During the 2013/2014 school year, community agencies collaborated to create a prevention program for at-risk youth. Goals of this program were to improve the quality of behavioral health services to children who live in Page County, keep students who normally would have been suspended “out of school” on track academically and supervised rather than sent home due to disciplinary infractions (where children are now more often than not, unsupervised), and to provide preventative interventions to at-risk students that are much less expensive than detention or residential or day school placements. The Alternative Suspension Center (ASC) began on February 24, 2014 and works as follows: If a student receives a disciplinary disposition from a school administrator due to an offense that would have normally required an “out of school suspension,” rather than be put out of school for the required number days, this student is instead placed for the same number of days in the ASC. The ASC is located in a building behind Luray Middle School and runs from 9:00 am until 2:00 pm each day with a 30 minute supervised lunch. Transportation to and from the ASC and lunch are provided by the school system. Students bring their own class work with them to work on or appropriate class work is sent by teachers to the ASC in advance of each student’s arrival via scanners /emails. If students do not attend the ASC as assigned or are sent home from the ASC due to disruptive or non-compliant behavior, they are assigned an additional day of ASC. All ASC absences other than illness are coded as “unexcused” and are communicated to the school system’s truancy department so that court action might take place (parents and/or students). In addition, each day, students placed in the ASC receive one hour of researched-based social skills education (Aggression Replacement Training) that covers such topics as anger management, thinking ahead, and implementing moral reasoning from licensed counselors from a private behavioral health agency. Wonderful results have been achieved:
- 2/24/14-6/6/14 - 52 students were sent to the ASC (continued school work & received social skills education) rather than be sent home. Attendance increase-142 days. 10 of 52 students requested additional services from ASC counselors. One student slated for residential placement received community-based services saving $25,000 - $45,000 to the county.
- 8/25/14-2/27/15 - 51 students sent to ASC. Attendance increase-138 days. 24 of 51 students referred for additional counseling. ASC use dropped from 66 of 67 days in 2013/2014 to 76 of 121 days (-36%). Actual Cost of program - about $20,000 not including transportation.
- General School Discipline (In-school suspensions-ISS) – Comparing first 6 months of 2013/2014 (No ASC) with first 6 months of 2014/2015 (ASC full implementation):
- High schools - ISS reduced from 116 days to just 75 days (-35%). OSS reduced from 76 days to 8 (-89%).
- Middle schools - ISS reduced from 74 days to 60 days (-19%). OSS reduced from 32 days to 9 in 2014/2015 (-72%).
Complete ASC information link: https://sites.google.com/a/pagecounty.k12.va.us/altsuspensioncenter/