Education Web site also to feature suggestions for parents and educators trying to help their children understand the terrorist attacks.

U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige today announced that the U.S. Department of Education would be making a series of grants totaling in the millions of dollars to the school districts directly impacted by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Paige also announced that the department would provide information resources to parents and teachers to help children dealing with the effects of the attacks, but who were not directly impacted.

Paige announced that the department has contacted the chief state school officers, as well as local school authorities, in Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and Washington, D.C., to offer them assistance with counseling and support services for their schoolchildren and faculty. In the coming days, the department will announce a series of grants to school districts in these states that were directly impacted by the terrorist attacks for assistance with grief and trauma counseling and other services, including a major grant to New York City Board of Education schools.

"It will take some time for the school districts that have suffered directly as a result of these acts of terror to determine the nature and extent of their need for our assistance," Paige said. "They each have our assurance that Project SERV grants will be available to them when they determine their needs and priorities. The U.S. Department of Education will be there to assist our schools in meeting the needs of their students and faculty and the communities they serve."

Each of the grants will come from the department's Project SERV. Created with a $10 million appropriation from Congress in 2000, Project SERV is intended to provide assistance such as counseling services to local school districts that have experienced a traumatic event. The funds are available to meet the immediate needs of the students in these school districts as well as their longer-term crisis response needs.

Paige also announced that the department's Web site will feature suggestions for adults with children and for educators in order to offer help to the children who may be struggling with the terrorist attacks and the images and stories of terror and destruction that they have been exposed to in recent days.

"As adults, we must offer them our undivided attention and unequivocal support," Paige said. "All adults should be concerned about how well the children in their lives understand what has taken place. Families and teachers alike should know that they play a central role in helping children to understand what has taken place, to separate fact from fiction and to establish a sense of safety. There are simple things adults can do—but the most important is to listen to and talk to the children in their lives. They also need to watch for signs of unusual behavior and take steps to limit exposure to television and Internet imagery."

These and other suggestions are listed on the Department of Education's Web site at www.ed.gov. The department will also continue building links to other Web resources for parents and educators.

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