Support for Youth Engaged in the Juvenile Justice System

During the 2024 legislative session, the Colorado legislature passed new legislation focused on the educational supports for youth who have been involved in the juvenile justice system.

CDE will be working to implement the requirements of the new legislation over the 2024-25, 2025-26, and 2026-27 school years.

While additional guidance and resources will be forthcoming, in the meantime CDE encourages districts to familiarize themselves with the components of the legislation and to make contact information available on their website.

Per the legislation, each local education provider has a responsibility to:

Designate a point of contact who can support justice-engaged students and their families or caregivers. This support at a minimum should include understanding the enrollment or transfer process for new students and connecting them to resources as needed.
Post the contact information for the point of contact on the district’s website.

The point of contact will receive additional information from CDE to support their work as it is developed, and CDE will engage with stakeholders in this development process.

Justice Engaged Youth Guidance Document

The following document contains guidance to support varying aspects of House Bill 24:1216: Support for Justice Engaged Youth. Each Local Education Agency (LEA) point of contact should review this guidance, and the guidance is recommended for persons acting as child welfare education liaisons, guardian ad litem, counsel for youth, or other officers who work with youth. This version is the first iteration of the document, and updated versions will be published prior to August 1, 2026.

Justice Engaged Youth Guidance Document August 2025 (Coming soon)

Hotline

As part of this legislation, CDE is looking for a vendor who can establish and maintain a statewide hotline for justice-engaged students, families, caregivers, Justice System personnel, and education personnel. Over the course of the 2025-26 school year, CDE will be gathering information and selecting a vendor to serve in this role.

For more information about the hotline, please see the link below.

Justice Engaged Youth Hotline Information

Interagency Workgroup

CDE was charged with convening an interagency group to better understand data available on justice engaged youth and make recommendations for reporting. The group met between July 1, 2024 and December 1, 2024, and a report with the findings from the workgroup can be found at the webpage below.

Additional information about the workgroup is available at this webpage.

For questions, contact Johann Liljengren at liljengren_j@cde.state.co.us