Join Lateefah Simon from Akonadi Foundation and strategists of Dignity in Schools Campaign California (DSC CA) to build allies in philanthropy who are willing to invest in movement building leadership to keep California at the forefront ending criminalization in our schools and dismantling the school to prison pipeline. While this work is traditionally viewed as an educational issue, this work is opening critical struggles against policing in schools and communities, and building a new layer of grassroots leaders and movements to confront mass incarceration.
About Dignity in Schools Campaign - California
DSC CA emerges out of a 20-year movement to counter “zero tolerance” approaches to school discipline that result in the “school-to-prison pipeline”. The unprecedented rise in student removals from classrooms, along with the increased reliance on school policing, have only exacerbated racial and gender/gender identity-based disparities in educational outcomes, undermining low-income communities of color even further. Research has demonstrated that one school suspension significantly decreases the likelihood of high school graduation, and increases the likelihood of contact with law enforcement and juvenile detention, which increases the odds of further trauma, adult incarceration, and other forms of structural oppression.
DSC CA is building the collective solidarity and leadership of youth, parents and the organizations that develop them in five regions throughout the state seeking to address the disparities in movement building resources available to address the school to prison pipeline and advocate for an end to the criminalization of vulnerable young people in our schools. These regions are Los Angeles, Bay Area, Inland Valley, Central Valley, and Central Coast.
For more information please contact Noemi Soto at Noemi@dignityinschools-ca.org
