how do i get them reconnected? where are the supports in the community?" that is the ideal way we would like the community to utilize the tarc center. with that, i should also add that we have had a successful pilot with the d.a.'s office as well, who runs a truancy court. it initially started off with looking at elementary school- aged families, who were again chronic and habitually truant, but then, we launched in may -- in may, they started a truancy court for the high school students, and we received 15 referrals and are still engaged in working with those young people even through the summer to insure that they are being gauged back in school, connected to us, and be engaged back in school when school starts next month. so i would like to turn the microphone over to my colleague, the director of the tarc center. supervisor dufty: if i could just ask, when school resumes in

august, the tarc center itself, students will be brought to that center, and it will be open and operational? >> absolutely. supervisor dufty: one moment. commissioner mendoza. commissioner mendoza: thank you. can i just ask a quick question on the truancy corp. for high schools? there were 15 kids that were referred. can you explain that a little bit more for us and what that looks like and where the referrals come from or how the kids are identified? >> i will do my best. katie miller from the district

attorney's office oversees the truancy courts. there is a court for elementary school-aged families, young people and families, but of course, the older kids, the high school-aged kids, they are going after the young people themselves, and is again our young people who have been a chronic habitually truant, that we have not been able to connect with or catch up with, either through the district or community-based efforts, so with the use of school resource officers, the d.a.'s office are going out and subpoenaing these young people to come into court. they will come into the family court house. then, those young people are connected to the tarc center for academic and wraparound support services. again, there were 15 young people. they just started the court for the high school students, the teenage students, in may. they will continue to operate

the court every other month, where they will have to go back. there will be progress reports heard, and the kids will be expected to come back every two months. we will be in a charting their progress and insuring that they get reconnected. >> hi, everyone. thank you for having us. i'm the director for the tarc center. just to speak to the truancy court, again, like liz said -- >> and i just figured, since this was a new role, we always like to warm up the room, and tell us about your background coming to this position. it is always a good thing. if that is ok. >> i have been with urban

services ymca for a little over two and a half years. i have an extensive background in case management services and have worked with children and families through san francisco for 10 + years. a recent graduate of san francisco state university where i earned my master's in social work there with an emphasis in administration and planning, so this work is very dear to me. in my previous capacities, at different organizations, i have done truancy work as well, so coming to the ymca, i came with some truancy background and was able to bring that experience to the table, so i'm glad to be here today. supervisor dufty: we're glad, too, so thank you. >> with regard to the truancy court, we have been there in may and june, and it has been a very interesting experience, but we have been allowed -- we've been glad to be there to work with the district attorney's office. we have tried to actively engage

this young people are in accord, connect with the families, connect with the young people and set up times to meet with those young people. what we found is that many of those young people have been disengaged from the academic environment for quite some time, so our work has been over the school years to further identify what those barriers to attendance and getting better grades and engaging the school -- we have tried to really find out what those barriers are and work with those young people. that is what our work has been looking like as well as connecting young people and their families with support services, specific to where they need those services, the types of needs we have had the we have been able to identify and the things they have expressed. but again, the district attorney's office has referred 15 young people, and we are actively working with them, as well as the school district has made referrals.

during our pilot time, we also had a number of calls from parents who called hearing about the tarc center and had students that were true and that they wanted support for, so we have also worked with those families to get them connected over the summer and to really work specifically on a transition plan for the upcoming school year. what we're hoping is before the upcoming school year to provide all our young civil with backpacks, school supplies, which will be partnered with the containers work that is happening right now, and we are working on getting some alarm clocks and some other tools that will be good for them to have to help them with getting back into school. i do also want to make mentioned, with regards to the process which the is mentioned earlier as far as the kids coming into our center and getting assets or what have you, one of the primary focus is on our program is that we hold the hands of our young people. i know sometimes a lot of people speak against that, but kids

that are chronically truant oftentimes need someone to connect with them and to hold their hand, so one of our primary emphasis will be providing next day follow-up with our young people, so you come into our center today, we have a case manager that will connect with you the next day at home, in school, in your community to check with you to see how your day is going, to continue that kind of handholding for a couple of weeks to help get them established in school and settled and kind of help with that transition. from that point, we will reassess to determine if the status on track and good to go. great, we can kind of close them out on our in. if they still need support, we will be able to refer them for long-term case management services within our truancy program that we currently have, or to an outside organization, but again, we believe in connecting our young people with people and not with program, so we are going to be looking to build stronger relationships with cbo's and that are here in

san francisco, and we already have some existing relationships. >> thank you, very much. i think i am making my comment for everyone else following at the microphone. this is such a serious issue throughout our city and our school district. i would request that you be as honest and as candid with us as you can be in any presentation today. there is no need to -- yes, there is a professionalism that i definitely appreciate, but i really want to hear details. if you're saying that you are going to offer services and connect them with people, i would like to hear some of the details of that so i could better understand if somebody comes to tarc and somehow through your assessment process, you figure it is just an alarm

clock -- how did you come to figure that was all that they needed? just then alarm clock? or actually, there is a much deeper causation for why they are truant or why apparent refers their child -- or why a tariff refers to a child? we have our own understanding, but now you are in existence for another reason, because we were not able to solve it on our side of the block, and i'm grateful you are at the table to help us with this, but i appreciate the candidates you can bring to the conversation today. >> i will add that we will have our assessments that would have internally that we will use, and with the partnership with the school district, we will be able to tap into what those issues are, but i will say that -- and we have had that question come off in the past when we talk to different folks -- we did a great deal of investigation. we will ask those kinds of

general questions, but we do deep very deep in our conversations and our meetings with those young people. sometimes, those young people are very honest with us, and it can be something as simple as an alarm clock, or it could be something deeper like having insomnia because they have nightmares at night and they cannot sleep. those are some of the issues that have come up, so we do a lot of assessment or investigations in working with our young people. fortunately, our staff has the background that we do have, but we also have our personal experience, so we are often able to identify with those young people and be able to ask the right questions to get more deeper information, and that is the work that we will be continuing to do. sometimes -- again, there are a lot of issues that come up, and we have had issues that come up on safety. bullying in school. we have had issues about insomnia, nightmares. we have had kids who have been

victims of violence in their past. the issue is deeper a lot of times than just an alarm clock, and our work is to really dig deep into that, and we understand that we cannot do this work alone, and that is why we rely heavily on the resources that are out in the community, because there are issues that maybe a little beyond our scope where we have to connect with other organizations to do that work. >> thank you very much, and if i may follow on something you said about working with existing resources. i believe that some of our collective issue is that the existing resources were not able to figure out, you know, how to fit the pieces to this puzzle together, and we are part of the existing resources. how will you be able to reinvigorate or how's this -- have those existing resources take a fresh look at what they're doing? maybe you need someone else to take a look at that, but if they

had a program and have been doing this work and have not been able to help solve the issue, and you are new to the table, how will you be able to have those partners reassess what they are doing? >> i will let liz speak to that. >> i would like to say that the beauty of this collaboration is that we have a lot of decision makers and people in the right places to help us figure out how to better navigate the system because navigating school system is not an easy task. navigating mental health is not an easy task, so you need folks that are savvy and understand the intricacies of these organizations. i think we have that available to us around the tarc table. i would like to give an example of one of the referrals and how we have to connect the dots. 1/3 of the referrals that come

in the family resource centers from their differential response caseload -- these are individuals who have had sepias calls made against them for various reasons -- had cps calls made against them, said at the family research center, they would call in to get support. one case in point is a young woman who was 13, 14 years old that attended washington high school and was not going to school because -- for safety reasons. when our case managers were able to delve deeper, there was some speculation about her prostituting herself and not feeling safe going to school, amongst her peers and simply have not gone. so it takes a real savvy case manager mental health professional, school district staff, community workers to figure out a strategy and a plan and how to resourced and

support that family and that young person to get her comfortable and be engaged in school. is it a different placement of school? perhaps. does she have other academic needs and support? is she falling behind? how do we help her catch up? how do we get some mental health counseling for her to overcome some of the social problems she has been exposed to or experienced with? to get this young person back on a track of normalcy? if there is such a thing. that is the kind of -- and she asked for one type situation, and i know it is very graphic, but our young people are facing a number of social problems. but understand, is how to navigate cps, how to get them off your back if you are a family member, yet get the support that you need. how to find another placement for your young person if that is indeed what she needs.

how to get her surrounded with hears that will not make her feel unsafe at school. these are some of the intricacies we're having to deal with and support young people in. it is proving that it works. before, we were only able to do it on a small scale. now we have 4500 young people we hope we will be able to attract and support. with varying degrees, of course, but i just want to say kind of a deeper example of how we need to connect mental health, cps, school district, police, community. it is very complicated. again, we did not mean to make it seem as if it was a really simple situation, but if they are chronic or habitual truant, the situations are multi-pronged and very complicated. thank you. commissioner kim: i walked in a little bit late, so i hope -- i

do not know if this was already asked. when does tarc start? and what is the expected capacity in terms of number of students that you can serve? >> tarc has already started, but i will have list speak about the details -- i will have liz speak about the details. the facility is open and has been opened. that is why they are presenting on some of the day-to-day work that is being done currently. the only difference is that we have not had the increase of referrals that we had in september, given the school will not be starting until august. but there is individuals that have been referred from the other partners tarc back has been working with individuals -- that tarc has been working with individually. commissioner kim: when did you open? >> may 3. commissioner kim: when did you start serving students? >> [inaudible]

that day, at a clock 40 a.m. , and i would like to ask officer perillo to come up to talk about some of the rollout from the police department as well -- 8:40 a.m. we wanted to start something, so again, we started that day. actually, that day, at 8:45, a parent brought her son in kicking and screaming. police referral. parent came in with her son. "i cannot make him go to school." which is the better way. we would like to see parents and community utilizing the service as well. but it is supposed to be reciprocated, that the whole community sees this as a resource, but we launched in two communities with the baby station and northern station western addition community because that is where a significant number of referrals

for truancy come from as we were launching this pilot, but then officer perillo -- commissioner kim: before you go, i was confused. i thought it was at the goth street site. >> we only had a few more weeks of school before the service was launched, so we just started a program with those communities, but officer perillo will talk about how we involve the entire force. commissioner kim: before you go, how many students have you served, and what is the expected capacity during the school year? >> for that month, we solved 30 students that came from a variety of sources -- community, parents, d.a., truancy court, schools, so they came from a variety of sources, so we anticipate potentially serving -- i mean, it is a pilot, so even during the pilot, we saw 30

students, so we will probably see twice as many per month. commissioner kim: is that your capacity? you can serve 60 cents a month? >> i think 200 for the whole year. commissioner kim: currently, you could serve 240 school year? >> afternoon, commissioners and supervisors. some of us have been in this for a while, and is great to have a percolating to the surface. from our end, there is a department bulletin that will instruct the officers around the procedures and piggyback off an existing one that had the whole trouble services involved in their, but instead, we put tarc in there, and we are encouraging officers to engage with our youth in a positive way, and intervention way, and a way to recognize that day as the

officers are part of the community. basically, they connect with the youth and then make the call to tarc, as you probably heard procedurally, and then with the go ahead, take them to tarc for the intake, the assessment. supervisor dufty: thank you. could i also invite of the chief of juvenile probation? i appreciate that he came to offer his support. >> one more person that we would like to share. is that ok? >> we have claudia anderson represented of the unified school district, and she is going to share a little bit about some of the overlapping existing resources that are really tied in tarc. >> i'm claudia anderson, and i am sort of a new face to this. in the new director of executive

support services, but i'm not new to this population of students. supervisor dufty: as we asked before, why don't you tell us a little bit about your background? >> it is really exciting to be here with liz and christine and low is because i have known them for years with the work we have done together. my background -- i have been in the school district for a little over 20 years, and all of that time is spent in alternative education, so i have always worked -- i can do in the county programs or in the continuation schools with students who for a variety of reasons have been marginalized, and it has always been a frustration to me because in settings that i work in, it is about relationships. it is about really digging deep and understanding that there are youth, even though we do not like to think about, there are youth who have experience complex multiple trauma in their lives, and it is not as simple

as they do not want to go to school where they do not want to learn or whenever we say, so it is really exciting to me to see that we are now looking at this as a city challenge that we need to all work together and bring whatever our pieces are to the table, and yes, it is true that san francisco unified school district has not been able to solve this, and i can say for me personally in my background, it has been really frustrating -- early in the game when i would have these one-room schoolhouses with maybe two or three teachers and there were no social services, and now, to really see this coming to fruition where we recognize that those issues are the domain of education or the domain of all of us because they are our kids is really exciting, and i'm very new to student support services, so what i can say is that the commitment was there before me to engage in tarc and we did

place on may 3 when it opened, we had a counselor from student support services at tarc. we had our student information system established down there so we really could go in and see what was going on, at least academically. we could see what counseling notes might exist, although again, unfortunately, the things that they are able, through relationship and human kindness, that they are able to honor, are probably not listed in the student information system. they're much deeper. supervisor dufty: given your background in the school district, one of the things that happens is there are some students that we between the city and school district have failed, and this is over a time when the educational deficit is enormous. is that something you will be thinking about? i have heard discussion and times about whether maybe not every student is going to be able to achieve it of " if they are coming in at the latter

stages that are not so far behind. is that something that's in terms of your overview, are you going to be looking at some of those types of challenges? >> absolutely. when a student comes to tarc, that is part of the assessment. you have to look at where they are academically. they are 17 years old and had 32 credits, it does not make too much sense that they will put you back over at washington high school. we really do need to look at what are the educational options that we have both within san francisco unified and within the larger city. there are other options beyond san francisco unified that might support some of the students. job corps might be a good option for someone. a five-piece charter program might be a good option. so i think we need to look beyond just the limits of what sfusd has to offer, but what are the city-wide resources that can serve these you who have been underserved by our system?

supervisor dufty: i would offer the in your reporting relationship, you would be reporting to the school district, but i think there's tremendous value in communicating to the city because we really have to look at young people that our aging out into adulthood and may not have -- they are not going to leave with the skills from school in order to advance successfully, and what we need to do to really prioritize these individuals in other programs that you are describing? whether it is job corps or -- then my ged program. supervisor dufty: there are a number of things we can do, so i think it is essential that there be some strong lines of communication from your leadership and what is going to happen with tarc to the city as a whole. i think we're looking at young people who if the school does not have the tool box to intervene to really get somebody graduating and ready to go on to the next step, whether is training or education, then we have really got to look at

meaningfully providing other options. i guess i want to open the discussion and say i think we have got to prioritize the. for us as policy makers, there may be ways that we legislatively or from a funding standpoint create that priority in terms of workforce programs that the city has. so i just want to really open up that discussion and say that not everyone -- elementary school students, yes, that would be my objective. my goal for elementary or mills will students would be that each and every one of them succeed in the school, the cup -- succeed and this will become the right place for them, but i think there will be a group of individuals who have been filled by the system, and we have to think things through. >> absolutely. >> i'm so glad you're with us at students support services, particularly given your background in working in alternative schools. i had a couple of questions, and this was also for liz.

you had talked about some of the top issues that have come up the cause students to be truant, whether it is insomnia, being victims of violence, bullying, worrying about safety. can we start collecting that kind of data? >> i think that was in their capacity and they are going to document it. commissioner kim: are these actually the top concerns or issues, obstacles that our students are facing the cause truancy? >> specifically, some of the top ones are the transitioning from eighth to ninth grade. that has been a big one. also being so far behind in their work they do not feel prepared or motivated enough to go back to catch up. those are among the top ones that are coming up for the kids we're working with, and we are actively collecting that information, and as we continue to report out, we will be

reporting that information because we feel it is very important to be able to identify what specifically those barriers are so we can restructure how we do our work with and our program -- schools, ceos, what have you. >> coming from a public policy perspective, it is so important for us to have this kind of data for two reasons -- we need to develop an academic and support program that addresses the top truancy challenges that come up for students. if we already know that 30% of our students are not coming to school because of a, then we should have something in place instead of always trying to come up and peace something together. on the flip and for our school district, we need to -- we need our teachers and principals to be able to be aware of what it is that causes students to be frequently true it -- habib truant -- truant before they

even end up with you. something that is challenging for us at the board when we deal with expulsion and ec students coming to west neared the end is that they are so far behind is that we actually do not have programs in place for them that we know will help them become successful and to graduate or even get their ged, and is very frustrating, but it is nice to know the we can start collecting this data and start creating something that is already in place for students. i'm also curious as to how we are partnering with community response network, and have we started working with them in terms of having them also pick up our students, since they are actually out on the streets? >> actually, i do not know what -- i do not know if anyone's to address the specifically, but we have been trying to have summer planning meetings specifically to really wrapped around some of the school services and really looking at trying