New School forYoung Inmates Part of LCCR’s work is supporting education for children who are in custody. Noticing poor conditions atYouth Study Cen- ter — the school within the Orleans Parish juvenile detention center — LCCR collaborated with the Orleans Parish School “Year to year, 96% to 98% of kids arrested in Orleans Parish are black children.” — Aaron Clark-Rizzio Executive Director, Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights Board to secure a major improvement. In 2016, the school was taken over by the Center for Educational Excellence in Alternative Settings, a national nonprofit known for its inno- vative work with young people in custody. The new Travis Hill School, as the facility is now called, was renamed to honor a local trumpet musician who had turned his life around after making a few wrong turns early in life. “What impressed me on the Travis Hill School site visit was that people were jumping grade levels while incarcerated,” recalls BCM’s Gaulden. By the end of the 2016-17 school year, 79 students had passed their end- of-course exams versus 19 the previous year. Because of this success, Center for Educational Excellence in Alternative Settings has been tapped to take over the school at the Orleans Parish Prison. “We’re trying to ensure kids get the education they need, so they’re less likely to drop out of school and go back into the system,”Clark-Rizzio says. “This is a really important year for juvenile justice.” — Charmel Gaulden BCM Vice President, Public Safety Grants A MilestoneYear Gaulden notes that 2017 marks 20 years since the breakup of several juvenile justice-based nonprofits that had been housed all together. Now separate and self-sustaining, each is a vital component within a larger ecosystem of change that’s gaining traction. To help transform Louisiana’s juvenile justice system, BCM has long supported organizations like LCCR, a nonprofit law office that defends young people in juvenile court. 9