INCARCERATED FOSTER YOUTH

The Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE) has applied for funding to the California Department of Education to expand their Foster Youth Services (FYS) to provide support for foster youth incarcerated in county-operated juvenile detention facilities. Essentially, this funding will allow the SCCOE foster youth educational services coordinator, Dr. David Sharp - Supervisor of State and Federal Projects, to work towards:

• Creating a system of identifying FYS youth in juvenile detention;
• Planning for and providing supportive educational services with volunteer tutors to FYS;
• Coordinating instructional time and materials in cooperation with probation staff and teachers;
• Creating and maintaining an adequate system to monitor the progress of students; and
• Implementing a system of recording and reporting ongoing results to all entitled stakeholders.

SCCOE will satisfy the requirement for a local advisory group to address the specific needs and services for foster youths in county-operated juvenile detention facilities through an existing entity, the Special Committee for the Education of Children in Juvenile Court, which is chaired by Santa Clara County Superior Court Justice Richard Loftus. Judge Loftus is assigned to the Juvenile Delinquency Court Department and his committee already brings together the courts, the local child welfare agency, SCCOE, and community-based organizations to look at delivery of educational services to incarcerated youth. A second Special Committee for the Education of Children in Family Court chaired by Justice Katherine Lucero addresses similar issues for youth appearing in Family Court through the Dependency process. These separate committees are in the process of merging.

This local advisory group will oversee and advise the SCCOE on planning and implementation of strategies and activities that address the specific needs and services for foster youths in county-operated juvenile detention facilities, as well as monitor program effectiveness and reevaluate the possible changing needs of the foster youths.

Currently in Santa Clara County we do not have an effective nor efficient system for identifying our juvenile detention foster youth population. Under discussion, as part of the planning process that will be facilitated under this proposed project, is the development of a streamlined foster youth identification and data verification system that accompanies the student and is made available immediately to school staff upon enrollment. One of the challenges that face foster youth is that the transitions in placements result in frequent school transfers. Establishing a mechanism for the efficient and expeditious transfer of health and education records and medical passport is critical to the enrollment process for schools and students, and will directly impact their educational progress.

If you have questions or comments, please contact David Sharp (SCCOE) at David_Sharp@sccoe.org.

USE OF SCHOOL/STUDENT DATA TO IDENTIFY & SUPPORT THOSE AT RISK OF FAILURE

The San Jose Unified School District (SJUSD) is considering how to use the accumulated data sets (which are quite extensive) to identify students who may be most at-risk of school failure as early as possible in order to intervene effectively to keep them on track for graduation. As a unified (K-12) district, SJUSD has data for some students over several years and is also capable of closely monitoring the transitions from elementary to middle and middle to high schools that are often problematic for vulnerable students.

This project, under the direction of Assistant Superintendent Bill Erlendson, and with the support of the Alternative Education Collaborative, will conduct a retrospective data mining process that will examine current or recent struggling students to see what student performance variables might have predicted their difficulties earlier in their academic career. If a set of predictor variables can be ascertained, then the SJUSD can test the process of identification of current early grade students who might be at future risk, the modeling of interventions designed to keep them on track academically and socially, and a comparison of the effectiveness of these various interventions over time and across student profiles.

In short, what we are trying to create is a system whereby data, that is already being collected, can be used to identify students who need extra attention and support to succeed as early as is possible, before they build any momentum toward failure. These students would then be offered additional assistance and monitoring, in particular, through the difficult transitions of changing school levels (elementary to middle, middle to high) where they are the most vulnerable to failure.

This will allow the district to use their data collection and analysis capacity intervene earlier with at-risk students, protect them through the most vulnerable transition points, identify specific interventions that are targeted to these students particular needs, and measure the effectiveness of these interventions.

Lead AEC person, Mark Browne, is working with Dr. Bill Erlendson on this. Mark can be reached at mbjazz@pacbell.net.

FUNDER'S EVENT

UWSV/AEC will host a briefing for the Northern California Grantmakers and potential funders in early December on the efforts underway to improve alternative education learning options and systems for out of school and struggling students in the greater San Jose area. The event will include panel presentations and site visits for an invited group of potential funders. More details to come. Lead people are Pearl Cheng and Maria Elena Riddle. Pearl Cheng can be reached at Pearl.Cheng@uwsv.org or 408-247-1200. Maria Elena Riddle can be reached at (510) 846-4075 or maria_elena.riddle@uwsv.org.