School-based

School-based programs help provide educational support, training and/or supervision for youth where academic and/or behavioral problems originated in the school setting. There are four types of school-based programs: After School, Alternative School, School Interventionist, and School Resource Officers.

After-school programs provide activities during the summer and after-school time frames to give youth a place to be engaged in constructive activity in order to reduce juvenile crime. This can include tutoring services or other educational support for youth.

Alternative Schools focus on youth who have been expelled or suspended form their home school system to provide academic enrichment to the youth. This helps youth earn credits while waiting to return to school so they don’t fall behind in school work, grades, and can graduate in a timely manner.

School Interventionists identify and coordinate behavioral or academic intervention for a student. Youth can be referred to the school interventionist for attendance issues, poor grades, lack of engagement, behavior issues, etc. The intervention process includes clearly identifying the problem, selecting a strategy to address the problem, and measuring the effectiveness of the strategy. The intervention can include other supports for the youth within the school or community.

School Resource Officers are career law enforcement officers, with sworn authority, who are assigned by the local law enforcement agency to work in collaboration with school and community-based organizations. The officer is on school campus and youth can be referred to the program for criminal activity, behavior problems, and/or academic issues.

evaluating school-based Programs

As part of our yearly evaluations for Community-based Juvenile Services Aid funded programs in fiscal year 2025, the JJI, in partnership with the NCC, developed evaluation matrices to categorize important outcomes for each program type evaluated. The following categories describe the important program outcome indicators for school-based programs. These categories can be used to assess the standing of a program in terms of whether it is successfully applying best practices and meeting expectations or common goals for such programs.