At Tuesday’s Selma City School Board work session, one board member brought in an organization to sort some things out; an organization not part of the school system.

Board member Brenda Obomanu said in both the work session and previously, that many of her constituents have come to her with questions about the Teen Court program. Obomanu wanted to clarify to parents that though it is a program used with the school system, it is not a school system program.

“I have been receiving questions from people in my district concerning this issue and I really didn’t know what to tell them,” Obomanu said. “One of the things that keeps coming up is that this is a Selma city school system program and like I said it is not.”

Selma City School truant officer, Lorraine Capers, came to the floor to explain the roles and procedures of the Teen Court program in which she is a volunteer.

The program was launched by District Judge Bob Armstrong and it keeps students from starting a juvenile record. Capers said once a student is tardy four times their name is turned in to her. The cases are reviewed and they appear in Teen Court to be judged by their peers.

“If parents get their kids to school on time, then they won’t have to see me again. Period,” Capers said about parental complaints. “When you deal with 300 to 350 kids who are late each day, there is no excuse for that. If we are trying to make AYP and we are trying to make everything run smoothly in the school system, then someone has to be accountable.”

Capers said the ones who need to be held accountable are the parents and students for getting to school on time.

She also addressed another topic Obomanu brought up — why students are given monetary fines and community service by the court as punishment.

“When you have to go to that court and pay a fine it makes a difference,” Capers said. “We have begin to cut those numbers down, by large numbers, by making them come into churches and clean and scrub the floor and scrub the walls.”

She said that after some students pay the $25 fine, she never sees them come back.