Accomplishments

Accomplishments and Long-Term Goals

Our First 12 Years (2001 – 2013)

• Spoke to over 10,000 parents and built our own grassroots database of South LA parents since 2001
• Published an action research report entitled: “We Interrupt This Crisis – With Our Own Side of the Story: Relationships Between South LA Parents and Schools” in English and Spanish  (2004)
• Filed and resolved two dozen complaints about inadequate resources to ensure compliance with the 2004 Williams v. California settlement (2005)
• Received media coverage in major and ethnic community newspapers, public radio, and television newscasts, such as the Los Angeles Times, La Opinión, KPFK 90.7, KPCC 89.3, KNBC Channel 4, and Univisión KMEX
• Collected nearly 50 stories of suspensions and over 120 surveys of youth who did not finish high school in our human rights documentation project, resulting in a report, “More Education. Less Suspension. A Call to Action to Stop the Pushout Crisis in South Los Angeles”  (2006)
• Held a “people’s hearing” on school discipline practices and pushout attended by 100 community members  (2006)
• Influenced and secured Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD’s) adoption of the most progressive and comprehensive district-wide school discipline policy in the nation, based on positive behavior support  (2007)
• Launched Parent Educational Empowerment Academy, introducing 250 South LA parents to advocacy in their children’s education (2008 – current)
• Piloted and sustained grassroots, community-led monitoring of LAUSD’s School-Wide Positive Behavior Support Discipline Foundation Policy  (2008 – current)
• Helped found and launch national Dignity in Schools Campaign (DSC) and local Los Angeles chapter
• Released first-ever “shadow report”  in English and Spanish assessing LAUSD’s discipline policy implementation in South LA, as a result of two-year parent-led monitoring in collaboration with Public Counsel Law Center  (2010)  Also see:  Fix School Discipline
• Helped ensure that School-Wide Positive Behavior Support implementation was institutionalized as part of ongoing LAUSD reform  (2012)
• Co-facilitated launch of California-wide collaboration on school discipline reform with increased access for grassroots communities  (2012 – current)
• Completed and published the first-ever Health Impact Assessment (HIA) on school discipline policies in SouthLA, in partnership with Human Impact Partners
• Supported five (5) new school discipline bills being signed into law, which strengthen the mandate for alternatives to suspensions and the supports for students  (2012)
• Helped launch Solutions Not Suspensions:  A National Call for a Moratorium on Out-of-School Suspensions, as a joint effort between the Dignity in Schools Campaign and the Opportunity to Learn Campaign  (2012)
• Became a part of the School Discipline Consensus Project of the federal Supportive School Discipline Initiative, a national multi-stakeholder effort to outline and recommend the best practices in transforming school discipline into positive student, family, and community support  (2012 – current)
• Helped shift the public debate and elevate the school-to-prison pipeline crisis to national attention — U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights held first-ever Congressional hearing on “Ending the School-to-Prison Pipeline” attended by over 400 youth and parents  (2012)
• Joined with the Brothers, Sons, Selves Coalition to develop and support the adoption of the 2013 School Discipline and School Climate Bill of Rights resolution by LAUSD  (2013)