Tyler

By CASEY KNAUPP
Staff Writer

A new agreement with county superintendents and the Smith County Juvenile Board approved Thursday won’t change how the Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program is operated.

In May, superintendents from the eight Smith County school districts voiced concerns to judges about the increased cost of sending students to the county’s JJAEP program.

The superintendents gave a presentation to the juvenile board, complaining that they can’t pay the $203 per day per student fee to send disruptive students who should be placed there, so the delinquents are instead sitting in class with regular students.

Board members discussed letting the school districts run the school because the judges were “poorly suited” to handle educational matters.

But on Thursday, Juvenile Services Director Nelson Downing said he was advised in June that it was not feasible for the Tyler Independent School District to operate the program. He also told the judges that the schools made it plain they wouldn’t pay the $203 a day for discretionary students so they won’t be sending them to the program.

The schools had already opted not to send the discretionary students to the program last year, so only the mandatory students will continue to be sent to the JJAEP, Downing said.

Smith County Judge Joel Baker, state district judges Carole Clark and Jack Skeen Jr., and county court-at-law judges Floyd Getz and Tom Dunn unanimously approved the 2008-09 JJAEP memorandum of understanding with Arp, Bullard, Chapel Hill, Lindale, Troup, Tyler, White-house and Winona school districts.

After the meeting, TISD Superintendent Dr. Randy Reid commented on the issue.

“It’s unfortunate that it doesn’t look like that we’re going to be able to work an arrangement with (the juvenile board) that will get us back in the business of working with Smith County on our serious and persistent misbehavior children,” Reid said. “We will continue to send them the ones that are incarcerated and the ones who have felonies because they are required to take them, but the discretionary placements, we’re going to have to look for other alternatives.”

There are three groups of students serviced by Smith County — incarcerated, mandatory felony placements and discretionary placements. The JJAEP only involves children who are not incarcerated.

The county implemented the JJAEP in 1996, after the state Legislature mandated it for students removed from classes because of criminal conduct.

Since the program’s inception, lawmakers have widened the scope of which students can be sent to the program. Students who have committed one of seven violent felonies face mandatory expulsion from school and are sent to JJAEP, Downing said. The school district can choose which discretionary students, those who have committed a growing list that now includes the majority of felonies, to expel and send to JJAEP, Downing said, adding that there has to be a memorandum of understanding with the county on the cost per student and other guidelines.

Reid said in May that since the price increase last summer, the schools haven’t sent a single “discretionary student” to the program all year; only mandatory students have been sent.

Reid said the program’s cost for discretionary students, raised to $203 from $75, would cost the districts $36,000 per school year — a price tag they simply can’t afford. He said the second offer by the board to lower the cost to $150 a day is still too high.

“When it was $75 a day, that was a reasonable thing for us to do,” Reid said Thursday. “But at $203 a day, it’s not.”

The state pays $79 for the mandatory students and the county is stuck with the rest of the costs for those children, Downing said, adding that the program is a “money-losing operation.”

Downing said the county can charge the districts the actual costs for each student, but nothing more. He said the rates went up considerably since they were last adjusted 10 or more years ago and it now costs $203.47 per day per student.

Staff writer Megan Middleton contributed to this report.