Hamilton County: Leaders target truancy, plan juvenile assessment center

School, law enforcement and community officials Tuesday morning set a goal to develop a Hamilton County juvenile assessment center to address the issues of truancy and at-risk children.

During a meeting at Hamilton County Juvenile Court, the Chattanooga Hamilton County Safe Policies Committee discussed ways to stop a growing truancy problem. Officials said they also will discuss how to combat the city’s gang problems and improve school safety.

Its first directive, however, is to decrease truancy in Hamilton County Schools, said Chris Albright, juvenile court administrator.

With its long-term goal of creating an assessment center — which would give police officers and school officials a place to take juveniles who are truant, out past curfew or endangered, among other situations — the committee also discussed ways to achieve it, beginning with a better record-keeping system for truant students, Mr. Albright said.

That would entail a uniform policy for determining what constitutes truancy, whether it be an hour late to school or three, he said.

A core committee may meet monthly to work toward the goal, while quarterly community meetings will keep everyone updated on the process, Mr. Albright said.

“All we are at is: What does the community want? What do we need and how can we get started?” he said. “The first piece of that puzzle naturally is truancy because, though it seems the simplest, it contains the greatest volume” of juveniles.

The facility also would require efforts from the city, county, Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, Chattanooga Police Department and public school system, as well as state and federal assistance in terms of funding and resources, Mr. Albright said. Officials talked about ways to hold parents accountable before the court, as well as students.

Presenting a united front against truancy will help combat it, Hamilton County Schools Superintendent Dr. Jim Scales said. He said he is excited to see so many of the big players from the city and county involved in the meeting. He also said record-keeping errors, involving getting students to court when necessary, could be corrected.

“I was dismayed when I found out that our record-keeping over the last six or seven years has been in question,” Dr. Scales said. “We need to make sure that we correct that. That should be a relatively easy fix.”

Chattanooga Chief of Police Freeman Cooper said that although the idea is in its primitive stages, a juvenile assessment center would lessen the time officers spend with truant students.

“It would relieve a lot of the anxieties and frustrations that police officers go through,” he said, adding that an officer who picks up a student during school hours must take the child to school, contact parents or take the child to the juvenile detention center and stay with him or her until a responsible party arrives.

“We just don’t have the manpower to do that,” Chief Cooper said.

Joe Smith, regional director of a YMCA program called YMCA Community, attended Tuesday’s meeting and said he appreciated the large number of people interested in fixing the problem.

“Never in my career have I seen the right people in the same room at the same time,” he said. “All the team players were in that meeting this morning. That was fascinating. Obviously, the commnity’s very, very concerned.”