Project HOPE to stop the School to Prison Pipeline (Healing Over Prison Experience)
Project Hope is a targeted approach which involves a school leader spending half their day at the correctional facility (JDC) and part of their time at the feeder schools to the JDC to mentor and support elementary students and staff. Interviews and targeted mentoring and collaboration with agencies occurs to provide resources for students ensuring we prevent students from entering the Juvenile Detention Center and we reduce recidivism for those departing the detention center. Early intervention and promotion of district wide equity councils and programs occurs as part of Project Hope.
The Co-chairs of these Equity Council,
Superintendent, Dr. Tiffany Anderson and Dr. New, started an
initiative in 2017 to stop and dismantle the school to prison
pipeline. The district recognizes that lack of success, mentors and the overall
loss of hope often leads to crime and feeds the school to prison pipeline
rather than feeding the school to college pipeline. Therefore, wrap around
services have been implemented that target address the school to prison
pipeline and a significant reduction in offenders in the Juvenile
Detention Center occurred in 2018-2020. Following the pandemic that
isolated some families and impacted the mental health of the community, an
increase in juvenile offenders has been viewed since 2021 when students
returned full time to school. The initiative started in 2017 that layered
support systems into the schools and the Juvenile Detention Center evolved to a
systemic process called Project HOPE (Healing Over Prison Experiences)
which is aimed at bridging the connection and mentorship between schools and
educators at the JDC. After the superintendent's listening tour,
increased in-school alternatives and therapeutic spaces were implemented.
Stopping the School School to Prison Pipeline
Initiatives
· 2017 Avondale West Alternative
School Opened
· 2017 JAG Academy for elementary
supports was opened
Avondale West provided students a place to
attend school and gain mental health services from social workers and
partner agencies. It also allowed incarcerated youth a school to
attend to gain social and emotional support before returning to their
comprehensive school which has helped ensure greater success in the
comprehensive school setting. The alternative school model at Avondale
West, opened to provide in-school discipline systems for secondary students who
were not able to successfully attend their comprehensive school, a virtual
school model was implemented within Avondale West to allow students to access
classes virtually if online education was a more appropriate platform to meet
individual needs.
· 2017 TPS expanded the use of
researched based social emotional support systems.
Restorative justice, peace
initiative resources, and mental health support systems were
increased by adding more counselors and increasing the implementation of mental
health teams across the district working with partner agencies.
Counseling rations are below the national average allowing for more counselors
at every school, therapeutic animals and other therapeutic services were
implemented.
· 2018 TPS expanded the use of
researched based social emotional support systems in partnership with KU
implementing screeners and ACE survey.
· 2019 TPS created a school and police
officer partnership.The partnership is
intended to support students in schools, build relationships and to provide
positive experiences with law enforcement.
The district and law enforcement officials
created an MOU to remove non-violent offenses as criminal charges from youth
and police were engaged as school based instructors in career based
classrooms for early relationship building. .
Resources on Ways to Stop the School
To Prison Pipeline
https://all4ed.org/januarys-brown-vs-board-challenge-dismantling-the-school-to-prison-pipeline/
https://www.aclu.org/issues/juvenile-justice/school-prison-pipeline/school-prison-pipeline-infographic