Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, June 29, 2010,
Item 4
4. Receive update from the council on at-risk youth on program targeting youth with severe disciplinary issues in school.
>> good morning, judge biscoe, commissioners, it's an honor to spend time with you this morning providing you with an annual update on the council on at risk youth. Let me introduce staff who work directly with kids, sonia sanchez, carlos sanchez unrelated to sonia and wes vinceik, to my far right. We want so say thank you so very much for travis county support for the last year. This has been five years we have been working directly with the county. I know the board, staff, students, parents, extend greatest appreciation for travis county's involvement in the carey program. The mission is hoping youth promote safe schools in safety communities. In that regard we go into five middle schools in the behavioral alternative learning centers, work with kids in the school disciplinary system. Rather, we work specifically with kids with kids who are aggressive, abusive, assaultive. Kids who we know without a very, very strong violence prevention intervention are kids who graduate not from high school, but rather move into the juvenile justice sand our criminal justice system at great expense to all of us. I want to say thanks, also, for the justice and public safety staff. They have been a delight to work with. Roger jeffreys and his staff has really been a very, have good year to work with them. Our 15 minute presentation today, we -- we are going to -- to talk about some of the -- wes is going to visit about some of the demographics of kids, who the kids are, who we work with. Some of our outputs or numbers of students that we work with during the school year. Carlos is then going to go into some of the outcome measures, that is some of the results of the program with the students that we're involved with. And then we also have a video middle last year we brought two -- two students with us. This year we have a video with two students. We are looking for success stories for kids who have been out of the program for several years. With that, let me turn to wes and we have a powerpoint to show here, also.
>> okay.
>> all right. Good morning, commissioners. As you can see on our powerpoint, can you see the powerpoint?
>> no.
>> not yet.
>> not yet.
>> there we go.
>> what we did is compiled some of data, just so show you some of the demographic data. In the 2009-2010 school year with worked with in all of our schools approximately 660 students. Worked with 266 students in schools that have received funding from travis county. The alternative learning center and garcia middle school. As you can see, 382, 355 are the numbers for the students that participated in the violence prevention curriculum and our individual counseling. Those numbers are kind of skewed by the way that we report. About 85% of the students go through the 14 week, 28 session violence prevention curriculum. 137 of our students participated in service learning projects where they came up with projects on their own to -- to help out their community. For instance prks one school we had students go to a elementary school and do a presentation on bully prevention. And as you move on to the next -- next slide, you can see the -- the breakdown. As far as ethnicity, primarily african-american and hispanic students. About 67% of our students receive free or reduced lunch or live below poverty level. And then moving on, about -- our student break down is about 80/20. We work predominantly work with male students, 77% male students this year we worked with. And our students are broken down pretty evenly between 6th, 7th, 8th grade students. The slide that you are looking at now, this one we did a snapshot of data view in february to see what some of the issues are that our students were facing. As you look, you can see some of the mental health issues, students that have been involved in c.p.s. Cases. Of note, 64% of our students have been suspended at least one time. And 68%, almost 70% of our students live with a single parent. 38% of our students have parents that have either formerly been on probation or parole or formerly in jail or in prison. So ...
>> thank you, wes, before going to carlos, let me say thanks to betty davis for running our powerpoint here. We have really enjoyed working with vinny by the way this last year. Thanks, vinny, carlos?
>> as you can see from the current slide, that you are looking at, on the left-hand side, we have the schools that are funded by travis county, which include
>> [reading graphic] the information that is provided at the bottom is information that was gathered by cary youth advisors from a database that we used to monitor and document and as well as be able to see progress in the students and we gather this information from the austin independent school district's system information where absences and grades and whatnot. Of the five schools, the information, 164 students are strictly students that have been active in the cary program for six months and will still be active. Of those 164 students the information that came up with in the absences, 54% of the 164 students have shown improvement in their absences. Compared six months before they entered the cary program, compared to six months after they interested the program. 64% contained or maintained positive performance measures in grades and the referrals section 78% have also shown an increase or i'm sorry a decrease in referrals. And if i could be specific regarding the referrals, these are aggressive referrals such as physical aggression towards students, towards adults, fighting. And lastly, 51% of the students have been in iss or suspended less. We are very happy with the results and look forward to continue providing services for students in aisd. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> mayor leffingwell: thanks, carlos, we will go to sonia now for the overview of the introduction to the brief video. By the way, this is a homemade video. Not really professional quality, but we're going to be working on that and expanding it this next year. Sonia.
>> good morning, one of the things that i wanted to do this year is to have follow-up visits with students that have participated in the cary program. We are able to track down two students, we prepared a brief d.v.d. So you can hear some of their feedback. We would like to continue doing this throughout the years to look for students that have participated in the cary program and track to see what they are heading towards or what they are doing with their lives now.
>> you will recall last year rotary club of austin and rotary club of houston was asked -- a project looking at the issues of at risk youth state-wide. So the introduction to the film had a clip from that rotary club video. It looks like we may not have that here. We think that it's coming up?
>>
>> [indiscernible] we will have a better video this next year. But we want to say for this school year to close out in our comments here, this has really been a very, very successful year for cary. We celebrated our 10th year anniversary this last september. We get about 20% of our budget from travis county. About 25 from the city of austin. Our board has really done well these past few years in fundraisers, so we are very, very stable. We have worked with the state of texas during these last two legislative sessions to try to convince the state that they need to step up to the plate to get involved in financing, prevention and early intervention with this group of kids who we know don't graduate high school. They graduate into our justice system at great expense to all of us. So let me close and say we're pleased with the school year. The 600 or so kids we work with represent only about 10% of all of the kids in austin and travis county. Or austin, rather, that we work with. So we do need to expand. We would like to be in some additional schools to serve that other 90% of kids. But finally, thank you so very much for your support. We will close for any comments or questions that you might have.
>> thank you.
>> i have a few questions and again i would like to applaud you for what you do. I think that you have made very good inroads dealing with the youth in this communities and dealing with it for a while. After -- hearing what you stated today, charge what your previous statements have been dealing with students that have -- that have disciplinary problems, of course we do not want to see these students end up across the street over in our jail. But it appears to me that that's where, if you look at the percentage, because you did bring up the high percentage of -- of the persons that are involved, in the program, the high percentage of african-americans and hispanics, i think you quoted something like about 96%, and if you go over and look in the jail, you will have a high concentration of -- of hispanics and blacks that are locked up over in our jail. So my concern is something -- something -- not saying that you are not doing what you do, but my concern i guess is, number 1, i would like to know how long do you track these particular individuals? I notice that you did say there's a couple of them that had gone through the program. And of course you have tracked them. To see how -- how they have come out as far as -- as far as what they are doing after the program. But i want to get to something that i think may not be talked about as much as i think it should be. And as you stated, these particular -- some of the persons that you are involved with, do not -- do not graduate and they end up graduating to our jail system, our juvenile system. Another question and i will let you jot these down, you can answer them after i'm finished, but another question was the average age group of these particular persons that we're talking about in your program. And thirdly, i would like to understand -- i would like to see if there's -- let me say this. Make a statement. Every person that attends high school in the school system itself, everyone is not going to -- going to go to -- to college, you know, for college preparation, it's a lot of -- a lot of young persons that would like to have opportunities to get a skill. A skill whereby they will be able to take care of themselves and -- and be independent. There have been a complete turn around in aisd who -- who have i guess turned their backs on -- on allowing what they used to have years ago, skills that are being taught in high school. And where you can acquire these skills while you are still in school because of -- because of course as i stated earlier, every person that attends high school are not going to go to college. It appears that it's a lot of focus on college bound situation and instead of work bound situations. There are some folks that want a job and want to work. And those folks it just appears that there's a -- there's a -- a need for that type of program to be reinstituted into aisd. It's not there. It used to be. And i remember distributive education. I remember those kind of things. Where a person could go to school, and -- and get a degree. I mean, not a degree but -- but diploma. But also learn the skills of a job because, hey, that person didn't want to continue their education. So i think that it's something that may need to be revisited. We are spending a lot of money, you say the county is spending 20%, aisd, city of austin, all of these collaborative efforts. But at the end of the day, i do not community a significant decrease in the amount of the population that's going over to the juvenile situation and also jail which is comprised mostly the black and brown folks. S so something is still amiss to me. Not saying that you are not doing a good job. I don't want to points the finger or point the blame. In my mind, looking at the situation, seeing it all the time, on the streets and everywhere else, i see young folks that need to be involved in something other than what they're doing. I'm just thinking from the educational point of view, you can comments on these things later, what tempts have you united look into job -- have you made to look into jobs, opportunities, for kids -- i won't say kids, but for young persons that do not have a wish to continue their education by going to college. But would really prefer to have a skill, this is what i would really like to do with my life is to do this, provide a service to my communities. I don't know if you get involved in that. But i just think that it's something that aisd should be getting involved in. In the school system. Let me just lay that out to you. You can answer independently as i presented this on the questions that i have posed to you this morning. Thank you.
>> let me try to respond, if i may, commissioner, on the tracking question that you had the first question. Three things we're doing in the way of tracking. Number one, we have worked for almost two years now on a case management system that collects various sets of data on the output measures, the outcome measures. Some of which wes and carlos addressed a few minutes ago. So that system that gathers the data is going to help us track kids as they go through the school system. Secondly, we have a contract with a consultant out of texas a&m university, who -- who is going to be looking at following kids in a classic research design through to the travis county juvenile court. We want to compare cary student graduate was a control group or a comparison group of students to see which -- to see how those two groups fare. We know that we are making a very positive impact on those kids in the cary program. We want to get the tracking data that will give us that food back. Third, we have spend -- feedback. Third, we have pending a grant from the criminal justice division which was submitted earlier this spring to follow-up and to track some of the kids as they move out of middle school. Most of our kids, we work with them in 6th grade, 7th grade. We want to track them, follow them into high school by providing services with mentors, where we can use college students to work pretty intensively as they grow and develop. So that's the type of thing that we're doing in the way of tracking. I can comment very briefly on scholarship program that this spring we set up a scholarship. A foundation for one of our former board members, jim kester. We have collected several thousand dollars. We have awarded three that thousand scholarships to young kids in the austin area, three of whom are going on to college. We are supporting that college effort now. Staff might want to comment on your question, commissioner, related to career preparation of the most of our focus is on violence prevention. Kids are almost -- we don't really get involved in careers other than we do a goal sheet. Y'all might want to talk about the goal sheet, the behavioral sheet that we do, how that compares to some of the individual work that we do with kids for career planning.
>> i wouldn't mind talking about that. Also addressing some of the trainings that commissioner davis mentioned. With the goal sheets, we work individually with the student to be able to help them accomplish a goal that they have in mind with our help. So it's mostly set by the students, and then we kind of guide them to reach it and to like obtain a smart goal. And we help them, we track them through the semester to see if they have reached their goal. Once they have reached their goal, we encourage them to think of another goal. So that kind of helps the student just be ambitious about furthering their goals, keeping that in mind all of the time that they need to have goals in mind. A little bit about the skills, the training is that we are -- we just started teaching kids the aggressive training replacement training, art in short. It teaches kids social skills. Some of the things that i teach in my art groups is like how to introduce yourself, how to give a handshake. I believe that we all believe that these are small steps to getting them prepared to be able to go look for a job, you know, how to introduce yourself to a professional. So we're taking steps to -- to kind of guide them into that direction. But we are working with 11-year-olds, 12-year-olds, 13-year-olds. That kind of sets a standard to how much we can teach them through that period and how much job readiness they are. There is opportunities for them. So ...
>> other comments? Carlos or wes?
>> yes,
>> [indiscernible] your concern about the lack of vocational opportunities for our students. One of the schools that i work at is pierce middle school. Next year they are turning it into a prep school. Until this year they failed their taks test for the last seven years. So i can understand your concern on that focus on that academics. We work only with middle school students so we don't have that opportunity to track them all the way into high school and to -- we don't really approach the vocational setting. But we do focus on keeping our students in school. Frying to keep them out of fights. Because when -- trying to keep them out of fights because when they get in fights they don't go to school. If they don't go to school, they can't succeed academically. If they don't succeed academically, they don't graduate. If they don't graduate it doesn't help them to have vocational skills at all if they don't have a high school diploma. I don't know if that answers your question.
>> it does partially. It just appears that aisd need to play a larger role. And i never did get the age group that actually -- because she mentioned 11, 12 years old. But there's -- what is the average age group i asked that question of the students that you serve. What's the average age group.
>>
>> [indiscernible] ages 11 to 12 and 51% are 13 to 15. So that the 11 to 12, those are sixth graders that turned 12 and seventh graders that start out at the age of 12. It's pretty even across the three grades.
>> i was working a lot at those ages. But that's -- that was then.
>> there needs to be a nexis. Aisd again i believe has turned their back on vocational education. The points that i'm trying to get to is this. Some of the problems may be related to the disciplinary problems that some of these young folks are having. There may be a direct correlation to not being involved in the things that they really want to do. I understand that you mentioned pierce middle school at the -- a lot of folks are upset about that. I know that you don't -- that's my precinct. I live over there. So i know what's going on over there. A lot of folks upset about -- about it being changed to -- to a college prep situation. Focusing on higher education. But in the meantime, meantime, folks are saying look i would like to have a skill, also. I may not want to go to college. That's have something in lieu of going to college. That was to have skills that are being taught whereby they would be able to have productive lives and not ends up over here in our county jail. As the numbers continue to show me that there is a directs correlation with a lot of these things and what ends up in our county jail percentage-wise as far as the -- the -- the high representation that's in our county jails and even in our incarcerated prison system of brown and black folks. So i'm just laying this out. I understand what -- i appreciate what you are doing, but we still aren't there where we should be collaboratively to turn this thing around. I'm just elect you know that. Thank -- i'm just letting you know that. Thank you.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> judge, this is vinny davis with criminal justice planning.
>> [indiscernible] forgot that he invited me to participate in a career day over at the alternative learning center run by aisd. There they had individuals for different trades, i agree with you that everything is not college ready or want to go to college. So they had individuals from cosmetology, welding, other types of -- of vocational trades and i -- just make those students aware that there are other choices. But all of them involve some type of training. You have to get an education. That was really pressed upon them. They are taking a step, they have taken a stip.
>> we're not -- taken a step.
>> we're not there yet. Little baby steps. We need to be taking giant steps because the problem is beginning to be so severe until our youth don't stand a chance. I'm saying the black and brown in this community, since it appears to be that's a high risk discipline type of person that we have been talking about here this morning.
>> we appreciate the opportunity to -- to listen.
>> thank you.
>> thank you all very much.
>> keep up the good work.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 29, 2010 2:35 PM
