GRAD (Getting Responsible and Disciplined) is a grant-funded program that provides supervision and counseling support to juvenile offenders currently under case management or intensive supervision by Sedgwick County’s Juvenile Field Services.  The program is available to students at four USD 259 schools – East High School, South High School, North High School, and Sowers Special Education Center. Any juvenile offender serviced by Juvenile Field Services and enrolled at one of these schools will be referred to GRAD.

The program centers around Education Support Officers (ESOs) located at East High, South High and Sowers. The ESOs provide counseling and support to juvenile offenders and communicate with instructors to monitor those students and recognize emergent issues. ESOs will be able to address those issues immediately, and will also work with the project coordinator, the Intensive Supervision Officer (ISO), to remedy those issues. The ISO, located at North High, also acts as a liaison between school personnel and community juvenile justice stakeholders, including Sedgwick County Juvenile Field Services.

The support provided by the ESOs will help address problems identified by school personnel and result in reduced levels of supervision failures among juvenile offenders in these four schools.

Funding for the GRAD Program comes from the local Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grant, a federal grant administered by the Sedgwick County Department of Corrections. The grant runs from July 2002 through June 2003.