San Antonio, TX — April 30, 2025
Celebrate Dyslexia is expanding critical support for justice-involved youth with dyslexia through strategic partnerships, targeted funding, and growing influence on county and state-level initiatives.
With funding from Up Partnership, Celebrate Dyslexia moved forward with a formal collaboration with Bexar County Juvenile Probation (BCJP) to strengthen the student intake process and ensure youth receive appropriate identification, support, and services. The organizations established a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) focused on students in residential treatment, specifically those served at the Krier Center.
Celebrate Dyslexia continues to convene quarterly with partners from BCJP, East Central ISD, and Up Partnership to review student identification practices and academic progress at the Krier Center. As part of this work, Celebrate Dyslexia provided Dyslexia 101 training for BCJP probation officers in March and continues to explore additional avenues for collaboration and capacity-building.
Through funding from the San Antonio Area Foundation, Celebrate Dyslexia is now exploring new opportunities to expand services for justice-involved youth, including the potential to provide direct intervention services and train staff to build long-term internal capacity within partner organizations.
This collaborative work has also helped shape Up Partnership’s countywide initiative to better support students. Most notably, the effort contributed to the passage of House Bill 5002, authored by State Representative John Lujan, which establishes a five-year statewide study and pilot program focused on the identification of dyslexia and the delivery of interventions for children committed to juvenile facilities. The legislation directs collaboration between the Texas Juvenile Justice Department and the Texas Education Agency to address dyslexia among justice-involved youth.
Building on this momentum, Up Partnership is spearheading a proposal to the Bexar County Commissioners Court to create a dedicated dyslexia team within the County Public Health Office to support justice-involved youth across all school districts.
“These partnerships demonstrate what’s possible when education, juvenile justice, and community organizations work together,” said Jasmin Dean, Founder of Celebrate Dyslexia. “We are encouraged by the systems-level change already underway and excited about the opportunities ahead to better serve some of our most vulnerable students.”
