Pueblo has the most extensive of the three truancy reduction programs reviewed here. There are two districts in the city of Pueblo, one urban (Pueblo 60) and one rural. So far, Project Respect is operating in the eleven Title 1 schools located in the urban district. They consist of eight elementary schools, one middle school, one high school, and one alternative school. Before Project Respect began, Pueblo 60 had three overworked truant officers who tried to contact students, make home visits, and send chronically truant children to court. A four-month waiting list to get to court culminated in a hearing before one of the six different judges who decided truancy cases. There was little consistency among schools in terms of which students they sent to court, or among judges in terms of how they handled cases. For example, some judges were willing to send truant children to detention, but some did not believe in doing so. In general, few cases were filed due to the expense and time it took to get a hearing.
Pueblo 60 began planning an alternative system in January of 1999, received a grant in the fall, and began operation in January of 2000. The Project Respect budget is enormous compared to those of the other programs in this analysis – almost $770,000 in 2001-2002. The bulk of this money pays the salaries of 15 social workers called Community Advocates (CAs), who work intensively with Project Respect students and their families. It also covers the cost of the High School Proficiency Program in which a teacher works with 30 students in an intensive reading and language arts block each day. A third piece of the program focuses on mental health. There is one therapist who goes to the schools and works with the students and families in a fairly traditional manner. But if needed, the student can also participate in the Equine Assisted Suspension/Expulsion Uproot Program, otherwise known as EASE-UP. EASE-UP participants attend either group or individual therapy sessions which revolve around working with a horse. Forty percent of Project Respect students have done the six-week EASE-UP session. Project Respect also contracts with the Pueblo Recreation Department to sponsor special activities like sports camps and skating parties.
Community Advocates, however, are the meat and potatoes of Project Respect. Unlike the Adams County Truancy Case Manager, the CAs are school-based. There are nine CAs housed in eight elementary schools, one in the middle school, three in the high school, and one in an alternative school. The CAs work with many more children than the relative few who are enrolled in the Project Respect Program. A significant part of the CAs’ job is to follow up on attendance and behavior issues before they become the chronic problems that make a child eligible for Project Respect.
Unlike the other programs, Project Respect targets children for reasons other than truancy alone. Students must have exhibited difficulties in at least two of five areas to be considered for program participation: attendance (absences, whether excused or not), tardiness, behavior, suspensions, and truancy (unexcused absences). In 2001-2002 just under 20% of the program participants were referred for reasons of truancy, but almost 80% were referred for attendance problems, and almost 50% for tardiness. Whatever the label, a poor record of getting to school is the main reason for admittance into the program; the 163 students served by Project Respect this year averaged six absences per quarter last year, well above the legal limit for truancy. Thirty-five percent were referred for behavioral issues, and although fewer than 20% were referred due to suspensions, the majority of Project Respect students had been suspended at least once last year. Twenty-five, or 15%, have a history of involvement with law enforcement, 9 are on probation, and 5 are in a juvenile diversion program. Seventy percent of the students have serious difficulties in their living situation, according to Project Respect evaluators. Thus, Project Respect staff members, like those in Adams County and Denver, deal with children who face multiple challenges.
The role of the CA is to support the families of children with attendance or behavioral problems, and provide a link between the families and the school. CAs make phone calls or visits to the home of every child in the school who accrues a number of absences, hoping to help him or her get back to school. If the student is ill, they try to get medical services; if they find the power has been turned off for failure to pay, they find resources to help the family get utilities on again; if they find a child does not want to go to school because he or she cannot afford acceptable clothing, the CA takes the student shopping. In short, they try to meet any need that will prevent a pattern of truancy from developing. This level of effort is not always enough, however, and the CAs cannot intensively serve all the children who have attendance problems. Each school has a Teacher Support Team that decides which families would be best suited to the program. The teams focus on the students that appear to have the most serious difficulties, but also select based on which families they believe would be most receptive to help. Children with special education needs, or who get other special services from the school, are not eligible for Project Respect. The program goal is to provide a resource for families who otherwise would get no special attention from the school staff.
Each CA serves 10 to 12 families at any one time. If one child is admitted into the program, all the children in the family are admitted by extension. Thus, it is a family-based rather than student-based project. For these children, the CA organizes special after-school activities. For example, the middle school CA lives on a farm, so she runs an adopt-a-pet program in which the students visit her farm on a regular basis and learn to care for a farm animal. Project Respect students in an elementary school built a float for the Parade of Lights in November. There are also free sports teams at the YMCA for Project Respect pupils. Or students might be taken skating one day if they have attended tutoring sessions for the two previous days. Project Respect provides an incentive to attend school; in order to participate in the fun activities, the student must attend school. By keeping the children busy, it also keeps them out of trouble.
Successes are difficult to measure in aggregate, partially because the program is new, and in part because multi-year grade and attendance information are not available for all the students given the high mobility rate. However, Project Respect students averaged six absences per quarter in 1999-2000, and only three per quarter in the fall of 2001. Half of the 125 students for whom grades were available this year and last year showed grade improvement. Although grade improvement was more evident in elementary and middle school students than high school students, all the high school students in the program improved their CSAP scores. Fifty-eight of eighty-three students, or 70%, had fewer disciplinary referrals than last year. Of the 423 students served by the program in 2001-2002, 189 successfully completed the program, and 49 were removed from the program, most of whom transferred to other schools. Eight students failed the program and were sent to court. The remainder of the students is still participating.
When Project Respect is not sufficient to improve attendance, or if a student attends a non-participating school, court is still an option. Truancy court is held on Wednesday afternoons. All current truancy cases come in at the same time for an advisement regarding the law and their responsibilities. Then the magistrate calls each child, along with his or her family, to the bench separately for a few minutes of consultation. If a child is under 11 years of age, Human Services is informed of the case. Several people attend the truancy court sessions. A Department of Social Services caseworker is always there. If the family already has a particular caseworker, he or she attends as well. The school’s assistant principal and attorney are present, and other possible attendants include a special education teacher or a mental health professional. At the advisement, the magistrate issues a court order for the child to attend school. Toward that end, he can include any requirements he sees fit, including curfews, suspension of driver’s licenses, fines to the family, or orders for a parent to attend school with the child. A review is set for three weeks later, and in ninety percent of the cases, a third review takes place about three months later. According to the magistrate, the most difficult cases may make up to ten court appearances. If, after receiving a court order to attend school, the child is absent without excuse again, he or she is in contempt of court. Another hearing is held, at which the child may be sentenced to 45 days in detention. An alternative, however, is a sentence of 90 days in the Senate Bill 94 program. Designed to keep kids out of detention, this program puts truants on 24-hour-a-day electronic monitoring using an ankle monitor. Youths who violate the requirements of SB94 may still be sent to detention.
Although Project Respect was designed to reduce truancy, the new focus on attendance by both the school and court means that more cases are being sent to court now than before. More court time and more school personnel time is being put into the effort, so the costs of dealing with truancy in court have risen at the same time that more money is being allocated to prevention.
An important goal for Project Respect, particularly given its cost, is to make each element self-funding within five years. The mental health component is already self-funding. The therapist who runs the equine mental health program has an independent practice. Although many of her referrals come from Project Respect, she serves other clients as well. She bills Medicaid just as she bills any insurance company. Other elements of the project have been designed to qualify for Medicaid coverage as well. The CAs’ salaries can be billed because they are based in schools and serve the general population of students. In future years, they expect the entire cost of Project Respect to be covered by outside sources, mostly Medicaid, so that it will be entirely free to the district.
