Students and their parents can face steep fines, community service, and be required to pay court costs on each of these cases.

It’s the district’s goal to keep kids out of the courtroom and in the classroom, and has now partnered with AimTruancy Solutions to increase attendance.

Aim’s approach combines one-on-one mentoring and the responsibility of carrying a GPS location verification device to help students get back on track to graduate.

Several local news stations covered the new partnership, and below is a clip from News Center 23.

“Keeping students in school though high school graduation is critical to their future success and to the success of our country,” said Illinois Governor Pat Quinn when welcoming the participants to the 2011 Dropout Prevention conference.

AimTruancy Solutions will be on hand to answer questions about the approach that continues to help districts across the United States increase school attendance and achievement.

“When truants become graduates, they break the dropout-to-prison cycle,” says Travis Knox, president of AimTruancy Solutions. “Truancy is the first step to dropping out, and dropping out often leads to joblessness, welfare, crime, and prison – the costs to society are staggering.”

The new bill amends the Texas Education Code and requires school districts adopt truancy prevention measures prior to referring and filing a truancy case with the courts.

According to the new legislation, the truancy programs must be designed to “address student conduct related to truancy in the school setting,” and “minimize the need for referrals to juvenile court” or “justice court alleging truancy,” among other filing requirements.

Aim’s current clients are likely already in full compliance with the new requirements under this specific part of the new law.

For more information on the specifics of the law, visit Aim’s 1489 Compliance Section.

The bill, which still needs to be signed into law by Texas Governor Rick Perry, requires school districts to address truancy at the school level in order to minimize the need for referrals to juvenile courts. Also, the new amendments will require that all truancy referrals in Texas be accompanied by documentation of the district’s effort to correct the behavior.

“We have several, well established and proven programs that keep kids in school and out of the courtroom,” says Travis Knox, President of Aim Truancy Solutions, which has offered truancy intervention programs since 2005. Knox also noted that most of Aim’s current clients are likely already in full compliance with the new truancy prevention measures, referral, and filing requirements.

If Governor Perry signs the bill, the new truancy laws will go into effect on September 1, 2011.

For more information, visit Aim’s SB 1489 Compliance Section.

DISD is now utilizing Aim Truancy Solutions to get kids back on track to graduate using coaching and mentoring strategies along with high-tech devices.

Below is WFAA-TV Dallas’s coverage of how Dallas ISD is integrating Aim into it’s truancy intervention and dropout prevention programs:

Source: WFAA.com

Part Two: Tonight at 5 p.m., Shelly Slater of WFAA-Dallas will take viewers inside Cary Middle School, which is one of the schools in the DISD pilot program.

Credit: WFAA-Dallas

Aim Truancy Solutions offers a proven truancy prevention program that is currently being used by hundreds of middle and high schools across Texas, and brings school districts in compliance with Section 25.0915 of the Education Code.

Section 25.0915 Compliance

The new section of the Texas Education Code will require that school districts attempt to address student conduct prior to filing a truancy complaint, while minimizing the need for referrals to juvenile court alleging truancy.

If the school’s truancy intervention program does not work, the district will be required to submit a statement from the school certifying that truancy prevention measures using the criteria above were administered and were not successful.

Aim Truancy Solutions offers a proven Truancy Prevention Program that not only complies with all aspects of the new truancy laws, but is achieving amazing success for school districts in Texas.

Please contact Aim today for more information on how we can help reduce your truancy filings and comply with Texas’s new truancy legislation.

From Texas Senate Bill 1489:

SECTION 14. Subchapter C, Chapter 25, Education Code, is amended by adding Section 25.0915 to read as follows:

Sec. 25.0915. TRUANCY PREVENTION MEASURES; REFERRAL AND FILING REQUIREMENT.
(a) A school district shall adopt truancy prevention measures designed to:
(1) address student conduct related to truancy in the school setting; and
(2) minimize the need for referrals to juvenile court for and complaints filed in county or justice court alleging truancy.
(b) Each referral to juvenile court for or complaint filed in county or justice court alleging truancy by a student must be
accompanied by a statement from the student’s school certifying that:
(1) the school applied the truancy prevention measures adopted under Subsection (a) to the student; and
(2) the truancy prevention measures failed to meaningfully address the student’s conduct related to truancy.

SAN ANTONIO – According to Dave Udovich, San Antonio Independent School District’s executive director for secondary initiatives, truancy is an academic career killer.

“It’s probably the No. 1 issue that keeps students from moving ahead,” Udovich said.

The district has teamed up with Dallas-based AIM Truancy Solutions that tracks chronically truant students through a GPS device. The program is an alternative to paying steep fines for truancy, the district said. According to Udovich, fines have failed to be an adequate deterrent. Students are tracked by the device for a period of six weeks.

“When they leave to go to school, they grab their cell phone. They grab our device. What we’re able to do is sit behind in a monitoring center and we’re watching these kids go to school,” said Travis Knox, president of AIM Truancy Solutions.

The company said the device has had success in deterring students from skipping school, but the program incorporates some old-school methods, too.

“Students get a coach or a mentor with this company that checks in on them, gives them a call in the morning, and then calls them in the evening to see how their day went,” Udovich said.

The program appears to be doing the trick. According to Udovich, more than 90 percent of the students in the program have halted their chronic truancy.

“Within three weeks, they started to have passing grades,” Udovich said.

The GPS device gets some of the credit for the program’s success.

“It’s really just a tangible item that helps them know that somebody is watching to help support them in getting back into positive behavior,” Knox said.

However, students have indicated that its them mentoring that has really made the difference.

“There’s a significant other adult in their life that has conferences with them, that cares about them, that builds a relationship with them,” Udovich said.

As a result, SAISD officials have decided to extend the mentoring by an additional six weeks beyond the GPS monitoring period in hopes that it will push the chronic truancy rate down even further.

Source: KSAT, San Antonio

For chronic truants, a GPS program can help them make the grade

Where curfews and fines have failed, Anaheim officials say GPS devices help keep students in class.

By Nicole Santa Cruz, Los Angeles Times

February 25, 2011

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Ryan Ramos’ 6 a.m. routine used to consist of the usual: a shower, breakfast, then a walk to the bus stop.

But now, the 14-year-old eighth-grader has another activity: punching an identification code into a cell phone-size GPS device.

Five times a day — when he wakes up, when he gets to school, after lunch, after school and at 8 p.m. — Ramos is required to enter his code into the machine. If he’s not where he’s supposed to be, the GPS provides a way to find him.

Ramos and 31 other students in the Anaheim Union High School District are participating voluntarily in what some consider a cutting-edge solution to the age-old problem of truancy. Backers of the program hope that by giving parents and school officials a better idea of where students are — and by giving students a visible incentive to resist peer pressure to skip classes — the GPS can succeed where curfews, strict punishments and even fines for parents have failed.

The concept has critics who object to the Big Brother aspects of satellite monitoring.

“It’s a criminalization of kids who have trouble getting to class every day,” said Belinda Escobosa Helzer, director of the Orange County office of the ACLU of Southern California, who likened the program to the restrictions placed on probationers or those under house arrest.

But the idea also has believers. Although Anaheim is the first district in California to try the idea, cities elsewhere in the country, including San Antonio and Baltimore, have used GPS to chart the movements of chronic truants and say they have experienced considerable success.

In San Antonio, after a successful pilot program in 2008, the district has increased both the number of GPS units and mentors available to work with students at 22 schools. Grades improved and the attendance rate hit 97% for students in the program, officials said.

“It’s not a panacea. It’s not a silver bullet. It’s not the end-all, be-all,” said David Udovich, an administrator in the San Antonio Independent School District. “But it does help a lot of students. … Everybody’s grades went up. I didn’t think it would turn around that fast. Within six weeks, they went from failing to passing.”

Ed Arevalo, a police investigator with the Anaheim Police Department, said that in middle school, truancy becomes a part of peer pressure. It’s very popular to hang out with your friends and buck the system, he said.

Being saddled with a GPS can give students the excuse they need to abandon their friends and go to class instead, he said.

Educators and officials from the company that operates the GPS system — which, so far, is providing the GPS devices to the district for free — dismiss concerns about privacy. They say the program helps students attend more classes and do better in school. They also note that the program combines the GPS device with human interaction — mentors who check in with the students several times a week.

“It’s so much bigger than GPS,” said Travis Knox, president of the Dallas-based Aim Truancy Solutions.

“It’s really that human element.”

Under the state education code, persistent truancy can result in a $2,000 fine. Students must face a school attendance review board, which consists of the district attorney, the police department and school officials. In Anaheim, students with four or more unexcused absences can participate in the GPS program with parental approval.

Two weeks into the program, administrators say they already have seen a turnaround. Nearly all of the students have gone to class, with only five absences so far. If the experiment works, district officials said they might expand it.

Since the program began, Ramos said he’s learning more than before. In English, he’s looking forward to comprehending similes and metaphors. In science, his favorite subject, he’s studying how solids and liquids form.

Ramos’ mother, Maria Salazar, 47, said that in the past it was sometimes difficult to get her son to class, but the device has helped him get to school on time.

“It’s a pretty good program,” she said.

South Junior High Principal Chris Esperanza said the system provides another tool for parents who are too busy to monitor their children all the time. They might be working long hours. Or, in some cases, a single parent is trying to keep a household together.

“Parents do their best,” he said. “Sometimes, that’s not enough.”

Patricia Garcia, a single mother with four children, said the GPS device carried by her 14-year-old son, Joshua Barron, relieves some of her worries.

“I would like for them to have it until they are 18,” she said.

Joshua, an eighth-grader at South Junior High, said he doesn’t like carrying the GPS because of its size but is beginning to see the benefits as the device has prodded him into going to classes.

“It’s good for me,” he said.

Credit: Los Angeles Times

KXAN Austin News featured Aim Truancy Solutions in a report detailing how important attendance is to districts. Full text available below.

AUSTIN (KXAN) – One of the largest school districts in Texas, Northside Independent School District , is using GPS technology to keep up with kids who have a history of playing hooky.

“We’ve gotten amazing results,” said Brian Woods, NISD’s deputy superintendent of administration.

A year and a half ago the San Antonio district teamed up with AIM Truancy Solutions, a Dallas-based company that runs the program. They identify middle school and high school students who have racked up between 20 to 25 absences. Each student gets a hand-held GPS device about the size of a cell phone and uses it to check in and communicate with mentors. Woods said they have seen individual student attendance rates jump between 10- to 15 percent over a six-week period.

Right now, around 250 kids in three San Antonio district currently carry one. Tuesday, the company was in Austin for a school administrators conference and caught the attention of districts looking for ways to close their budget gaps.

“All superintendents, all administrators understand that it starts with attendance,” said Travis Knox, president of AIM Truancy Solutions. “Attendance is a good way to help bring in some of that additional revenue.”

Districts lose $45 a day for every student who is absent. The Pflugerville Independent School District launched an attendance campaign last fall to stress the financial and educational importance of being in school, and it has paid off. They’ve seen a 1 percent increase in attendance district wide which will bring in $1.2 million more.

Attendance in the Austin Independent School District was up 2 percent last semester compared to the same time last school year, which means the district will receive an extra $11.2 million.

“It’s just that simple,” said Holly Subervi, public relations coordinator with Austin ISD. “If everybody got their kids to school it could make a huge impact on our budget.”

They credit the increase to an attendance campaign launched this school year called “Everyday Counts.” Anyone can track daily attendance rates school by school by viewing the Attend-o-Meter on the district’s website. The extra effort toward encouraging kids to be at school is not just about the money.

“Really, it’s the key to a child graduating and being able to succeed in AISD or any other district,” said Subervi.

Credit: KXAN