Toward the end of the 1997-98 school year, Truett implemented a pilot program at Southside Middle School for truants. Those figures don t include truants who didn t get caught. TIP and the truancy centers are funded through several sources a federal law enforcement block grant, state funds from the Department of Juvenile Justice and city resources. The program s staff are city employees. The Youth Crisis Center provides all counseling and social services guidance.
Schools provide space and equipment.
Within months of the program s inception, attendance rates began to climb but something else happened. For the calendar year 1999, juvenile arrests for daytime burglaries declined 35 percent, and the number of daytime burglaries dropped by 32 percent. Truett says the project required some diplomacy between city and school officials. It took a little dancing. We didn t want to get in there and tell them what to do, she says.