An app was created to keep Ohio students in school and out of trouble.

An app was created to keep Ohio students in school and out of trouble.

In an effort to help students learn to address problems that keep them from getting to school, a smartphone application, or app, has been created to incentivize attendance at school.

The app is being piloted in Greene County before being rolled out statewide.

The app is part of a pilot program called “The Right Track: Building and Restoring Relationships for At-Risk, Truant, and all Students of the Greene County School District in Ohio.” The program builds on the needs of the whole student and includes conflict resolution resources, community support, and school attendance mediation.

The partnership is led by the Ohio Supreme Court’s Commission on Dispute Resolution and includes Ohio Department of Education, Xenia Community Schools, Greene County Juvenile Court, Dayton Mediation Center, and Resolution Systems Institute, a non-profit dispute resolution organization conducting the evidence-based research on the project.

“We are excited about the recent launch of a new conflict resolution app in the Xenia School system,” said Greene County Juvenile Court Judge Adolpho Tornichio. “We believe it will encourage this technological generation on their own playing field to attend school and will provide another tool for the schools and juvenile court to use to combat our growing truancy problem.”

In January, nearly 50 students tested the app to log attendance, absences, and find resources to help them if they were missing school due to illness, lack of transportation, conflicts at school, or other reasons. The app provides analytics to find out what community leaders can do to reduce the number of absences and to better help at-risk families.

“School attendance can provide the first opportunity to identify children at risk of entering the juvenile justice system,” said Marion County Family Judge Robert Fragale, the workgroup chair. “Issues with attendance and behavior at school are an indication that a child may be in the need of intervention by school and community partners for services to assist the family in remedying these issues.”

The main goal is to equip students with problem-solving skills to solve underlying problems that prevent them from getting to school and to reduce filings in Greene County Juvenile Court.

So far, the results from the pilot project are encouraging. At the close of the first semester of the 2018-2019 school year, the three truancy interventionists have tried to or made contact with more than 500 students and their families. The interventionists take a preventative approach to working with students experiencing attendance issues by offering resources and support.

Students weighed in on the content and design of the app and made recommendations for incentives to get students to return to, or stay, in school. Kunz, Leigh, and Associates developed the app after getting feedback from Ohio students.

The Ohio Supreme Court secured a $40,000 grant from the JAMS Foundation and the Association for Conflict Resolution to develop the app. The Ohio Department of Education also contributed funding.