Grantee: Austin Independent School District
Project Title:
Austin ISD Students Most Likely to Succeed: A Culturally Responsive Restorative Approach in Support of Students Impacted by Violence
The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) awarded grant funding to eight local districts under the OJJDP FY 2019 Comprehensive School-Based Approach to Youth Violence and Victimization Program (CYVP). This grant program supported a comprehensive effort to address youth violence and victimization through implementing evidence-based prevention, intervention, and accountability efforts in a school-based setting. The goals of the program were to: (1) reduce the incidence of school violence through accountability efforts for offenders; (2) respond to victimization, exposure to violence, and trauma as a result of violence that occurs in the school, community, or family; (3) improve school safety and climate; and (4) prevent violence, delinquency, and victimization in the targeted community. LISC Safety & Justice provided technical assistance and training to enhance CYVP grantees’ capacity to reach their goals.
Introduction
Austin Independent School District (AISD) encompasses 230 square miles in one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the country. The district serves 73,000 students in 116 schools and is quite diverse, with students speaking more than 100 languages. More than half of AISD students are economically disadvantaged. AISD supports academic rigor with a focus on social and emotional learning. AISD used the CYVP grant to work intensively in three schools: Crockett Early College High School and Covington Middle School, both in South Austin, and the Alternative Learning Center, which serves students district-wide who have been temporarily removed from their home campuses for disciplinary reasons.
Each of the targeted schools has a unique culture and assets. Crockett Early College High School has an ingrained culture of equity and inclusion that stands out from typical campus hierarchies. Students are empowered to speak openly and give feedback on issues that impact them. Covington Middle School has a fine arts academy full of creative and talented students in grades 6-8. Covington students have had opportunities to be interact with professional performers and producers in Austin and New York. Austin’s Alternative Learning Center (ALC) does not have a permanent student population. It educates students for varying periods of time, from two days to several weeks, until they can return to their home campuses. Administrators have found that ALC students, despite the challenges they are experiencing personally, are very perceptive in recognizing systemic racism and its impacts and able to express it adeptly through their art and poetry. All three schools have strong and thoughtful leaders who bring out the best in their faculty and staff, creating a culture of leadership throughout their campuses.
Project Purpose
AISD applied for the CYVP grant to address several issues in the three schools: youth violence and victimization, disparities in disciplinary referrals and/or involvement with the juvenile justice system, and school performance. These concerns existed in 2019 when the grants were awarded and were only exacerbated by the dual pandemic of COVID-19 and racism that came to the fore after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. AISD saw impacts on student mental health, with skyrocketing rates of depression and anxiety as well as suicides and attempted suicides. There was also an increase in youth violence and community violence. AISD was receiving increased requests for mental health and other services, bearing out the national data about the crisis in youth mental health.
Approach
AISD designed a culturally responsive, restorative approach to positive youth identity development, school climate, intervention, and accountability. In contrast to traditional disciplinary models that focus on punitive measures, AISD’s approach could address root causes of youth violence and victimization to prevent further incidents. Such an approach focuses on student mental and social-emotional well-being. Crockett High School already had a school-based mental health center that served its campus as well as students at 12 other schools. AISD planned to recreate that model at Covington and ALC using CYVP grant funds, allowing them to extend mental health services not only to the target schools but more widely throughout the district. The district was preparing to hire therapists to staff the new centers when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted business as usual. The jobs attracted very few applicants, in part because the pandemic-driven need for mental health services placed counselors and therapists in high demand. AISD found it could not compete in the labor market with the salaries and positions it could offer.
Forced to adjust its plans, AISD talked to school principals about what they considered the most important parts of mental health centers and asked what elements they wanted to recreate. Principals said their students needed connections to people on campus just to listen to them, not for academic concerns but for their mental and emotional health. AISD also worked with a community stakeholder group for advice and support, making a particular effort to listen deeply, connect with stakeholders including teachers and staff, and slow down and take the necessary time to figure out a workable and effective alternative to its original plan.
AISD decided to use the grant funds to place individuals at schools to support students and families. The district hired a licensed mental health professional at ALC and a restorative practice associate at Crockett. It also brought the Communities in Schools program to all the campuses to help students and families connect to community resources. It implemented a mentoring program for students and a support group for new teachers. Through these measures, AISD was able provide the most important features of the proposed mental health centers: people who are dedicated to listening to students, connecting with them and their families, and providing trauma-informed care.
To ensure the services are reaching the students who need them, each campus holds “child study team” meetings with an assistant principal and counselor dedicated to each grade. These staff members can identify students that have high need (academic, behavioral, mental health, or situational) and may not qualify for a specific support program, but need someone to connect with and talk to. When a counselor or other staff member touches base with a student, they are trained to review the child’s academic schedule, grades, attendance record, and other key information, ask questions about any issues they see, and determine what support the child may need from the school. Subsequently, the child study teams can review the student’s grades or attendance and see if they improved after the conversation. Such incremental indicators of progress will not always show up in larger data pulls for the campus or the district, but they are critically important for the individual students. AISD considers those individual results to be as important as overall trends.
Results
AISD officials believe the CYVP grant has been very successful. Students are more connected on the campuses and the difference is noticeable. In fact, the district is seeing more students requesting to attend Crockett for high school. What’s more, the extra supports put in place with the grant funds are fully sustainable. The licensed mental health professional at the ALC and the restorative practice professional at Crockett will remain permanent, full-time employees even after the grant period ends. The positions originated with CYVP grant funds, but the campuses are now using their own budgets to pay for the positions. This commitment is a tribute to how effective and important these supports have been for the students. The district is also planning to continue funding Communities in Schools at each campus and supporting the new teacher cohort.
Related Resources
Webinar: School Safety and Wellness Spaces
Webinar: Decreasing Punishment & Increasing Equity in Schools
Webinar: Supporting Students’ Mental Health
See all of LISC's resources on comprehensive school-based approaches to addressing youth violence and victimization.
The Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) works to prevent and respond to youth delinquency and protect children.
Resources on this page are supported by Grant 2019-MU-MU-K011, awarded by the Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Neither the U.S. Department of Justice nor any of its components operate, control, are responsible for, or necessarily endorse, this web site (including, without limitation, its content, technical infrastructure, and policies, and any services or tools provided).
OJJDP provides national leadership, coordination, and resources to prevent and respond to youth delinquency and victimization. The Office helps states, localities, and tribes develop effective and equitable juvenile justice systems that create safer communities and empower youth to lead productive lives.