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On Wednesday, January 7, 2015, the U.S. Department of Education's (the Department's) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released a joint guidance entitled "Dear Colleague Letter: English Learner Students and Limited English Proficient Parents," which outlines the legal obligations of state and local education agencies (SEAs and LEAs) to English learner (EL) students under civil rights laws and other federal requirements. The guidance can be found on OCR's resource page on the Department's website at http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/ellresources.html

The first chapter of a new English Learner Tool Kit—intended to help SEAs and LEAs in meeting their obligations to ELs—has been published on the web by the U.S. Department of Education (the Department). The tool kit is meant to be read in conjunction with the above guidance. The first chapter of the Tool Kit, "Tools and Resources for Identifying All English Learners," can be found on the website of the Department's Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) at http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oela/eltoolkitchap1.pdf

NCELA Nexus Newsletter January 7, 2015.

Read an article about the new guidelines in the Washington Post at http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/new-federal-guidelines-highlight-civil-rights-of-english-language-learners/2015/01/07/870f952e-961f-11e4-8005-1924ede3e54a_story.html