Dive Brief:

• A San Diego County grand jury report accuses six local detention facilities of breaking California law by failing to adequately educate at-risk juveniles.  
• The facilities are supposed to offer year-round school, but are instead breaking the year up into sessions with too much time off during the summer. Additionally, the report says substitutes teaching summer sessions lack training and experience necessary for teaching in that environment.  
• The grand jury called for the juvenile justice system to educate year-round with regular teachers.

Dive Insight:

News of these failures come on the heels of a recent report by the Southern Education Foundation, which found student inmates in the juvenile justice system were generally receiving substandard education.

While that report noted that problems were exacerbated by a lack of juvenile detention standardized tests to assess learning, the San Diego report uses qualitative evidence such as a lack of schooling days and unqualified teachers to prove a violation of the juveniles' rights to education.