MESD Awarded $670,000 Grant to Support African American / Black Student Success

MESD’s Instruction Services department was recently awarded a $670,000 grant by the Oregon Department of Education to support African American / Black student success. The grant will fund resources, support and wraparound services for Black and African American students in detention and who are transitioning from detention back to their community and neighborhood schools. It will address the impact of the trauma these youth have experienced in their lives and the lack of culturally responsive supports as they reenter their local school systems and increase and create an opportunity to strengthen communications and relationships between staff, families and students as they transition between education and correctional settings. 
 
Scott Ryan, Principal at Donald E Long explained, “This grant will allow us to focus on the process of re-entry for the community and the youth almost immediately when the youth enters detention. At the time the youth enters detention they will be assigned a school coach who will follow the student through the system and advocate and support them in their education, providing continual touch points throughout the justice process to ensure student success. At the same time, the ESD and its culturally informed and responsive partners will work to reengage the community where the youth as offended and help it to become a ready, open, informed and welcoming community when the youth returns.”  
 
MESD provides instruction to youth in detention, a disproportionate number of whom identify as students of color, at the Donald E Long Juvenile Justice Center, the Inverness Juvenile Incarceration Center and Assessment and Evaluation secure residential treatment facility for Multnomah County. The agency has and will continue to be engaged in the specific work of supporting students in detention and who are returning to their neighborhood schools and communities.