As the Caddo Parish adult court office again leads the state in both per-capita jury trials and in productivity, I also would like to take the opportunity to let you know what is going on in our juvenile court. We are one of only four parishes with a juvenile court, and I am a proud supporter of what they do.
I am ecstatic to share with you the final middle school truancy numbers of the 2025-2026 school year. Entering the year, we partnered with Caddo Schools Superintendent Keith Burton and our truancy partner Volunteers for Youth Justice’s Kelli Todd to design a new strategy of intervention to tackle the swelling number of post-pandemic truancy cases in some middle schools in our parish.
In a nutshell, the strategy of investment of personnel into direct intervention at the school level was a home run.
The results of this middle school pilot program speak for themselves. Here are the truant student percentages:
School 2024-2025 2025-2026
Broadmoor 56 percent 39 percent
Caddo Middle Technology 69 percent 33 percent
Lanier 46 percent 13 percent
Ridgewood 53 percent 33 percent
Walnut Hill 33 percent 11 percent
Youree 39 percent 20 percent
Turner 60 percent 30 percent
J.S. Clark 56 percent 25 percent
These numbers portend a brighter future for these young people.
In these perilous times, middle school now is the time we have to grab our young people and direct them away from the pitfalls of crime, guns, gangs, vaping marijuana, bullying, cell phone addiction, pornography and even pregnancy.
There are fewer young people on probation (today’s count 406, from highs of 650, with 55 currently on ankle monitors) and substantially fewer inmates in our once-packed juvenile detention center. As I write this report, there are six juveniles in our parish pre-trial 24-bed juvenile detention center, that once was filled to alarming capacity when I became your District Attorney in 2015, and there was debate at the Caddo Commission of spending tens of millions of dollars to build a larger juvenile jail.
The need for a larger juvenile jail is completely unnecessary today, as my Day One focus on truancy and opening The Harbor for juvenile and parental services, and the collaborative efforts of Kelli Todd, School Superintendents Lamar Goree and Keith Burton and their employees, our Caddo Parish Juvenile Judges, Parish Juvenile Services Directors Clay Walker and now Andrew Randall and their hard-working probation staffs, have delivered these results.
I am happy to announce to you that the pilot program is so successful, all K-8 schools will participate this upcoming school year!
Kudos to all, and let’s keep the momentum into the next school year!
James E. Stewart Sr.
Caddo Parish District Attorney