“Every school has challenges with keeping students in school and getting them to cross the stage at graduation,” Northside I.S.D. spokesperson, Pascual Gonzalez, told WOAI-TV in San Antonio.

While searching for the answer, the school district came across the AIM program and after careful consideration decided to give it a try.

“The students have been going to school,” Gonzalez noted. “It appears to be a very successful pilot and we’re looking to expand it.”

In addition to Northside Independent School District, the AIM program is also used by San Antonio and Judson districts. During a recent board meeting, the districts agreed to make the AIM program a permanent part of their truancy reduction programs.

Credit: Rachel Denny Clow, The Caller

Several news media outlets were on hand for the first day of the program – here’s what they had to say:

Attendance Improvement Management Comes to West Oso High School

“ A state of the art G.P.S. tracking system. is now part of a new program that kicked off today in the West Oso School district. It’s called “A.I.M.” and it’s aimed not only at stopping truancy but also at keeping more kids from dropping out of school.”

(From kiiitv.com)

“Our first goal is to align with the kids and find out what success means to them. Eighty percent of what we do is coaching, and that’s what allows us to change the student’s behavior and reshape the way they think about school and the decisions they make.”

(From The Caller)

“We call these kids in the morning to make sure they are up and ready to go, and then throughout the day we interact with these kids 6 to 8 times a day. We have them doing something or we’re interacting with them and the reason we do that is to keep these students engaged and to hold them accountable and make sure they are doing what they need to be doing,” said CEO of AIM Travis Knox.”

(From KRIStv.com)

Credit: The Eagle/Dave McDermand

Both Judge Tommy Munoz in Bryan and Judge Tom Gillam in Port Arthur have been instrumental in bringing the AIM program to their area.

“It provides sustainable results,” says Judge Gillam. “It empowers them to stay in school.”

Fox 4 in Port Arthur covered the launch on January 14th which can be seen below. The AIM program was also featured today on KBTX-TV, The Eagle newspaper, and CNN’s Headlines News. If you’re joining us for the first time – please take a moment to review our program, and please contact us with any questions.

“Whenever we pay individual attention to students, the levels of success are dramatically higher,” Robert Sanborn, president of Children At Risk, a Houston-based nonprofit research and advocacy group told the Houston Chronicle.

In addition to personal attention, computer-based classes and career counseling are two programs that proved to be successful in the 2008 Texas Dropout Recovery Pilot Program, while child care, night classes, and financial incentives were not as effective. Even though the program saw some success, only 20% of the high school dropouts in the state-funded program graduated within a year.

Much of the AIM program’s success can be tied to the individual coaching that is received several nights per week during the entire length of the students program, providing the student with individualized and consistent contact with a trained counselor. AIM’s GPS tracking is the second half of the equation, which provides students accountability for their actions. Alone, the two approaches lack effectiveness – but combining the two has proven results.

Everyone should be concerned with the graduation rates in Texas – since the state estimates that each dropout costs society and extra $70,000 in welfare, health, and criminal activity over a lifetime.

Students were back in school after vacation over the holidays, and many were taken off the program this week since their attendance had improved significantly, with several students not missing a single day.

New students were added to the program this week in New Caney, TX – located just North of Houston – and several others were added in different San Antonio school districts.

The AIM program uses GPS technology and one-on-one coaching to produce consistent results among chronically truant students.
Local officials were concerned primarily with the low attendance rate at Holmes High School, which going into the 2009-2010 school year had a 90.6 percent attendance rate compared to the state high school average of 94 percent.

In the first year, AIM’s program in Covington Independent School District will track and coach 125 students that have been court-ordered to attend school.

Schools and court systems that use the AIM program typically see a 98% attendance rate during the program, and an impressive 97% attendance rate even after the monitoring and coaching ends.

If you’d like to receive more information on implementing the AIM program in your area, please contact an AIM professional.

After successful implementation in previous semesters at New Caney High School in Texas, the size of the AIM program is being tripled in the town just North of Houston. A proponent of the AIM system, Judge James Metts was honored in June of 2009 for substantially improving the attendance rates in Montgomery County which includes New Caney ISD.

“Education is very important to me,” Metts told the Montgomery County News. “I believe in my heart that there is no reason for any child in this community, not to get a high school diploma.”

In addition to expanding its program in New Caney, the AIM program is adding another school district to its program lineup. La Marque ISD, located between Galveston and Houston, will be the latest of several new schools signing onto the AIM program this week. AIM is confident that the Cougar Nation of La Marque High School will see outstanding results with AIM’s proven truancy reduction program.