During the fall of 2022, Judge Morgan, Director Vickie Towne, Dr. Linda Cash, and representatives from the Cleveland City Schools met with State Rep. Kevin Raper in an effort to find a better solution to deal with the issue of absenteeism in schools. Rep. Raper met with the commissioner of Education and received approval of the plan promulgated by the Court and approved by the schools.
This plan has allowed the Court, with Cleveland City Schools and Bradley County Schools to reinstitute Campus Court, which allows court staff to address truancy issues with parents in local schools before a truancy petition is filed. Referring families to Campus Court helps both the Court and the school system to address issues of truancy more quickly and effectively.
To that end, in the most recent school year, there was a 90 percent increase in the number of referrals made to Campus Court by the schools as compared to the 2022-2023 school year. Officials anticipate a further increase for the coming school year as even more attention and resources will be assigned to Campus Court.
In total, 779 referrals were made to Campus Court. Of those, only 204 petitions were filed with the Court. This is a success rate of nearly 74 percent. These efforts of the school attendance officials and the Campus Court staff is invaluable to addressing truancy and absenteeism as soon as legally possible, said officials.
Bradley County Juvenile Court owes a special thank you to Rep. Raper, Dr. Cash and the City Schools for their partnership in bringing Campus Court back to Bradley County.