PROGRAM TARGETS TEEN TRUANCY; VALLEY SCHOOLS JOIN EFFORT TO KEEP KIDS IN CLASS.

Byline: Yvette Cabrera Daily News Staff Writer

It's the hard-core juvenile probationers that Deputy Probation Officer Sean Porter has been trained to keep an eye on, but these days he is reaching out to kids who have never set a foot in juvenile hall.

Kids like Elizabeth.

Over the past two years, Elizabeth, a 14-year-old freshman at Chatsworth High School, was caught stealing undergarments at a J.C. Penney store, ran away from home, missed 24 days of her first high school semester and had a report card filled with failing marks last fall.

This semester, Elizabeth, whose last name was withheld because she is a minor, is shooting for a B average.

She hasn't missed a day of school. And she drops by Porter's campus office regularly just to talk.

It's all thanks to Project TARGET, a truancy program launched Thursday that aims to prevent middle- and high-school students from falling into the criminal justice system.

``I think the program is going to help because I have somebody else to talk to besides my parents,'' said Elizabeth, whose arguments with her family led her to run away.

``It's helpful to get away and relax, and I can do that here.''

Project TARGET - Taking Aim at Reaching Goals and Ending Truancy - is a partnership between the Los Angeles Unified School District; California State University, Northridge; the county Probation Department and city agencies. The program takes an unusual approach - it allows probation officers to follow each student's progress on a day-to-day basis at school and in their homes.

``A lot of kids get in trouble because they experiment,'' said Porter. ``But if you call them onto the carpet early enough and remind them it's wrong, then they have a chance to change their behavior.''

The three-year program, funded with a $1.3 million state grant, will offer tutoring, counseling and even a four-week summer camp.

The Probation Department is now selecting 150 students for the program from the two high schools and four middle schools in the Chatsworth/Granada Hills and Kennedy/Monroe clusters, whose staffs applied for the grant.

The goal is to improve school attendance, student performance and attitudes while reducing truancies, suspensions, expulsions and delinquent behavior.

These two clusters - which include Chatsworth and Monroe high schools, Sepulveda Middle School, Nobel Middle School, Holmes Middle School, and Lawrence Middle School - have a truancy rate of 1 percent to 3 percent, said TARGET coordinator Gary Yoshinobu.

According to the California Youth Authority, 76 percent of juveniles in custody at CYA facilities are either truant school dropouts or did not attend school regularly since sixth grade, said District Attorney Gil Garcetti, whose office also is partnering in the program.

``My job simply isn't to prosecute after the fact, it is to try to stop some crimes before they happen,'' said Garcetti, during a news conference at LAUSD headquarters in Los Angeles. ``And I think that if we can focus on truancy to keep these kids in school, away from gangs, away from drugs we can reduce crime.''

Students will attend a daily class to learn about peer mediation, conflict resolution and race relations. They also will get individual and family counseling and a health exam.

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PHOTO Deputy Probation Officer Sean Porter discusses Project TARGET, a counseling program, with a student at Chatsworth High School.

Gus Ruelas/Daily News