CADRE is a community-based, membership parent organization in South Los Angeles founded in 2001. CADRE is led by African American and Latino parents and caregivers whose children attend local schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). We work for systemic change by supporting grassroots South LA parents as the leaders in stopping the pushout crisis in schools serving low-income neighborhoods of color.
Through parent capacity building, political education, advocacy, and organizing, CADRE challenges schools' beliefs and practices that criminalize children and parents and violate their human rights to a quality education, dignity, and participation in our current public education system. We build power to win new policies and challenge existing ones as part of a movement towards educational and racial justice.
Our mission is to solidify and advance parent leadership to ensure that all children are rightfully educated regardless of where they live. We seek to effect policy change and mobilize political will through new parent participation models that preserve and expand the right to education for all South LA children and youth.