public defenders, probation, and parole.
then there's the loss of tax revenue and child support.
>> and that doesn't include the human toll and the misery to their families and their victims' families.
>> students as individuals within life are best served when it's holistic.
when there are interventions where intervention needs to happen.
where there are mentorships where mentorships need to happen.
where there is extra time with individuals who may need tutoring or some special attention.
>> for every kid that we lose to the criminal justice system, for every kid that we lose that turns to violence, there is a effect that impacts all of us because none of us live on an island.
>> if our communities speak up and encourage our schools, our cities, our state to look at how we're disciplining schools, to look at what's happening with our dropouts, and say let's change our approach, let's use a different approach, we think we can see real positive change.
>> the rotary clubs of houston and Austin believe the choice is clear.
and the time to help children avoid violence is now.
>> what are you going to do about it?
>> hope you enjoyed that.
copies of this film, by the way, are going to be going out to all the rotary clubs in Texas.
that's a 55 county area.
copies will be going to school board presidents, to school superintendants, to local city and county elected officials, state elected officials as well.
so rotary club is very, very pleased with this.
with that, let's move forward.
i wanted to introduce shana fox, our youth advisesser at dobie middle school.
wesley is a youth advisor at the alternative learning center.
the daep as referred to in the film as well as pearce middle school.
sally ingall, we just got a grant to do a bully prevention initiative and she is start that out this year.
with that, shana, let me say a word about cary and aagrees replacement training that we're doing.
>> good afternoon.
thank you again for having us today.
so there's a lot of different ways that we help kids through the schools that we're at.
first of all, the mission of cary is help promote safe schools and safe communities and we feel like we can do that through the individual students that we come in contact with.
we're working with very targeted youth.
we're not just, you know, deciding on certain children for different reasons.
they have to have referrals for aagrees, abusive behaviors and then in addition a disposition to go along with that.
similar to what the -- what the video was saying, just a really prevention focused intervention that is aimed to keep kids from that slippery slope of juvenile justice system.
and I'm sure that, you know, you will hear from the students and so I don't want to take too much time because I think they will have more to say about that.
but I'm going to turn it over.
>> again, I'm sally ingall, a psychotherapist in Austin and I work with cary as a youth specialist.
i have worked with them for several years as a youth advisor.
we do a year-long intervention with the kids.
when they've been referred through assistant principals or counseling team, we'll work with the kids in groups as well as individually doing coaching.
we reach out to the families to have them be involved.
and we do some case management throughout the year.
we actually are very excited, this career we have a new curriculum that we're starting with.
we've been using the positive adolescent choices training, but this year we're just go aggressive replacement training.
this is been used in the united states since the early '80s and the u.s.
and danica since 1987 and it is a we will researched programs that works in three prongs.
one of those is to really teach kids the social skills so they know their behaviors are a choice and they have choice with how they are going to interact with people.
if they get frustrated or upset, which all of them do, they have choice with how they are going to deal with that anger, how they are going to express that anger and how they are going to let their relationships be impacted by that.
and we also a portion of this is anger control in itself.
and that teaches the kids how they can internally recognize when they are going to get angry, when they are getting angry and how they can de-escalate that anger.
and another component we're real excited about in the aagrees replacement training is the empathetic reasoning and this is based on coldburg's level of moral development.
and it teaches kids that there are different ways to think about situations than just from their own perspective.
and so that encourages them really to be able to understand that both people have something that they are bringing to a situation, and it let's them think about what kind of choices they want to make reflecting how they might like those choices to be made.
you know, if they were on the opposite side.
>> my name is wesley.
i'm a youth advisor for cary.
i was at bedichek middle school and this year at I'm pearce middle school and the alternative learning center.
just to give you a few facts about cary, we're located in may fiddle schools in Austin.
dead I did check, dobie, webb, garcia and pierce.
then we have somebody at the alternative learning center.
our targeted population are students with violent and aggressive incidences, things like rude or aggressive things towards adults or students, fighting, physical aagrees, things like carrying weapons on campus, and in addition to that we also target those students with those incidences that have specific dispositions which are specific disciplinary consequences for those that are deemed serious, so like suspensions, in-school suspensions or alc removals.
we're targeting students that have those discipline incidences but the ones deemed kind of high risk within that category.
we do group and individual meetings with the students.
in groups we use the art, the aagrees replacement training.
and in individual counseling component we do mentoring with the students, goal setting and kind of just crisis management, just different things are happening on school.
we have after school component that we also do some service learning projects with the students.
in addition to doing service learning with our groups.
this year we're starting -- we've had parent involvement with our students in the past, mainly doing exacts during the summer, but this year we're starting parent empowerment workshops where the parents -- we're trying to get parents to come once or twice a month where they will learn some of the skills the students are learning and do different activities and stuff that are meant to help the parents and families connect better together.
so with that said, I want to introduce my two students that I brought from bedichek.
this is key shawn and this is miranda and they are going to tell a little about some of the things they did in groups.
>> my name is keshawn.
and I learned body language, how to communicate without talking.
and not only with goal setting, how to set goals, and one of my goals is to go to college.
>> hi, I'm bernie.
i'm in cary, and we have learned body language, how to deal -- how to talk in verbal and nonverbal communication.
we went to odom recently to work on -- work with kids fifth grade or fourth, one of those grades, on how to deal with bullies, how to stop fighting and how to walk away and deal with anger.
>> I would like to introduce an 8th grader to dobie middle school, eduardo shall lascar, who has been through the cary program.
>> my name is eduardo salazar.
one of the things I learned on the cary group is I learned how to control my anger and how to don't get into a lot of trouble at school.
>> very good.
let me close by saying we're going to be pleased this year to be working with mr.
roger jeffries in the department of justice and public safety.
that will be a real pleasure working with them.
we're prepared to close or if there are comments or questions, we would be happy to entertain them at this time.
>> I just wanted to say thank you to the program and thank you to the students who are here today because you now are leaders yourself, and you set an example for others to follow.
and I think it's wonderful that you came up here today to talk to us.
>> it's good to hear from you all.
good.
>> so when you say that you learned to walk away from a fight, are you telling us that in fact you have done that?
>> yes.
>> have you done that?
>> yes, sir.
>> and you'll continue to do that in the future?
>> yes, sir.
i'm sick of getting in trouble
>> [inaudible].
>> okay.
you all enjoy going to school?
>> yes, sir.
>> trying to make all as?
>> yes.
>> and play basketball and football.
>> I'm playing football right now.
>> and baseball.
>>
>> [inaudible].
>> not right now.
>> I think this is a great program.
>> [inaudible] what actually goes on out there in the real world.
some folks really do not really realize what's actually happening within our school system and the challenges and struggles that our youth have to contend with.
it's always been a challenge just trying to grow up, period.
and then all of these other attributes that sometime the bullies and all the other things that kind of interfere with you growing up, it's a way to overcome these things and I think by introducing these young persons in ways to overcome these particular obstacles in their lives I think is something that's great.
and it will not cost us so much in the long term especially if we can turn things around at an early age.
and my goodness, I wouldn't want to see any of you incarcerated.
that's the wrong path.
so anyway, I want to congratulate you all for even having the courage to come down here and talk to this Commissioners court.
that in itself is something.
so again, thank you all very much.
>> thanks.
>> stay in school, have all the fun you can, make the best grades you can, and go to college.
>> yes, sir.
>> that's what it's all about.
thank you all for coming down.
keep up the good work.
>> thank you.
>> you're welcome.
>> I'll leave a copy of the rotary club video for the court.
>> I know Commissioner Eckhardt wanted to be here, but she had an emergency family matter that came up that required her attention and attendance elsewhere.
thank you.
we'll share this with her.
thank you all very much.
best of luck to you.\
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 2:00 PM
