Leadership magazine May/June 2015 V 44 No 5 | Page 16
From obstacle
to opportunity
Organizational networks of support
help ensure that learning works
better for the students in these
San Diego County Juvenile Court
and Community School programs.
16
Leadership
“W
e turn stumbling
blocks into stepping stones.” The
student speaker
at San Diego County Office of Education’s
Juvenile Court and Community School
(JCCS) graduation made clear that while
personal choices and life circumstances
might have brought them into our classrooms and schools, they leave prepared for
college, career and community.
Turning obstacles into opportunities is a
strategy many of our students use to achieve
personal success. They build individual
networks of support to cheer them on, push
them, and keep them focused on their goals.
JCCS also establishes organizational networks of support to better serve all of our
students and staff.
JCCS serves more than 12,000 students
over the course of a year in two different
programs from 42 school districts across
4,700 square miles in San Diego County.
The Court School Program serves approximately 670 students on a daily basis; our
Community School Program serves approximately 1,800 students each day. Community Schools are operated on both classroom-based and blended learning models
(formerly known as Independent Study).
We provide educational services to minors incarcerated in the detention facilities/
camps operated by the San Diego County
Juvenile Justice System, and in our SDCOE
Community Schools we enroll students in
grades K-12. Students enrolled in our Community Schools are considered high-risk
and referred based on their current status with their home school district and/or
probation. Reasons for referrals typically
include expulsion, chronic truancy, severe
behavioral issues, or terms of probationary
status.
However, we are also beginning to enroll
a significant number of students who have
self-selected JCCS due to our much smaller
class size, highly personalized learning plans
By Stacy Spector