Juvenile Justice Dashboard

Cohort Definitions

Justice Involved Youth: Youth who have had one or more contacts with the juvenile justice system for a status offense and/or youth who have been adjudicated for a misdemeanor and/or felony offense.

Status Offender: Youth who have come into contact with the juvenile justice system through a noncriminal act that is considered a law violation due only to the youth’s status as a minor. For the purposes of this dashboard, status offenses consist of only Truancies and At Risk Youth/Child in Need of Services (ARY/CHiNS).

Truancy: Truancy is the action of staying away from school without proper reason. In Washington, a school district is required to file a truancy petition if a youth required to attend public schools has seven unexcused absences in one month or 10 unexcused absences in one academic year.

ARY/CHiNS: If a youth is considered a Child in Need of Services (CHiNS), the youth’s parent, the youth himself/herself or the Department of Social and Health Services can file a petition to have the youth placed outside of the home. An At Risk Youth (ARY) is a youth who is absent from home 72 or more consecutive hours without permission, who is beyond parental control with behavior that poses a danger to the child himself/herself or someone else, or who has a substance abuse problem. If a youth is considered an ARY, the parental guardian(s) may petition the courts to order the youth to remain at home

Juvenile Offender: Youth who have been adjudicated for either or both a misdemeanor offense or felony offense.

For a more in depth discussion of justice involved youth, please read the full Juvenile Justice Study (Link).

Metric: High School Outcome

High School Outcomes are determined using a combination of OSPI data and SBCTC data. Only students that are in an Adjusted 5-Year Cohort are included in the juvenile justice dashboard.

Gradated: OSPI P210 indicates the student graduated.

GED: If the student does not have a graduation record, the OSPI P210 and SBCTC Completion records are queried to determine if the student has completed a GED.

Dropout: If a student does not have a graduation record or a GED record, they are considered to be a dropout.

Metric: First Year Enrollment

First year enrollment is defined as having an enrollment record at a postsecondary institution at some point in academic year following the required high school graduation year, which is defined as the summer term immediately following graduation through spring term of the next calendar year. If a student enrolled at a 2-year and a 4-year institution in the year, they are categorized as a 4-year enrollee. For students that dropped out or earned a GED, the required high school graduation year (the year they were expected to graduate) is used as the graduation year.

2-Year / CTC includes all Washington and out-of-state private and publicly funded 2- year institutions. This uses the NSC data for private and out-of-state 2-year institutions and the SBCTC data for the publicly funded 2-year Washington institutions.

4-year includes all Washington and out-of-state private and publicly funded 4- year institutions. This uses the NSC data for private and out-of-state 4-year institutions and the PCHEES data for the publicly funded 4-year Washington institutions.

Not Enrolled simply means that an enrollment record was not found in any of the aforementioned data sources (see note below). Students that enroll in apprenticeship programs administered by the WA State Dept of Labor & Industries are not included in this group. They are not reported separately, however, because they account for less than 0.5% of high school graduates and rarely exceed the redaction threshold.

NOTE: The NSC data slightly undercounts the number of enrollments in private and out-of-state institutions because about 8% of the private and out-of-state institutions do not participate and students at participating institutions can opt out of having their information included in the NSC data.

Metric: Post-secondary Completion

Post-secondary completion is defined as having earned a degree or certificate at a postsecondary institution or completion of an apprenticeship program at some point in the eight academic years following high school graduation. For students that dropped out or earned a GED, the required high school graduation year (the year they were expected to graduate) is used as the graduation year. If a student earns more than one degree or certificate during the eight year period, the highest degree level attained is reported.

Apprenticeship completion is not displayed because there are not adequate numbers of juvenile justice involved students that completed an apprenticeship to meet redaction criteria.

Certificates include any completion of a certificate program at a 2- year institution.

Data sources: NSC (private and out-of-state 2-year institutions), SBCTC (publicly funded 2-year Washington institutions)

Associate degrees include completions of all types of associate’s degrees (Direct Transfer Agreement, Transfer Degree, Applied Sciences, etc.) In this metric, if a student earns a bachelor’s degree after completing an associate degree, they are only counted in the Bachelor’s degree category.

Data sources: NSC (private and out-of-state 2-year institutions), SBCTC (publicly funded 2-year Washington institutions)

Bachelor’s degrees or higher include completions of a 4-year degree and any post baccalaureate degree (Masters, Professional Doctoral Degrees (JD, MD), Academic Doctoral Degrees (PhD)). This category also contains Applied Baccalaureate Degrees offered at some 2 Year / CTCs.

Data sources: NSC (private and out-of-state 4-year institutions), PCHEES (publicly funded 4-year Washington institutions), SBCTC (Applied Baccalaureate Degrees)

NOTE: The NSC data slightly undercounts the number of completions in private and out-of-state institutions because about 8% of the private and out-of-state institutions do not participate and students at participating institutions can opt out of having their information included in the NSC data. Additionally, the NSC data only contains the title of the degree awarded. While the award type (Associate’s, Bachelor’s, Master’s, etc) can be inferred from the title in most cases, there may be some errors in the interpretation of the NSC data.

Metric: Earnings

The Washington State Employment Security Department provided Unemployment Insurance (UI) wage records for individuals employed in Washington. We display earnings measures for all cohort members who are employed in Washington, have wage records (federal employees, independent contractors, and others do not have UI wage records). The user can select whether they wish to include or exclude students that are enrolled in a post-secondary institution during the calendar year.

Earnings are displayed for years after high school graduation. Earnings data is available through 2019. Instead of reporting earnings by calendar year, we report earnings by years after graduation. This is done to maximize the number of demographic groups that we can display. For students that dropped out or earned a GED, the required high school graduation year (the year they were expected to graduate) is used as the graduation year.

We have adjusted earnings data for inflation. Earnings are adjusted to 2019 dollars using annual CPI-W for the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue Area (BLS Series ID CWURS49DSA0)

Earnings are displayed as percentile values. The median – or 50th percentile value – is the value that divides the earners into two groups – half earning more than the median and half earning less.

There are minimum cell sizes required for display. We display the median earnings of all cohorts that contain at least 30 individuals.