Truancy Reduction Demonstration Grant

The State Attorney's Office, Fourth Judicial Circuit of Florida, in collaborative partnership with the Duval County School Board, City of Jacksonville, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, and Youth Crisis Center proposes to utilize the Truancy Reduction Demonstration Program to enhance the community's effort to reduce truancy. The State Attorney's Office will continue to fund the case management and public awareness while expanding referrals from the school system to the Truancy Arbitration Program (TAP). TAP will continue to receive referrals from Duval County school social workers. The children referred must have at least five unexcused absences in a calendar month and ten in any ninety-day period and have had the opportunity to participate along with their parents in the school system's Attendance Intervention Team process. Also, the grantee proposes to continue the expansion to subpoena attendance records from selected elementary schools and coordinate the setting of Attendance Intervention Team meetings at those schools. This site along with two other truancy sites (King County Superior Court and City of Houston, Anti-Mayor Office) will continue to participate in an enhanced evaluation that will assess outcomes as well as costs using a time series design and comparison group(s), and collect and analyze process measures from all sites. CA/NCF