List of Organizations

New York City:

  • Urban Youth Collaborative (UYC)
    • The Urban Youth Collaborative (UYC) is a group of New York City Students who fight for educational reform that puts students first. They demand a high quality education for all, as well as social, economic and racial justice in schools and communities. In 2004, the group was formed by a group of students who were angry about the radical top-down reform in which students were kept out of the decision making process. Since then, this grassroots organization works for reform on a multitude of issues. One of the major issues they focus on is the school to prison pipeline and push for the elimination of suspensions for certain infractions and the funding and implementation of restorative justice approaches to discipline. 
      •  http://www.urbanyouthcollaborative.org
    •  Organizing for Equity, NY (OFENY)
      • Organizing for Equity, NY (OFENY) is made up of community members, educators and leaders who organize through social and political action to demand equity for the children of New York. OFENY began in December of 2017 when a group of about 60 educators, students, parents and community leaders gathered to share ideas about how to make schools more equitable for all students. A current project is the demand for change related to the School to Prison Pipeline. The OFENY demands that the NYC school discipline code be revised, funding be allocated for de-escalation training for all schools, and the verification of accuracy of suspension and removal data.
        • https://www.ofeny.org/about
    • BronxConnect
      • BronxConnect is a sub-organization of the Urban Youth Alliance. It was birthed by a Reverend from the Bronx in 1999 when she sought to bring the strength of the urban church to help with the epidemic of youth incarceration. Rather than bringing down the system itself, this grassroots organization seeks to help those children who have already been victimized by the pipeline. They connect court-involved and high-risk youth to mentors with positive community resources to prevent recidivism.
        • https://bronxconnect.org/about/

Elsewhere:

    • Save the Kids (Utah)
      • Save the Kids is a grassroots organization located in Utah that was started by youth, for youth. Its main focus is to support all youth but specifically the 4 major groups (LGBTQ, Youth of Color, Youth with Disabilities and economically disadvantaged) who are targeted by the school to prison pipeline. They do this by focusing on alternatives to zero-tolerance policies to keep kids in school and out of the criminal justice system. 
      • https://savethekidsgroup.org
    • Black Organizing Project (California)
      • The Black Organizing Project (BOP) is a Black, member-led community organization that focuses on working for racial, social and economic justice through grassroots organizing in Oakland California. BOP strives to build a strong bottom up organization of black people to rebuild communities, exercise their power and craft alternatives to implement a better system for racial and economic justice. One project that they are currently working on is known as BOSS, Bettering Our School System. The goals of the campaign include:
        • End the criminalization of Black and Brown students in the Oakland Unified School District
        • Invest in alternative models of school safety that don’t rely on police
        • Restructure the current policies and practices within the Oakland School Department that don’t take a restorative justice approach to student discipline and promote the school to prison pipeline.
          • http://blackorganizingproject.org/our-work/
    • Power U Center for Social Change (Florida)
      • The Power U Center for Social Change is a grassroots organization located in Miami, Florida that works toward developing leadership skills among the community of black and brown children so that they may help to lead in the struggle to liberate the oppressed. One of their main missions is “Smashing the School-to-Prison Pipeline.” The way they are trying to execute this is Divest in Punishment, Invest in Students. This project encourages the school system to reallocate funds from policing and security to spend on more mental health and trust counselors and fund youth programming for students and the community. The believe that a strong connection to community and school promotes healthy behavior and keeps children out of trouble.
        • https://poweru.org/smashing-the-school-to-prison-pipeline/