AIM Attendance Improvement Management

County commissioners are expected to approve $67,200 during their regular meeting Monday for the lease of 25 cellular devices that allows Precinct 4 Justice of the Peace James Metts’ juvenile department to monitor the whereabouts of truant students in East County.

The program is operated by Dallas-based Attendance Improvement Management. Instead of wearing an ankle monitor, students are required to punch their location into a cell phone-like device that includes a Global Positioning System.

Should students fail to give a prompt response, they will get a phone call from a counselor with AIM, Metts said.

AIM officials say their program has a 98-percent success rate in lowering truancy, but Metts said his pilot program last spring – which involved 10 students – was 100 percent successful.

“They all went through the program, kept up with the monitoring and returned the (devices) when they were through,” he said. “It’s a good program.”

Metts said the monitoring devices will be assigned to 25 students for one six-week period, allowing the program to reach a total of 100 students over the remainder of the school year. The New Caney and Splendora school districts, along with a portion of the Conroe Independent School District, are located in Metts’ precinct.

“We listen to the schools on recommendations for students in the program. Our juvenile case manager Dianne Rogers works very closely with them,” he said.

Students are considered truant when they miss three or school more days – or parts of a school day – in a four-week period, Metts said. With those students in school, their likelihood of committing criminal activity, such as burglary of a residence, is reduced, he said.

Even if a student abides by the program’s requirements, AIM’s counselors will call them at least three times a week, Metts said.

“That’s what I really like,” he said. “Kids need a pat on the back, and this program provides that encouragement.”