Oct. 4—Morgan County District Attorney Scott Anderson says he’s seeing great things from a new initiative that keeps kids in school and out of trouble.
Anderson said the Helping Families Initiative (HFI) is the most rewarding thing he has done in his professional career.
“I get the benefit of being the DA who can come alongside a family that has a need and say, ‘Can I help you?’ without there being any potential crime or punishment,” he said. “Simply a situation where we are here to help our kids in our school systems.”
Anderson partnered with Decatur City Schools two years ago through HFI to combat truancy and bad behavior. Truancy refers specifically to unexcused absences, where the student misses school without a valid reason. Morgan County Schools and Hartselle City Schools joined in the HFI program last school year. Various school systems and a state grant cover the costs, Anderson said.
HFI was started in 2003 by then-Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson. HFI statistics on program effectiveness are what first made Anderson take notice.
Rebecca Bearden, director of Morgan County HFI, said statistics show 93% of the state HFI participants avoided suspension in the year following the program. In addition, 69% of families reported an overall improvement in the child’s functioning after completion of the program.
Research also showed that 75% of students in the HFI program between 2008 and 2013 had no involvement with the justice system after their truancy cases were closed, she said.
The program begins with letters to the family. If a child is truant, the DA’s office sends the parents or guardians an attendance warning letter, said Bearden, who is one of three case officers handling the HFI program.
“We send a letter that basically says your child has missed three or more days of school that are unexcused,” she said.
Anderson said the letter also tells the parent or guardian, “‘If you need help, let us know. If there are any issues, we tell them we are here to help. There is nothing punitive about the program at all. It’s all voluntary if they want to join the program. But, we tell them, it is their responsibility that their child attends school on a regular basis and behaves.”
Thousands of letters have been sent out and they have seen a lot of improvement in the three school systems, Bearden said.
State law generally requires children ages 6-17 to attend school regularly.
Parents who fail to make children regularly attend school or properly conduct themselves at school are guilty of a misdemeanor and fined not more than $100 and may also be sentenced to up to 90 days in jail. The principal is required to report the truancy to the superintendent, and the superintendent is required to report suspected violations of the truancy law to the DA.
As for bad behavior, “We target those kids who are keeping the teachers from doing their jobs,” Anderson said.
The attendance warning letters that parents receive tell of available electronic assistance that helps parents know when their child is absent, including ParentSquare, which calls, texts or emails each day the student is absent. Parents can also log onto the PowerSchool parent portal by using login information from their child’s school. This helps them keep up with absences, grades and other information, Bearden said.
Truancy is the low-hanging fruit, Anderson said, meaning that it is usually easier to deal with than the behavioral issues.
The HFI program depends on the schools to make referrals to them regarding bad behavior in class.
“When we get those referrals — based on the nature of the bad behavior — we will contact the parents or guardian and have phone or Zoom interviews, have them come into the office,” Anderson said. “If it’s serious enough, we ask to do a home study. Again, it’s a voluntary program. They do not have to participate. But if they do, we go in and see where we can help.” — Local agencies
They have put together a team of local agencies they can call on — called an interagency team. If the child and parent agree to participate, the case is presented to the interagency team of 18 to 20 local agencies all in one room, Anderson said. Those agencies try to solve the family’s problems, whether it is through parenting classes or even helping students with their studies.
Bearden explained that many times by looking at the family dynamic the HFI program finds circumstances that may be triggering truancy or behavioral issues.
“If the parent agrees to the voluntary program, then we monitor parents, the student and any siblings, meaning we contact them on a regular basis,” she said. “They may find that the family needs summer clothes or winter clothes, that the family is on Medicaid and looking for a counselor for the child, that there are rent or transportation issues or even utilities issues leaving the family without water or power. That’s when the case goes to the interagency team.”
Before HFI, these families might make it to one or two of the agencies but not all of these agencies collectively, Anderson said.
“We try to address all of their issues if there is more than one, holistically,” he said.
“It’s fun to watch these agencies say we can address this. Or they may say they can’t but we have an agency partner who can. So, it just works very well to present this problem to the whole group and watch them work.”
Anderson said HFI is also a crime-prevention program.
“If a child is in school, they are not on the streets and if a child is in school, they are more apt to learn and do better than if they are on the streets,” Anderson said. “Education is one of the most powerful crime-fighting tools that there is. If we can get a child in school and learning, the odds go down greatly that they will ever commit a crime.”
Locally, the numbers have been great.
During the 2024-25 school year there were 19,998 students enrolled in Decatur, Hartselle and Morgan County schools. In Decatur, 3,147 students received attendance warning letters, 690 were sent to Morgan County students and 413 were sent to Hartselle students.
Because of HFI, Bearden said, Decatur saw chronic absenteeism drop from 12.23% to 6.78% between the 2022-23 and the 2023-24 school years. Then it dropped from 6.78% to 6.34% from 2023-24 to 2024-25, a smaller decline because they had so much success in the first year. Bearden expects the numbers will continue to decrease.
Hartselle saw chronic absenteeism drop from 13.44% to 11.16% from the 2022-23 to 2023-24 school years and from 11.16% to 9.68% from 2023-24 to 2024-25 school years.
Morgan County saw similar reductions. Chronic absenteeism fell from 15.27% in 2022-23 to 9.08% in 2023-24, then down to 9.03% in 2024-25.
“The Helping Families Initiative has indeed made a positive impact on reducing truancy and behavioral issues,” said Morgan County Schools Superintendent Tracie Turrentine. “Early assessments indicate improved attendance rates and more engaged students, contributing to a better overall school environment.”
HFI doesn’t just help the students, it helps the community, Anderson said.
“The only way a child is going to learn is if they are in school and if they behave in school,” he said. “If that child is in school and learning and well-behaved, then No. 1, that’s going to help that teacher in that classroom be better able to teach the other kids in her classroom. If that child is in school and learning and well-behaved it just stands to reason that the child’s test scores are going to go up. If we have enough of those, it is going to impact the overall school performance.”
He believes one of the first things a family does when it is considering whether to move to north Alabama is check out the school system.
“They check out their scores,” Anderson said. “If they see Morgan County and Decatur and Hartselle scores are on the rise, then they are more apt to move to Morgan County. If they move here, they are going to spend their money here, they are going to buy a home here, we’re going to increase our tax base, and everybody is going to benefit.”
But Anderson takes it a step further to highlight what he believes is the most important role of HFI.
“I have tried a lot of capital cases in my career as well as (felony) murder cases,” he said. “More times than I can count, I have spoken to a teacher of one of the defendants who committed one of those murders and the teacher would tell me she had that child in third or fourth grade and knew the student was going to be on the wrong side of the law one day.
“If I can get to those children — and this program can get to those children — and take them off the bad track and put them onto the good track, I’m giving them, and this program is giving them, the best opportunity they have to learn and do well.”
He said HFI is having a positive impact and its potential is immeasurable.
“If we are able to keep them from ever picking up that gun and committing that murder or that serious felony then the lives that we have potentially impacted will always be unknown because they never committed that crime,” Anderson said. “We will never know, this side of heaven, how many people that we have positively impacted because we took that one child off the bad track and put them on the good track.”
He likes that he can be a part of something that makes a difference in people’s lives.
“Address the problems early, that’s the key,” he said. “A lot of these kids just want to know that someone cares about them. And we do.”
— jean.cole@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2361