Dear Colleagues —

I am pleased to let you know that that the U.S. Department of Education, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, has just awarded $5.7 million in new grants aimed providing career and technical education programs, reentry services, and employment training opportunities for students who have been involved in the criminal justice system. The four grantees are: Portland (Oregon) Community College, Saint Paul (Minnesota) Public Schools, Shelby County (Tennessee) Board of Education and the School District of Philadelphia (Pennsylvania). Information about these grantees will be posted shortly on the Perkins Collaborative Resource Network at: http://cte.ed.gov/initiatives/juvenile-justice-reentry-education-program.

The Department has also released a new toolkit to provide guidance to educators and others to support a successful reentry system for formerly incarcerated youth and adults. The toolkit is located at: http://lincs.ed.gov/reentryed/

These announcements are part of the Obama Administration’s National Reentry Week, led by the U.S. Department of Justice and supported by the Education Department and other agencies. Education Secretary John King kicked off the week with a roundtable conversation with students whose parents are incarcerated or were formerly incarcerated, as well as educators and others who support students and their families.

If you are interested in further information about the grants or toolkit, please feel free to contact Sean Addie at Sean.Addie@ed.gov.

Best —
Sharon Lee Miller
Director, Division of Academic and Technical Education