The Allegheny County Juvenile Court instituted a School Based Probation Program (SBPP) on March 24, 1994. The initial sites were Reizenstein Middle School and Peabody High School. The SBPP currently includes 40 school based probation officers (SBPO’s) operating in 20 school districts. The school districts currently participating in the program are the City of Pittsburgh, Penn Hills, McKeesport, Shaler Area, Steel Valley, Sto-Rox, Wilkinsburg, Woodland Hills, Moon, Keystone Oaks, Baldwin, North Allegheny, North Hills, Highlands, West Allegheny, Chartiers Valley, West Mifflin, Hampton, Fox Chapel and Pine Richland. The SBPP currently supervise close to 1,000 youth in Allegheny County. The SBPO’s who are physically housed in the school supervise all youth in the school districts mentioned with the exception of those probationers involved with specialized court programs.

SBPP program was developed as a partnership designed to: a) increase communication between the school district and probation department; b) increase coordination among the family, school, probation department and appropriate community agencies; c) meet the educational and related needs of mutual clients; and d) provide schools with alternatives for managing students exhibiting behavioral problems and promoting a drug-free, safe environment.

The goal of the SBPP is to help probation students function successfully in the school environment and reduce or eliminate their delinquent behavior. To that end, program objectives include the following:

• Provide intensive supervision, counseling and intervention services to youth on probation status within the targeted school and encourage parental involvement.
• Increase school attendance and academic performance of probation students.
• Decrease the amount of suspensions, disciplinary action, tardiness and dropout rate.
• Decrease the number of probation violation allegations, rate of recidivism and the placement rate for probation students attending the targeted schools.
• Provide intake services for all youth charged with committing a delinquent act on school grounds and provide assistance to school personnel regarding decision making about court supervised youth.
• Supervise intake youth and attempt to divert them from formal court involvement.
• Provide in-service training for school officials regarding juvenile justice and participate in the Student Assistance Program (SAP).