BLYTHE - As of Jan. 27, 2010, Riverside County Superior Court will hold Truancy and Safe Schools Court at 2 p.m., every fourth Wednesday of the month, for students in the Palo Verde Unified School District (PVUSD) who are issued a citation for offenses such as loitering, truancy, alcohol possession or consumption, or vandalism, to name just a few.
Riverside County Senior Deputy District Attorney Raquel Marquez and Riverside County Sheriff's Deputy Larry Searles, presented to the PVUSD School Board statistics regarding the correlation between truancy, dropouts and juvenile offenders.
It was reported that 75 percent of California prisoners, state and county, are high school dropouts. In addition, 71 percent of juvenile crimes were committed during school hours.
"I have literally sent thousands to prison," said Marquez. "A vast majority of them are not horrific offenders but a high percentile, possibly 90 percent, were dropouts."
The School District's dropout rate was brought to the attention of the Riverside County District Attorney's Office over recent years. PVUSD's dropout rate sits at 27.30 percent, translated to one in every five students dropping out.
While those numbers are better than California's average dropout rate of one out of every three students, it is still an issue with the D.A.'s office.
In a joint effort between agencies - D.A.'s office, Riverside County Probation, Blythe Police Department, Riverside County Sheriff's, Riverside County Superior Court, and PVUSD -they have agreed to work together in finding and implementing a possible solution to the community's dropout rate.
Through a program designed for the individual student who commits a serious infraction, instead of the usual punishment of writing an essay or in some cases the student being virtually untouchable - they will face one year probation; driver license suspension; community service; Saturday School; have to keep up with school attendance; and show grade improvements. This programs includes the added benefit of possibly assigning anger management or counseling to the student.
With this type of intervention, the D.A.'s Office representative hopes to experience 60 percent fewer expulsions and suspensions and create safer schools.
Facing similar situations in the San Jacinto Unified School District, the program was first introduced to that community in a Hemet courtroom in October.
At that time it was intended to make the availability of the program countywide.
Superior Court Judge Sarah Christian commented earlier this year when working on the program, that the program would also be helpful to be able to deal with juveniles here in Blythe instead of sending them to Indio, where juveniles are currently handled.
"Thank you to Judge Christian for the support of the program," said Marquez.
Marquez and Searles were scheduled to hold assemblies at Blythe Middle School throughout the day on Wednesday to prepare and educate the students on the Truancy and Safe School Court.
Reader Comments
Posted: Friday, December 11, 2009
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Give credit where credit is due!This was created by a great juvenile judge,Judged Koosed.Riverside County Superior Court, (County Farm Road)
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