Beeville public schools lost almost $800,000 in state funding last year because students didn’t show up for class.

School officials agreed Tuesday to spend $100,000 on a program created to reduce truancy in hopes it will prevent the similar loss of state funding in the future as well as get kids in class and help them to graduate someday.

The Attendance Improvement Management program requires chronically truant students to carry a GPS locator device with them at all times so that their whereabouts may be tracked.

The AIM program also calls for counselors to contact students every day of the week to check on their attendance, problems they’re having at school and home and provide a kind ear and reassuring words to those students who don’t communicate much with their parents.

A judge would order chronically truant students to take part in the program or face stiff fines.

“I don’t know if this is going to work or not but this is the best solution I have ever heard anybody propose and I think it really has a chance of being a great thing for this community,” said Trustee Tom Beasley.

The program will go into effect Oct. 1.

Getting kids in class

BISD trustees were searching for a way to give employees pay raises when Trustee Matt Huie noticed that the school district lost more than $765,000 in state funding because of truant students.

The state pays BISD $40 per day per student.

“That would have more than paid for the pay raises,” he said at that meeting. “We can’t keep losing that much funding every year. We’ve got to find someway to get those kids in class.”

Truancy is nothing new to BISD, Beasley said during Tuesday’s meeting.

“One of the most difficult issues this board has faced since I’ve been on it is truancy,” he said. This has been a chronic problem for Beeville forever, as far as I know, and it’s a chronic problem for schools across Texas.”

Beeville ISD Superintendent Dr. John Hardwick has repeatedly assured the board and the public that much of the poor test scores and low accountability ratings has to do with truancy.

“If we can get the kids in school and in front of a teacher, we can teach them. We can educate them,” he said. “We just have to find a way to get them in class.”

Chamber helps out

The Bee County Chamber of Commerce’s business education committee, comprised of representatives from the business community and school district, set truancy as its main priority last spring.

Chamber President Pam Priour Stuart found AIM and after researching the program realized it merited a closer look by the business education committee.

She invited AIM representatives to Beeville two weeks ago.

The committee was impressed and threw its support behind the program.

“This program is life-changing,” Stuart assured the board on Tuesday.

She said she has contacted school districts and judges who are using the program in their communities. They’re ecstatic over the results, she said.

Even if the program only has a 40 percent success rate, BISD will recover its initial $100,000 investment, Stuart said.

However, she noted, one school district is experiencing a 96 percent success rate.

Courts are generally very supportive of the program and Justice of the Peace Raul Casarez in Beeville, who deals with truant students, has pledged his full support, Stuart said.

Beasley and the rest of the board applauded Stuart’s efforts and the chamber’s involvement in education.

“We’re glad we can help; that’s all we ever wanted to do,” Stuart told trustees. “Let’s get these kiddos back in school and help them become productive citizens when they graduate high school.”

How it works

AIM was created by a clinical psychologist and the director of a truancy center in Dallas.

The six-week-long program uses GPS tracking technology to verify the location of chronically truant students 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The hand-held devices, which look like cell phones, are motion sensitive and must be moved every so often or a signal is sent to AIM.

That way, students cannot stow the device in a locker or leave it at home, an AIM representative explained to the board.

Stuart said the school officials and judges she interviewed about AIM said kids have tried to find ways around the system but failed.

“Some tried repeatedly to get around the system but they were never successful,” she said.

Courts call the shots

A judge orders the students to participate in AIM, not the school district.

The school district is not charged if the $400 tracking device is lost or broken.

Travis Knox, a representative with AIM, told trustees that only the most chronically truant students are typically assigned to the program.

Students in the program are contacted before school each morning to ensure they are up, dressed and ready for school.

Once at school, the students must key in their arrival on their tracking device and may also be required to sign in or be acknowledged by school personnel.

Students must also contact AIM after lunch.

Trained to listen

AIM counselors, who are trained to interact and inspire students to attend class, contact students each evening and see how their school day went, discuss their course progress and their grades and any impediments they may have had that prevented them or would have prevented them from attending class.

Counselors are trained to listen to kids and not judge them, which aids in developing a relationship between the student and counselor, Knox explained.

The intensive counseling sessions, coupled with the GPS tracking technology helps students make it to school each day, Knox said.

More than 90 percent of the students enrolled in the program have perfect attendance over the course of the 42-day program, Knox said. “Twenty percent of what we do is monitor; 80 percent of what we do is counseling — helping the students become successful by finding out what they’re doing, what’s going on in their lives.”

Some of those students come to rely on AIM so much that even after they complete the program they ask to be reassigned, Knox added.

“We do not preach to them,” Knox said. “We really do try to coach them. And after a while, these kids start to open up, even the hard cases, and they begin to rely on the program to help them succeed.”

AIM in Beeville

Under its contract with AIM, Beeville schools will purchase 25 of the hand-held GPS tracking devices for use at its middle school and high school campus.

As students complete the program, more students can be assigned, which means hundreds of students can cycle through the program by the end of the school year.

Beasley said the $100,000 price tag for the program is well worth it if can get kids in class and help them become successful in their education.

Knox assured trustees they could drop the program whenever they want if they are not pleased.

Most likely, though, the board will want to expand the program to include those students who are not chronically truant but who do miss some school.

Although AIM will use its own counseling staff at the beginning, Knox said the program will eventually “move into” the community and train local people to act as counselors.

Grades improve

Knox said AIM not only increases attendance but boosts scores.

He said every student in San Antonio ISD assigned to AIM last year saw his or her grades go up.

And because the students are doing better in school, they are more likely to attend class regularly, which means more state funding, Knox explained.

Beasley said $100,000 is a small price to pay to help kids succeed in school.

“Our overall budget is $25 or $26 million so $100,000 is almost nothing as a percentage of our budget. If this is a total failure, I am willing to risk $100,000 to save some kids,” Beasley said.

Trustee Velma Elizalde agreed.

“I’m sold on this program,” “Even if can save one kid it’s worth the money.”

Board President Nick Cardenas said he believed it was incumbent upon the board to take advantage of what appears to be a sure-fire method of reducing truancy. “We have not done anything and I think we on the board should take the blame for not pushing the administration and I think with this program something good is going to happen.”