LOCAL projectS on dignity in public schools

Public schools in the U.S. that serve low-income students of color too often fail to ensure that young people are taught in an environment of respect, tolerance and recognition for the inherent dignity of every person. Students face educators that have biased assumptions about their capacities and potential, and suffer regular incidents of verbal mistreatment, exclusion and criminalization that humiliate and de-motivate them from learning. As a result, an institutional culture has developed in many schools that violates the child’s human right to dignity and fails to meet educational needs.

In 2005, NESRI launched a research and advocacy project to promote students’ right to dignity and education in U.S. public schools.  The project focuses on three areas that impact dignity in school: 1) Mistreatment in the classroom; 2) Harsh school discipline policies that deny access to education and push young people out of school; and 3) Destructive police involvement in discipline that criminalizes students.   NESRI partners with social justice organizations at the local level to promote change in school district policies by documenting human rights violations, promoting human rights-based recommendations for change, and providing human rights workshops for community members. 

LOCAL PROJECTS:

• Dignity in New York City Schools - Teachers Unite and the Student Safety Act Coalition
• Dignity and Participation in Los Angeles Schools – Partnering with CADRE
• Response to Jena 6 and the School to Prison Pipeline in Lousiana

REPORT:

Deprived of Dignity: Degrading Treatment and Abusive Discipline in New York City and Los Angeles Public Schools, March 2007

Despojados de dignidad, Resumen Ejecutivo

Promoting Dignity in New York City Public Schools
NESRI works with Teachers Unite to document teacher views about what makes schools safe and to organize teachers in support of grassroots organizations concerned with discipline strategies that criminalize students. 

• Take our Survey on Student Safety for Middle and High School Teachers in New York City Schools

NESRI and Teachers Unite are members of the Student Safety Act Coalition which includes the New York Civil Liberties Unions, the Urban Youth Collaborative, Advocates for Children, Make the Road NY, the Correctional Association, the Legal Aid Society, Legal Services of New York City, and the Children’s Defense Fund – NY.  These organizations are all working actively on issues of school safety, police presence in schools and the juvenile justice system in New York City.  The coalition is developing the Student Safety Act legislation to improve oversight of school safety, and working to support successful school safety models.  NESRI has written commentaries in local press and testified before the City Council about these issues:

• NESRI presentation to NYC Department of Education Symposium on Reducing Suspensions, April 14, 2008
• The Crackdown on New York City Students, NESRI Article in Gotham Gazette, February 11, 2008
• Article in NY Daily News on 5-year-old student handcuffed in a Queens public school and NESRI’s Letter to the Editor, January 29, 2007
• NESRI Testimony at City Council Hearing on Police in Schools, October 2007
• NYCLU Press Release on City Council Hearing
• Testimony to the Dept. of Education on NYC School Discipline Code, August 2007

 
Working with CADRE to Promote the Right to Dignity and Participation in Los Angeles Schools
NESRI works with Community Asset Development Re-defining Education (CADRE) to support their human rights campaign to reduce the use of suspensions and “push outs” in South Los Angeles schools and to ensure that parents have a say in how discipline policies are developed and implemented.  CADRE is a community-based, grassroots organization forged by low-income parents of color in South Los Angeles in 2001.

• CADRE Victory - New Discipline Policy Passed in Los Angeles.  The Los Angeles Unified School District Board adopted a new Discipline Foundation Policy for School-wide Positive Behavior on February 27, 2007 aimed at reducing suspensions through “positive behavior support” that prevents and constructively intervenes in patterns of misbehavior. CADRE organized support in Los Angeles and around the country to help pass this new policy, which represents a positive step toward changing the harsh suspensions that students now face. 

• Read the new LAUSD Discipline Foundation Policy: School-wide Positive Behavior Support and Attachments
• NESRI Letter of Support to Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board of Education, June 27, 2006
• Letter to the Editor of LA Times in Support of New Policy

• South Los Angeles People’s Hearing - On June 14, 2006, CADRE held a South LA People’s Hearing to share parent testimonies and research on human rights violations resulting from school discipline practices, and to present their human rights demands for a new discipline policy focused on prevention and supporting students.
  
  
  • Article describing People’s Hearing
  • CADRE Human Rights Demands
  • CADRE Documentation Report: More Education. Less Suspension. A Call to Action to Stop the Pushout Crisis in South Los Angeles