Justice High Puts Students in the Courtroom

"That got me stirring, thinking that there has to be something else," Cole remembers. "You can't just say 'peace' to the student and not have another plan for him. So me and a probation officer were sitting in the office having lunch and we started kicking around the idea of starting our own thing. We figured we could use some of the back rooms, maybe go to the University of Colorado and have some of the master's-level teachers come here who wanted to practice anyway, and then next thing you know, another P.O. wanted in on it, and then a lawyer who was very passionate about kids wanted in. And the idea just kind of grew."

Greg Brown, now chief probation officer for the 20th Judicial District, was the probation officer who started thinking about a new way of schooling troubled students. "Myself, Andre Adeli, a local defense attorney, and Roxanne Nice were brainstorming about options for kids who were coming out of boot camp, detention or home placement who were unable to transition into local schools," Brown says. "Plus, there were other kids on probation who had not done well in the traditional school settings. So we thought that by providing some short-term success for them to reach for, we could re-engage them in the love of learning, and they would be able to be successful in school."

They started doing some research, and determined that about 80 percent of the delinquents passing through Cole's courtroom had educational issues — a figure that Cole still repeats in disbelief, citing it as a statistic that politicians should seize on when they're stumping for education. When Cole pitched the concept of a new school, he'd quote that figure to everyone.

"We had a great community here that kind of saw it from the get-go," he says. "People realized that if we really want to make a difference and get our bang for our buck, it goes back to what I've always believed: Education is the key to having a decent life and having a decent shot. Recognizing that, it wasn't hard for everyone in the justice system and the legal system to say, 'Hey, if we can make some inroads into education and we can make some positive changes, we really might be able to reduce the recidivism rate.' As time evolved, essentially everyone involved said as long as you don't cause craziness and you can get it all done, go for it. And that's how Boulder Prep started. Eventually, that grew up and moved out and we had this space again, so Justice High was born. It's not like truancy, delinquency and kids dropping out just stopped."

"Both Prep and Justice have exceeded my wildest expectations," Brown says. "Now we have students at the schools who are referrals from other parents, siblings or friends of students who have found success there. Both schools have waiting lists for kids who want a different educational experience."

Justice High operated as a non-profit school for truant and delinquent teens until it attained charter status in the Boulder Valley School District in January 2006, following the same template Cole had designed for Boulder Prep and operating under the same guidelines as the five other charter high schools in the district. While Justice High receives around $6,000 per student from the district to pay for everything from textbooks to teachers, the space in the courtroom comes free of charge, which leaves funds for such things as sports uniforms. And it's all money well spent, according to Chris King, superintendent of the school district.

"I think one of the things that makes it work is the impact of it being in a courthouse," he says. "There's some power there. But I think it's also more the fact that the kids can get true wrap-around service. It's one-stop shopping for probation courts, schooling, etc. There's a tighter support system right there in the Justice Center, and I think the school lets students take true advantage of that."

Given the rising number of students whose needs aren't met by traditional schools, other districts could use schools like Boulder Prep and Justice High, King suggests. But those districts are lacking one critical component. "It takes a special person to build and design something like that," he says. "You have to have someone with a lot of passion and a lot of vision to make it work. You could duplicate the program elsewhere, but you would probably have to duplicate T.J. Cole, too."