A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

"Northside's Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative"
San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio's Northside Independent School District (ISD) is in an ethnically diverse, primarily inner-city area within an enterprise community. The community experiences a population turnover rate of 11% every five years, and 41% of families live below poverty. Services to ameliorate increasing problems of poverty, gangs, homelessness, illiteracy, under- or unemployment, and teen pregnancy have not increased to meet the need. Hispanics make up 52% of the Northside ISD student body, whites 37%, and African Americans 8%. Of the total student population of 61,458 (preK-12), 39% are considered at risk and 41% are economically disadvantaged. A 1998 survey showed that 61% of Northside adolescents had smoked cigarettes, 44% had used illicit drugs, and 81% had drunk alcohol. Expulsions from school in 1997-98 doubled those of the previous year. More than 10 percent of child abuse cases investigated in Bexar County involved students from Northside ISD, and during 1997-98, 295 suicide attempts were recorded.

The initiative's mental health agencies have a long-standing relationship with the school district. The major partners in the initiative are joined by the San Antonio Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, Communities in Schools in San Antonio, and the Juvenile Justice Academy. Project staff will identify and enlist at least ten additional community organizations to join the initiative.

Project staff will develop and publish a compendium of existing early childhood development and other educational, mental health, law enforcement, juvenile justice, and social services available to Northside ISD students, staff, parents, and community members. Campus Assistance Teams (CATs), each composed of a mental health professional and a social worker assigned to specific elementary, middle, and high schools, will educate staff, parents, and the community on these resources, will connect students and parents with school and/or community programs, and will provide counseling to targeted students. Project staff will determine and support existing needs/gaps for research-based curricula and other student support programs that teach prosocial skills and address prevention and resiliency (referencing the current literature on resiliency). Program staff will help to identify appropriate safe/drug-free schools curricula and action plans, and will assist campuses in institutionalizing safe-school strategies. CATs will train school staff on research-based factors that contribute to the creation of safe, disciplined, and alcohol- and drug-free school and community environments (referencing the Search Institute?s 40 Developmental Assets). The CATs will address the school district?s need to consider mental health factors in promoting student academic success and will train school and community-based personnel on this issue. Northside ISD hopes to hire an additional ten school resource officers to improve school security and safety.

Northside?s Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative will be evaluated by the Department of Education, Trinity University, San Antonio.

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