Education

LOS ANGELES YOUTH TO COME TOGETHER TO REFORM HARSH SCHOOL DISCIPLINE PRACTICES

MEDIA ADVISORY
March 9, 2012

 

For More Information Contact:

Danica Tisdale Fisher,
Children’s Defense Fund-California,
dfisher@childrensdefense.org,
(404) 538-8786

 

Over 150 youth will gather at a youth led summit on March 10, 2012 to learn how they can organize to replace a school-to-prison pipeline with one leading toward college and careers.

The school-to-prison pipeline is a national crisis that is pushing youth, especially boys of color, out of public schools and into the juvenile justice system. In Los Angeles, this pipeline has taken the form of harsh school discipline policies such as the over-reliance on suspensions and expulsions, law enforcement on school campuses, schools that often look and feel like prisons, and the ticketing and criminalization of truancy.

Recent Office of Civil Rights school discipline data reported in the LA and NY Times is a sobering look at how far Los Angeles and LAUSD have to go to make change, with African American students in LAUSD suspended at rates of 26%, even though they only represent 9% of the student population.

Dozens of the students registered for the below event report being ticketed for truancy, in spite of the recent changes to harsh truancy ticketing policies in LAUSD, like the amendment of LA’s daytime curfew law (Municipal Code 45.04).

WHAT:

Youth Summit on the School-to-Prison Pipeline, organized by CDF-involved youth, who understand the toll that these harsh school policies have take on their classmates, families and communities.

WHO:

Over 150 youth from Los Angeles-area high schools
Speakers include:
Mark Ridley-Thomas, Los Angeles County Supervisor for District 2
Manuel Criollo, Strategy Center’s Community Rights Campaign
Kim McGill, Youth Justice Coalition
Youth Justice Coalition and CDF Student leaders

WHEN:

March 10, 2012
10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

WHERE:

USC Marshall School of Business, Hoffman Hall (HOH)
801 Exposition Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA

VISUALS:

youth-designed simulation exercise to help participants better understand the school-to-prison pipeline and its devastating effect on vulnerable youth.

Sponsored by: Children’s Defense Fund-California and the Office of Mark Ridley-Thomas, Los Angeles County Supervisor for District 2. Program support from The California Endowment.