NDTAC First Tuesday Talk

March 8, 2005

TRANSCRIPT

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): This is Joyce Burrell, it sounds like we have a lot of people on the line already. Okay, well welcome everybody, I want to take a minute and ask you to identify yourselves just as we get this conference started so that we can all have an idea of who’s on so if you would give your name and your state and your agency that would be helpful.

I’m Joyce Burrell from the National Technical Assistance Center here in Washington, D.C., and we are hosting this conference call today.

MR. STAPLES: This is Jack Staples and Joan Runbaugh with the Collier County Public Schools in Naples, Florida.

MS. WAREN: This is Pat Waren, I’m with the state of Mississippi, Innovative Support.

MS. MUSCHAWECH: This is Kim Muschawech, I’m from Beacon Light Behavioral Health Systems in Pennsylvania.

MS. ROUNDS: Roberta Rounds and Donya Kenyan from Rhode Island Department of Corrections.

MS. WODRASKA: Dorothy Wodraska, Supreme Court Arizona.

MS. MORSE: Linda Morse with the Department of Education in Kentucky.

MS. LONGA: Maria Longa, Collier County, Florida.

MR. DUNSTON: Jim Dunston and Jennifer Flowers at Star Academy in Custer, South Dakota.

MS. STONE: Rosalyn Stone, Okaloosa County, Florida, DJJ School.

MS. MARONEY: Debbie Maroney, Pace Center for Girls in Florida.

MS. NULLET: Trina Nullet with Pace Center for Girls also.

MS. CORBIN: Julian Corbin from Pace Center for Girls in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

MS. GRANGER: Kate Granger and Scott Growcott from Department of Human Services for Education for the State of New Jersey.

MS. EGGERS: Terry Eggers from Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.

MS. CARL: Pat Carl from the Corrections Learning Network.

MS. KAISER: Pat Kaiser from Missouri.

MS. DAY: Kelley Day and Michelle Sykes from Oakland Security Day School.

MS. HAYWARD: Evonca Hayward, manager of Alternative Education Palm Beach County School District.

MR. FOGEL: Art Fogel, Collier County Florida.

PARTICIPANT: [Comment off microphone.]

MR. GALBRITH: Dave Galbrith, Alternative Education, Naples, Florida.

MS. RUSSMAN: Mary Russman, New York State Education Department.

MS. BRANDON: Rebecca Brandon, Texas Youth Commission.

MR. BOGAN: Jim Bogan with Louisiana Department of Education.

MS. MEREDITH (NDTAC): What we’re going to do, while Joyce is reviewing the talking points that she outlined that I sent you earlier yesterday I’m going to mute all your phones. Now if you want to un-mute and ask a question just press 01 and then also when we open all the lines up for questioning I’ll un-mute your phones but if you want to ask an individual question just press 01. And I’ll be muting your phones right now.

MS BURRELL: Welcome again. Title I Part D as many of you know is administered by the Student Achievement and School Accountability Programs at the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education. Title I Part D provides supplemental support to high poverty schools as part of Title I but Part D specifically serves those children and youth who are in institutional settings receiving their education. Title I Part A which many of you served because I notice we had some Title I directors provides a supplemental support to the poor schools in our communities. That program serves 12 million children and is budgeted at $13 billion dollars annually.

One of the questions that is frequently asked around the nation is why more Title I Part D funds don’t go to neglected children. As many of you know in your individual states many neglected children who are in out of home placements, be they foster care or temporary shelter care, go to local community schools and as such have access to supplemental support from Title I Part A in their local schools. Now there is a basic inconvenience that exists in that structure and that is that often group homes, shelter homes, have shift workers and they like to bring kids home in time or before the shift change so sometimes they don’t access the after school programs but that does not mean that those children could not access the after school programs or before school programs in their local community schools. Many of the Title I refunds for neglected children are spent on such things as tutorial support in their group home structures.

Title I Part D provides this formula grants to educational programs for youth in state operated programs and community day programs. It also provides local school district programs funding that are involved with collaboration with other agencies that serve this same population of children because one of the overarching goals of the program is to improve the educational services received by children and youth who are in local and state institutions so that they have the opportunity to meet the same challenging state academic content standard as their peers. And that’s a pretty tall order when you look at the variety of needs that children present who are in these programs. For many institutions collaboration with partner agencies is marginal at best and for some institutions as we’ve heard repeatedly on these calls there is not the collaboration or the transfer of information or the sharing of information and planning for this population of youngsters and one of the things that Title I Part D does is facilitate or create an opportunity to do that cross agency planning and collaboration.

Before any Title I Part D funds can be received by any school or school entity there must first be an education program in place. For juveniles or juvenile justice agencies that education program must provide at least 20 hours of educational services per week and then for juveniles or for youth who are in adult placement or adult institutions the education program must provide 15 hours, a minimum of 15 hours per week for youth in the adult institution.

The goals of Title I Part D of improving educational services and providing services needed to make successful transitions to further schooling or employment are again high stakes kinds of goals, often you have said to us that these kids don’t go back to school. Well, one of the intentions of this funding is to design programs and services that persuade them, encourage them, support them as they make the transition from an institutional setting to a school or employment setting in the community and I’m going to talk about the Texas model in a few minutes and some of the wonderful things that they’re doing and measuring. And remember, it’s not easy, I am not pretending that this is easy or that it is routine, this is the first time that it has really been required so everybody, many states are just beginning to step up to the plate.

The other goal of Title I Part D is to prevent young people from dropping out and to provide dropouts and youth returning from institutions the kind of support that will ensure their continuing their education. The Department of Education has one of its goals for all children, the completion of a high school diploma. And as lofty as that may sound for neglected and delinquent children it certainly is the goal of the Department of Ed and when neglected children are polled most of them expressed, 99 percent of them expressed a desire to complete high school and to go on to college where less then 50 percent of them actually complete high school before leaving their neglected programs.

Now states receive funds based on the number of children in state operated facilities. Each state’s allocation is generated by child counts in state juvenile institutions, again that provide at least 20 hours of instruction from non-federal funds. And for those who are again in adult correctional institutions at least 15 hours of instruction that are funded with non-federal funds and in most places those are state education funds that support those programs, it does not preclude the use of private or other state agency funds but usually they are state funds funding the general education program for children in institutions.

An agency’s plans should include information on how your state will meet the needs of neglected or delinquent children and how these students will be transitioned from institution to community placement be it a work placement, is it back to school, is it an alternative school setting, whatever the placement is following that institutional setting there should be some transitional support to make that a reality. How you plan to integrate children into other programs under No Child Left Behind or other school supported acts is part of what you can do with your neglected or delinquent dollars. And then one of the responsibilities that comes with taking the money is that an individual in each correctional facility will be designated to support the transitional issues of children who are neglected and/or delinquent. That identification is done by each state and with each correctional institution so it’s not that the state says oh Joyce will be the person at X facility, the state collaborates with their juvenile justice partner, their neglected partner, to identify a person who’s going to hold that responsibility and fulfill that responsibility.

Before I go to consolidated application I want to ask if there are questions up to this point. Lee, can you make it so they can ask a question?

MS. MEREDITH (NDTAC): You can actually all be un-muted at this point and be able to ask questions.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): Okay, hearing none, I’m going to assume that it’s okay to continue.

Okay, your consolidated application. Most of you know what the consolidated ap is based on your registration here but I’m just going to remind you that this was the Department of Ed’s opportunity to create an instrument where you could both fill out your application and report on the various parts of Title I meaning Part A which is the Poor Children’s Program, Part B Even Start and the Family Literacy Program, Part C for migratory children, certainly Part D the neglected, delinquent or at risk youth and children programs, and then Part F, comprehensive school reforms. Underlying the creation of the consolidated application and report was the intent that agencies would get together and that different parts of school agencies would get together and file the report because they were planning together and they were using those reporting outcomes to improve the planning for these vulnerable populations of children.

One of the questions that came in earlier was on data collection and it was about the date. In our October conference we reported that data would be collected at the end of April 2005. That date has now moved to April 2006, it will apply to data for the 2004 to 2005 school year which means you should have been collecting since the beginning of this school year but you will not report it until April 2006. And that has a lot to do with the consolidated performance report being out in time and then the new data collection system at the Department of Ed being up and ready to receive that data. So I want to thank Linda Morse for the question in Kentucky and let you know that you don’t have to report it until April of 2006. A little reprieve.

Okay this year also you will be reporting on race and ethnicity among the neglected population, the juvenile corrections population, and the adult corrections population. You’ll also be reporting some of the data you reported before, those who attained a GED or graduated, but you will also be asked how many return to school. You will be asked in the next data collection a little bit about academic improvement and we’ll be looking for the numbers of neglected or delinquent children who attended school for 90 days in your facility. And for those children there is the expectation is that there was at least a pre-test and some post-testing in that 90 day period of time, and that is having been in the institution 90 calendar days, even though they will not have had 90 classroom days they would have been in the institution 90 days consecutively. We’ll be asking the number of N or D children who were not tested, and the number of students who attended more then 90 days who showed improvement in math and reading. The question will also be there about credit accrual, how many credits did a young person accrue.

As you know one of the requirements is that your correctional institution curricula be aligned with the state curricula so that should make it a lot easier to look right across the curricula and to be able to transfer those credits to the schools. I can remember a few weeks ago Georgia and Alabama, and I think we have someone on from Alabama, reporting that they had aligned their correctional institution curricula with that of their state agencies but they did it by not only aligning in name and number, they named the courses the same, they coded them the same, they required the same numbers of seat hours, the description actually matched the description in the curriculum for the state which made it much, much easier for kids going back to school in local communities to transfer their credits. In both cases they also required accreditation from the same body that accredits the high schools for all children in their states. So on another call we’re going to talk about accreditation but it is possible and it is being done in several of the states that provide education to children and youth who are in institutions.

I said I was going to talk a little bit about what Texas measures for every child that’s leaving. Tom Fuller who is the supervisor of the transition liaisons for the Texas Youth Authority presented with me a few weeks ago to the system of care sites in Dallas and he presented that they are now collecting the numbers of children who are enrolled in school, the number who are enrolled in GED prep classes, those who are enrolled in a post-secondary education program, those who are entering the workforce, those who are earning a wage, those demonstrated responsible citizenship and I don’t have the details for how he’s measuring responsibility citizenship. Texas Youth Authority also requires that every 17 year old apply for a Pell Grant while they’re in the institution in case they decide that they want to go back to a junior college or a regular college once they leave that institutional placement.

I’m going to move on now to the role of the Technical Assistance Center and we have had numerous opportunities to meet with you and we have some new people on the call today and so we welcome those who are brand new to the TA Center and for those of you who we’ve established or begun to establish a relationship to we’re glad that you’re back and we’re glad that you’re spreading the word. I mean Florida you really have a team from all over your state on the call today and so we appreciate that a lot.

Our TA Center was funded through an act from Congress that required that we develop or that the Department of Ed develop a uniform evaluation model for all of the education programs that exist in juvenile, correctional, and neglected facilities that provide onsite education. We did a lit review and we’ve had the opportunity to go around and actually mine some data in facilities around the country and what we have found is that there is data but it’s sparse and there are some holes in the performance but there is data so we don’t want to start that there is no data but there is data and we need to do some work in improving that.

The other thing that the TA Center is supporting is local education agencies now having to submit program evaluation results to the Department of Ed and I think many of you have heard Gary Rutkins(?) say he is not expecting, he’s our program officer at the Department of Ed, he is not expecting local education agencies to start sending information to him, he expects that the data from the local education agencies will be rolled up to the state agencies and presented by the state agency to the U.S. Department of Ed.

And lastly we are to provide technical assistance to state education agencies. In our technical assistance we are to help states or work with states who need help in building capacity around collecting data, around other federally supported initiatives that relate to this same population of children. As you know Title I Part D is not meant to supplant the regular educational services but in fact is a supplemental program and as a supplement does not have the capacity to address all of the issues that affect a child’s performance in school. The program, it varies how it’s administered, in some institutions there are institution wide programs, in others it’s targeted to certain children with certain needs or those children who have the highest needs. But the TA Center is here to do research for you if you need certain programs looked into, certain curricula, if you need instructional practices looked into, we have a team of folks who can help with that and it’s as simple as a phone call.

You also have assigned to each of your states a liaison to the Technical Assistance Center and the liaisons actually contact the neglected delinquent coordinators of the various states periodically to see if there’s any technical assistance need, they respond to your inquiries through email and your telephone calls, but they are available to pass on to senior staff at the center and to Gary Rutkins issues that you feel need to be addressed. We’re tasked with disseminating information and we disseminate information about effective programs and practices, we ask from you innovative programs that are working in your states. As you know also with the passage of No Child Left Behind we cannot just label a program a best practice anymore, it has to go through a rigorous evaluation and if it passes that evaluation it can be labeled best practice. But in order to keep innovative practices going to the field we are asking you to use your state page on our website to feature things that are working for you that might benefit your colleagues in other states.

We’re also charged with fostering collaborations among neglected delinquent programs and the organizations and professional bodies that actually serve them. So on Friday, March 4 th, Gary did a presentation at the Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council on Title I Part D and actually the Labor Department expressed interest and Justice in working with him and the center around reentry or transition issues as well as the issue of going to work from leaving institutions. So you should be hearing more in the very near future about ways that we will do more collaboration with the Departments of Labor and Justice.

In the task of closing the achievement gap for disadvantaged children local agencies and state agencies are asked to focus more on transition as well as the academic needs of kids returning from correctional institutions. And we had a question that came in from Jim Bogan that asked please address information about requirements, applications, monitoring, and compliance in terms of transition. On monitoring and compliance Gary Rutkin will be asking you when he visits if in fact you have a transition plan for children who will be leaving your institutions and if transition plans exist who will be monitoring, he’s going to ask that one big question, is there an individual assigned in each neglected and delinquent program to take care of the issues of youngsters who are transitioning in those programs. So if you have not assigned people or identified people that’s a big one that you want to address as soon as possible.

In terms of the requirement, Jim, that’s a call in and of itself, but on our website we have some basic things that should be included in all children and youth transition plans. And if there are specific things that you would like to know if they are required it is a not a, the list is so broad and it is not limited, many of the things that you currently do in terms of young people leaving institutions and going back to school meet the requirements on the transition that they are exactly transition activities, the transfer of records, the contact with the family, that of assuring that this child has a home and a school that he or she are going to, and that there is an individual to support them to make sure that they get back to school or into that work placement that was identified in the planning before they left the institution. That they have a safety plan, that they know what to do when things begin to fall apart, that there is the caring adult who can go with them to school if family is not available or to work to make sure that they make that first connection. And that there’s someone to routinely check in to make sure that they are having success.

There’s numerous transition materials on our website and I’m going to reference Texas one more time on transitions, the Texas Education Agency shared in their consolidated application a new form they created and it is on the website and it asks in the first question about reservation of funds, did you, what percentage between 15 and 30 percent did you reserve for transition activities and you get to put that in the block. And then they talk about the kinds of transition activities that were conducted with the reserved funds. They talk about projects that facilitate the transition of children and youth, pre-placement programs, worksite schools where they can have a work experience that also offers some educational support. Counseling services, placement services, dissemination of information concerning an assistance in obtaining available student financial aid, job placement services.

They talk about the planned expenditures, was it a research based math program, a research based reading program, a research based science program, was professional development available to the instructors and instructional aids. Were there tutorials for young people, is there research based writing programs, are there research based social studies programs, how about individualized instruction or small group instruction, computer aided instruction, expanded learning opportunities, were there opportunities for parental involvement and what kinds of activities were available for parental involvement. And then there are the funding questions and those are -- of Title I, but this entire form is on the website and is downloadable if you would like to download it.

PARTICIPANT: Hi, this is Mike out of Washington State, excuse me, you make reference to the website, could I have that address please?

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): Yes, www.neglected-delinquent.org. And I will email, for everyone who registered for this call I will email out our web address, you’ll have that.

MS. WODRASKA: I have a question, this is Dottie Wodraska from the Arizona Supreme Court. I was just listening to going down the list of all the items that are on that Texas form and technology and education, what we need definitely, workplace vocational ed that prepares the youngsters for transition, and yet we’re consistently confronted with the fact at least here that our kids last year qualified for Title II Technology Funds, they didn’t this year, and I’m looking at an article in Education Week that says vocational education’s new job, defend thyself. It seems like all the things that we would need for our neglect and delinquent youngsters that we know make good transition sense are on the defensive of far populations, there’s real disconnect there. Can you speak to that please?

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): I happen to agree with you Dottie and I happen to also work for the Department of Education. But I really do think that we ought to probably have some forum for advocates for kids who also approach Congress around what their needs are and how to get them supported, I think that we really do have to more formally in all of our states work with the advocates to make sure that this is not a forgotten population, and sometimes it really is as simple as the staffers on the various Congressperson’s staff don’t understand the breadth of some of the changes that are recommended and that is the place where advocates have to be out there, in front, and representing this population of children along with all other children.

PARTICIPANT: I agree, I think advocacy is a large responsibility of those of us who work with these youngsters and all youngsters, I’m just concerned that we continue to see a template being applied to our population again that mirrors the regular school education process without taking into account the special needs of these children. Thank you for your response.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): Dottie, when I say all of us have to be advocates, many of the people on this call are in appointed positions or delegated positions by appointed staff, which means that there are some limitations to what we can do and there are formal advocacy organizations that we can work with outside. And I think it’s worth posing to people like the Youth Law Center and the Juvenile Education Center in Philadelphia, these are issues that they address, certainly the Child Welfare League and the Children’s Defense Fund but we cannot advocate as government employees ourselves.

PARTICIPANT: I understand, I am in the same position. Thank you.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): One of your other charges is now making students returning from correctional facilities a priority. This has not been a priority for many, or this has not appeared to be a priority for many state agencies for a long time, I mean many schools have spent a lot of time getting some of these children out of their schools and put up many barriers to prevent the return but now that this will be measured in terms of who’s going back, what kind of plans they have, who is the contact in the local school agency who will be receiving, who is that transition coordinator who made the arrangements and is facilitating the move from the institution to the placement.

It means that if schools are addressing it very differently, the story of what gets measured is what matters is exactly what I think we’re beginning to see in this requirement as well. But coordination with the local school agencies that these young people will return to, many of them will return to alternative school placements and some of them will be in alternative placements short term, some of them will be in alternative placement long term meaning up to a year.

And there are those of you on the phone who could probably tell me horror stories about kids who are in alternative placements until they graduate. But ideally these young people would learn to function in normal settings for children in the community and would have the kind of skills that would have them accepted and welcomed back to their school placements in the community.

Our other task is improving the outcomes for neglected and delinquent children so in transition there would be an education program waiting for every child who leaves an institution, there would be tutors identified and ready for duty. Some of you know that there’s a wonderful program that I often refer to in Orange County, California, and I think it’s a model that’s worth looking at, some of you have met Kelly Weaver and Ted Price, but they actually run a library where tutors and volunteers who work with kids in delinquent and neglected programs can actually borrow educational materials that are aligned with the county curriculum and the state curriculum to use as they tutor and support kids.

Kids would have ready and waiting adequate employment opportunities and that often takes a job coach and it also takes connection with your local labor department and your state labor department to make sure that this population of youngsters is even valued in the job market. A job that has health benefits, job training that is available and easily accessible to young people from the communities that they live in, certainly civic engagement where they have an opportunity to do community service or experience what is now being called service learning or earned redemption. That there are safety nets both human and financial to help them through the transition from a very structured program to where they have to make decisions for themselves, go to school on their own, and access services that are available without being made to do so by the kind of supports they’ve been accustomed to when they’re in an institutional setting. Thirdly, whenever and wherever possible a mentor to help to make the connection and support the connection.

When we get down to resources that are available through the TA Center, as you know each month, as some of you know, each month we shine the spotlight on one or two promising programs, that we have developed a reading list that we add to consistently that highlights interesting articles, reports and policy pieces to keep the field informed. That we list events and presentations and presented biographies online and available for you. That there is a literature review that will be updated but based on the early findings there still isn’t a lot out there that’s evidence based and a lot out there that has the kind of research findings that tell us that the programs and services really work, but I think that a lot of effort is being made in that area by states and by the local universities that you have partnered with in your state. On our website again which we just referenced and Lee promised to send you the url, that information is updated monthly. You can add programs and activities to your state pages, there’s a link where you can send something in that you’d like to have posted, and you are able to ask a question or receive a response from us upon request.

Individual state resource pages provide key information now and on the last call I remember one state saying there was nothing on their page, what we start out with is who your neglected, your Title I director is, who your neglected delinquent coordinator or resource person is, who the director of your juvenile justice program for your state is and who if there is a separate juvenile justice education leader, whether you call it superintendent, instructional leader, or no matter what that’s called, if there is a single person identified we will identify that person on the website. Then we come to you for that information that your state would like to have featured on your web page, not only for your state but to share with the field, if there are forms, if there’s data that you’d like, if there are programs that you’d like to share or more about the overview of your system.

And at this point I’m going to open it for questions from you.

PARTICIPANT: I have one question that goes back just a little bit to what you were saying about the reporting in of the testing results from the reading and math after they’ve been there for 90 calendar days, is that data going to come from this school year or next school year?

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): It will be this school year but it won’t be collected, oh, no, it will be next school year, sorry, it will be April 2007 and it will be the data for 2005-2006.

PARTICIPANT: Thank you very much, I was about to have a nervous breakdown.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): You are also telling your juvenile justice education programs and neglected programs, they really should know that anyway, I mean if they’re planning for children who’ve been there long time --

PARTICIPANT: Right, they may already be doing it anyway.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): -- they probably are selecting that data already.

PARTICIPANT: Thank you very much.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): Is there another question?

PARTICIPANT: Yes, I have a question about how is it that we’re showing the improvement, you were saying that we have to show improvement after they start the programs, what forms are they using, like is it like the entry test and you would use that same instrument maybe three months later, or is it some other way through tests in the classroom?

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): Now that’s one way to do it, to use the same, the tool that you used at entry 90 days later, or if you develop teacher made classroom instruments that there be some uniformity across states. Florida, and there are lots of folks on Florida, in your house bill 1989 and I’m glad that you’re on because as of January 1, 2005, I understood that you would be using a shared assessment instrument, is that going on?

PARTICIPANT: It’s getting ready to start, they haven’t, are you talking about for the reading program?

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): Correct.

PARTICIPANT: Yes, it’s getting ready to start, they haven’t told us exactly which one it is going to be used for comprehension yet.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): Okay, okay, well we saw that as very progressive and as painful as progress is you can believe that you’ve taken a big step in coming up with uniform assessment tools. And I was there and I heard folks complaining but it really does help the children when in fact everybody is using the same tool and then the local schools as well as the institutions can depend on the same tool that has the same validity and can expect that it has the same meaning across the state. In many state institutions and especially in smaller states children come to the institution from all over the state and as a result need that uniform instrument that can validate that their educational progress meets the same standards no matter what institution they come out of.

PARTICIPANT: I think we’re doing a pretty good job in measuring the academic components, looking for is ways to assess the affective, we have a lot of kids with mental health problems and emotional problems, those problems, is there any pre- and post-testing we can do in those areas to show gains in the youth development piece? We were really struggling with the mental health piece because again there’s so many underlying issues and I just wanted to know if anybody has good measurement of gains in those areas.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): Well, getting the question late I was able to do just a little bit on it. Now I know that across New York you are using a instrument at probation called the YASI, which is very much like the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument, which would tell you if the information is shared with you those kids who come in with scoring high in the emotional area. So my question to your chief of probation and I didn’t get an answer today was are the YASI outcomes being shared with the state correctional institution education programs and the follow-up from findings for those kids who score emotionally high on the YASI. So I have two people who are working with me in New York, Michael Orth and Myra Alfreds, so I’m working on that for you, Tim, but I didn’t get an answer from either of them today.

PARTICIPANT: Thank you very much.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): But I’d like to follow-up with that because we actually are developing, have developed a self study here and in the self study and as soon as we get authorization to share it I’ll send it to you first, but it does include a mental health component and there are certain things that we are asking for those who use the self study to look at in the mental health area of every child coming in and the re-administration of such instruments as the YASI, the MASI, and the follow-up assessments are very, very helpful in improving or ensuring the improvement academically of these youngsters, you cannot do just the academics without providing that emotional support or the behavioral kinds of support that they need.

PARTICIPANT: Right. Another problem in this area is right now I’m on Ricker’s Island and we’re really three different agencies, we got the Department of Education, Department of Correction, and they contract out for mental health services to Prison Health Services, so we have some confidentiality issues too about sharing some of this information that we’re trying to work out on a local level.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): Well, we put some stuff on the website on FRPA, the Federal Education, someone help me out guys, anyway for sharing information and FRPA allows for the juvenile justice population that information can be shared, it’s a matter of you just looking at it and applying it to your state regulations, state regulations don’t supercede the federal regulations and usually are not tougher then the feds. But specifically for kids who hit the juvenile justice system there is a waiver on information sharing so if you want to download that from our website you may find that it helps you in this cross agency collaboration you’re trying to do.

PARTICIPANT: That was very helpful, thank you.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): Did you have a question?

PARTICIPANT: Can you explain to me how we can get some assistance with the children that are being direct released? And we’ve not finding out about them until after they’ve been out in the community and then show up. And also we have children coming out of direct file situations that have been direct files at 13 and 14 years of age and we’re not getting education --

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): On the children who are being direct released there should be transition plans for them and there should be what are called reentry plans. You’re in Florida and I know you have some juvenile reentry money under SVORI, Serious Violent Offender Reentry Initiative. And if you don’t have that we can send you what the requirements are under SVORI and your contact person in Florida so that you can let them know that it is not happening and then if it, you may have to set up a committee as we did in Pennsylvania where every child who was leaving an institution was reviewed prior to returning to their community and that review involved both private agencies as well as public agencies and certainly the public schools in the various communities, the superintendents in the counties had to assign someone who worked with the committee to assure that there was a transfer of knowledge, in some counties it went as far as the judges doing reviews prior to even bringing a child in to make sure that the school placement was set up and that the contacts had been made so that review just got a stamp actually that all steps had been accomplished and then an actual date for release set after that. And those would be those kids who, that happened because we had the same problem you have of children being directly released from the court with no knowledge either to the institution or to the community school that they’re coming.

On the direct file you’re giving me a little homework to do because if they were direct files it means they were held in an institution, like a jail or an adult setting, and they were released either because there wasn’t enough evidence or the case did not materialize, are those the children you’re talking about?

PARTICIPANT: No, I’m speaking specifically of the children who were adjudicated guilty and spent time in adult correctional institutions.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): Okay, so you need your adult counterpart in correctional education to begin to send information back to the schools. I can work on that, we have not done a lot in that area but it is one that, we worked with all the correctional educators and I’m actually going to be talking to them in Annapolis, those who come to the CEA, the Correctional Education Association meeting, and I can raise it, they’ll be in Annapolis March 11 th, 12 th, and 13 th I believe, just this weekend coming up.

PARTICIPANT: Thank you very much and if you could get the SVORI information to us I’d be highly appreciative.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): Okay, great. Anything else? Were there other things that some of you were interested in when you signed up for the call?

PARTICIPANT: Hi, this is Mary Russman, I’m calling on from New York State. I’m curious as to who Jim is at Ricker’s Island, I need to talk to you.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): Mary and Jim --

PARTICIPANT: Tim Wassanti(?) --

PARTICIPANT: Tim, I thought you said it was Jim, I know who you are.

PARTICIPANT: Dottie Wodraska again from Arizona. You were mentioning accreditation as a vehicle, a way for transitioning and evaluation items, just wanted to report that the detention school in Arizona are in the process right now of doing CITA and NCA accreditation.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): And CITA stands for --

PARTICIPANT: CITA stands for the Commission on International and Trans-regional Accreditation and evidently they’re the umbrella organization for all the regional accreditation bodies and this is an effort to improve our transition services as well making it easier for credits to be transferred.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): Well, I’m sure there are others on the line, Dottie, who are interested so I thank you very much for sharing that.

PARTICIPANT: You’re welcome.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): If there are no other questions you have actually gone through the things that I had intended to present today. Calls are intended for those who are sort of new to Title I Part D, for those who are in juvenile correctional education or community education serving both neglected and delinquent young people, those who are in alternative school settings. Those of you who are getting ready for monitoring in the next six months, if there are specific things that you would like for us to help you to prepare for your monitoring visit we want to extend the invitation to help out and for others if there are issues locally that we can be of some assistance to you, again we are here just for that and we are here all the time to answer your questions and to support you.

Do all of you know who your state liaisons are?

PARTICIPANT: No.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): No, okay, let me see here, Adam Segal has Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Puerto Rico and Rhode Island. Jennifer Slivka has Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin. Lee Meredith has Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Missouri, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia. Pablo De La Huerta has Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, and South Carolina.

PARTICIPANT: Can you spell his last name please?

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): Yes, De La Huerta.

PARTICIPANT: Thank you.

MS. BURRELL (NDTAC): And this is on the website as well. Angeline Spain has California, Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Wyoming, and the State of Washington. And Regina Waugh has Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota. So we have representation from everybody’s communities today and we hope that you will contact your liaisons and at least begin to build the relationship around your needs as with the TA Center.

Hearing no further questions I want to thank you for participating and we will do these calls once a month based on the things that you need answers to so keep sending the questions.

PARTICIPANTS: Thank you.