With a drop out rate of forty one percent in the state of Louisiana, the Bossier Parish Truancy Assessment and Service Center and Goodwill Industries are teaming up to give at risk youth in Bossier Parish the chance to have a future.

Goodwill opened its new Bossier City campus in March.

Manager of Workforce Development, Julie Bass said that Goodwill wanted to increase its Bossier Services.

“We currently have a Youth Job Placement program that we are working with. It is a program that was piloted in our Shreveport Center,” she said. “In August that program will also be housed at our Bossier campus.”

Bass said that it would be an additional site to offer the Bossier community literacy GED services and job training to help youth.

“We are going to start coming over in the afternoons. The number of days per week will depend on the funding that we are able to secure and how many youth we are able to enroll,” Bass said. “We are going to teach them about jobs and work ethics. We are going to teach them how to gain and maintain employment. We are going to teach them life skills.”

Richey Jackson is the director of Bossier’s Truancy Assessment Center. He was a classroom teacher for thirty-two years at Bossier High School, and he has been at the truancy center for the last nine.

According to Jackson every drop out in his or her lifetime probably cost the state of Louisiana three to four million dollars per person per lifetime. Multiplying that by Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Shreveport and all around our state, it is a staggering amount of money.

“I am in court with fifteen, sixteen and seventeen year olds,” Jackson said. “Now we are going to have an opportunity with the cooperation of Goodwill to divert these young people from court into their Youth Job Placement program.”

Bass said that sometimes youth that are at risk do not feel as if they have a future.

“We are going to teach them goal development and help them to identify some career choices and alternative paths,” she said. “Maybe that child is not college bound, but that does not mean that they can’t have a very rewarding career that leads to self sufficiency.”

Jackson said that the Bossier District Attorney’s office and the judges that hear the cases would also be involved.
He said that judges, especially in the juvenile system, are always looking for programs to divert young people to.

“When I go to court with the parents and these children, as a diversion a strong recommendation would be made to defer them to Goodwill’s Youth Employment Program,” Jackson said.

The truancy center would develop a document that will track the student’s attendance. If they do not show up, they and their parents would be held in contempt of court.

In his years of experience, Jackson said that he has found that the root of the problem is the destruction of the family.

“Most of these kids come from dysfunctional or one parent families, and they have not had what many of us have had,” he said. “The young people in the situations that I have described feel that there is no way that they will ever have that.”

The forty-two year veteran of education said that in the minds of these kids they do not have a reason to be a good citizen, and that they have to be given one.

“That reason is that there is an economic environment in society in which they can compete. You don’t have to go to college to be a success,” Jackson said.

Bass said that the program would not just teach youth about jobs. It is designed to also teach them how to handle the problems that they have whether it is social or not.

“The skills that we give them will carry them for a life time,” she said.

Jackson is excited about the new partnership.

“This is an innovative out of the box program,” he said. “If the state collectively would do on a large scale what we are trying to do here on a small scale, we could start tearing down the wall of poverty. Louisiana would have skilled workers and people would have a better life.”

Bass said that a lack of funds may hinder how large of a scope that the program could expand to.

“I am keeping my fingers crossed and saying my prayers that we can get some funding, so that we can do the full program. I really think that it would add a lot to the Bossier Community,” she said.

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