K12NN: Markham MS Community to Protest PLAS Policies started under Marshall Tuck

First published on K-12 News Network on May 20, 2014

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Former PLAS CEO Marshall Tuck's school-to-prison-pipeline legacy for children of color lives on in the policies he established at Markham Middle School. However, the community is tired and fighting back!

African-American and Latino parents/students to unite with Community groups and United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) to speak out against discriminatory practices against African-American students, parents, and stakeholders at local middle school. Their primary message to the school principal, the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (PLAS) and to the Los Angeles Unified School District will be “Stop pushing us out!”

The administration at Markham Middle School and the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools has been pushing out African-American students. These students are sent home on silent and unreported suspensions, and are asked to remain at home for the remainder of the school year without any access to an education. African-Americans are being deprived of their fundamental right to an education.

Markham PLAS Protest Marshall Tuck Policies Press Conference Flyer by Robert D. Skeels

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Please visit the original article on K-12 News Network for a photo album of the the protest.

K12NN: Markham MS Community to Protest PLAS Policies started under Marshall Tuck

Boyle Heights Parents and Students Rally to Save Beloved School

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Media Release

March 11, 2014
For Immediate Release
Boyle Heights Parents and Students Rally to Save Beloved School
333 Beaudry Ave, Los Angeles, CA. 90017
4-6pm

For the third week in a row, students and parents from Roosevelt High School's Academy of Environmental and Social Policy (ESP) will take to the streets in protest of LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy's decision to relocate their small school to Lincoln High School, in effect dismantling the school's population and culture. This time, their target is Board Member Monica Garcia, who they criticize for remaining silent during the destruction of their school without any parent, student, staff or community input.

Three weeks ago, students, parents and staff were given notice that their current location at the East LA Skills Center, where they have been housed for the past seven years, would not be available next school year. The school was informed that they would be moving to Lincoln High School, a move which many parents fear would put their Boyle Heights students at risk of gang violence, bullying, and would destroy the small school environment the school has worked so hard to establish. Many students play sports and participate in activities at Roosevelt High, and praise the small school for creating a safe, personalized, rigorous environment while maintaining a connection with Roosevelt's main campus. Teachers at ESP Academy fear that many students will not follow the staff to Lincoln, slashing the student population for next year. The main complaint about this process is the lack of voice given to the community and the lack of transparency on behalf of the school district. The reason their current site is not available has still not been communicated to the school community.

ESP students, parents and staff have rallied at the District offices for the past two weeks in a row, with 9 speakers sharing a public comment at last week's Board meeting. Tuesday, March 11, their focus is on Board Member Monica Garcia, who, according to her 2010 plan for school reform called "Reform the LA Way", announced that school reform should not be a "top down approach" but instead be "created on the ground...in the community...and always accountable to our parents". Parents and students argue that their school is being torn out from under their feet, in a process that has silenced all stakeholders, and Board Member Garcia has remained silent throughout the process. The school community is pleading with Garcia to make a statement that responds to their demands, to meet with their school community, and to add the issue of ESP Academy to the agenda for the next school board meeting.

Also see last week's LA Times article: http://articles.latimes.com/2014/mar/02/local/la-me-adv-lausd-roosevelt-20140303

The Academy of Environmental and Social Policy (ESP) for Roosevelt High School is an off-site true small public school (roughly 300 students) that provides all students a career-ready and college-preparatory program. http://www.esp-rhs.com/

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Boyle Heights Parents and Students Rally to Save Beloved School

Stop Recruiting Kids National Campaign

http://www.srkcampaign.org/

Campaign Goals

Our goal is to protect kids from military recruiting. How we treat our young (and other vulnerable populations) is a mark of our level of civilization.

A free society is capable of filling its military from the ranks of adults and does not need to take advantage of children or adolescents who are unable to judge the risks of such a life altering decision.

The campaign is not anti-military, it is pro-child. We want a safe and healthy childhood for all our kids.

Campaign Values

We are committed to the principles of nonviolence taught by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This means that we attack only the policies and practices involved with military recruiting of minors, not the people involved in recruiting—for whom we show the same love and respect we wish to receive from them.

National Service

We realize the military has massive public funding that enables it to offer economic opportunity, along with development of character and social skills, as benefits that can be enticing for young people to enlist. The campaign will be fully successful only when we have moved society to the point where these same opportunities and benefits are available to all our youth outside of the military.

The campaign will include calls for increased public funding and support for agencies like the Corporation for National & Community Service, the Peace Corps, and other service programs to provide meaningful paths to economic opportunity and development for all young people.

Actions - Drive the Campaign

How to Help

Here are three ways you can drive the campaign:

1. Share our Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest posts in your own social media feeds. This is how we spread the campaign and help move public opinion.

2. Take part in the legislative actions below to tell your representatives what you want them to do. This is how we build support to change public policy.

3. When you are ready for a bigger commitment, organize or join a local Meetup group to start building positive relationships with your school board, administrators, teachers, students, and parent groups. This is how we build real change.

Current Actions
Protect our children and their families from military recruiting in schools without parental consent

Tell your representative that you want military recruiting efforts to honor the privacy rights of our children and their families.

The No Child Left Behind Act requires high schools to divulge students' personal information to military recruiters without their parents' consent.

The Student Privacy Protection Act will change this military recruiting practice from an “opt-out” to an “opt-in” program.

This simple change would ensure that schools do not divulge students' personal information to military recruiters unless their parents explicitly consent to such a release.  Act Now >> https://www.popvox.com/orgs/srkcampaign/_action/8240

Campaign Partners

Your organization can join the campaign simply by sharing our photos and actions with your supporters through your Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social media feeds and email newsletters. You also can add the campaign to your website and other communications.


Alternatives to Military
Lincoln, Nebraska

On Earth Peace
New Windsor, Maryland



If you would like to list your organization as a partner, email us at: join@SRKcampaign.org

Tell us how you plan to share the campaign with your supporters, and include a square logo image (50 x 50), the city and state of your main office location, and a link to your website.

Stop Recruiting Kids National Campaign

Special Event - Punishing our Future: School Discipline in Los Angeles

"While KIPP schools ostensibly claim that college acceptance for all students is their primary goal, the principles and practices that undergird their mission are founded upon capitalistic and militaristic ideals that run counter to the ideals of democratic education... By subscribing to a dictum of no excuses, KIPP essentially puts the onus on the victims of poverty and institutional racism. This clearly conveys the fallacy to urban students that failure in this society will solely be a reflection of not working long and hard enough, or simply not complying with rules set by those with authority." — Brian Lack

I'm attending this event next week. I'm not too familiar with the organizations holding it, but anyone questioning the outrageous and racist disciplinary systems proffered by the corporate education reform camp is worth checking out. Go to the event site for full details on this panel and the speakers.

Punishing our Future: School Discipline in Los Angeles

Texas suspension and expulsion rates are no longer a secret to most, but in California, almost 800,000 suspensions and expulsions are administered each year, approximately doubling Texas’s rates. In Los Angeles alone, these extreme policies are proving to be all too common for nonviolent offenses, like being tardy to school, which historically would have warranted a trip to the principal’s office at most. More alarmingly, research indicates that resulting student absenteeism can be used to forecast school dropout rates with chilling accuracy, causing a spiral of negative consequences with lifelong repercussions for affected youth, their families, and our communities.

In an effort to explore how we can return to common sense alternatives instead of current disciplinary measures, CenterScene Public Programs invites you to an evening of surveying the advocacy, policy, and social justice work being done around school discipline. Moderated by journalist and author of Lockdown High, Annette Fuentes, panelists will demystify school discipline jargon, examine the implementation of Zero Tolerance policies, and tackle the issue of school bullying to highlight the nuances of school discipline and student safety today.

Join us Wednesday, October 5, 2011 for an evening discussion with those at the forefront of reshaping a more just school discipline landscape. 

Special Event - Punishing our Future: School Discipline in Los Angeles