2017: Collaboration: Youth Services and School District Change the Story for At-Risk Youth
There was a time in the Columbia River Gorge when a group of chronically truant high school kids would have been a problem that engendered a flurry of finger-pointing. Oregon’s Wasco County Department of Youth Services would have blamed the school district for failing to educate the students; school district staff, in turn, would have said the kids needed to be in detention. And everyone would have found reasons why these high-risk youth were failing. “There were many excuses for students...