Dothan program to get juveniles on track may become federal casualty

A partnership between the Dothan City Schools and a program to get juvenile delinquents back on track may become a casualty of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The Community Intensive Treatment for Youth program takes youth referred to the program by the juvenile court system and provides them with help getting a GED and career and family counseling. For more than a decade, the program has been housed in facilities belonging to the Dothan City Schools and has used the school system’s food and transportation services.

In return, the city school system has been able to count students in the program toward its enrollment numbers. Because state funding is based on enrollment numbers, the CITY program kids brought in extra dollars for the Dothan City Schools.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act has made the city schools think twice about the relationship.

To meet NCLB’s requirements for adequate yearly progress, Alabama’s high schools must have a 90 percent graduation rate. If the schools don’t make AYP, they can face sanctions, up to a state takeover. Youth in the CITY program don’t graduate high school — they get GEDs — and the state does not recognize GEDs for graduation purposes.

Dothan High, where the CITY kids are counted on the enrollment books, has missed the graduation requirement for three years and is edging close to facing sanctions. By getting the about 30 CITY kids off its enrollment books, Dothan High can boost its graduation rate by a few points.

Sam Nichols, Dothan City School superintendent, said that at the end of the school year he will look into changing the relationship between the city schools and the CITY program to get the CITY kids off Dothan High’s books. According to Nichols, the local CITY program is one of only two CITY programs in the state to have an enrollment agreement with a local school system.

The rest are directly funded by the Alabama Department of Post Secondary Education. Nichols said he would like to work out an agreement where the program could continue to use the city schools’ facilities, but whether that will happen is uncertain.

Kristina Johnson, director of the CITY program, said she doesn’t have the funds to rent or purchase facilities or services from the city school system. Johnson said she hopes something can be worked out to save the local program. Johnson said the CITY program was beneficial because it’s cheaper than sending youth to juvenile detention facilities and because 71 percent of its students stay out of criminal trouble once they’re in the program.

“This is oftentimes the last resort,” she said. “All of these kids have been through the juvenile courts, they all have charges.”