Grassroots Organizations!

http://www.btchicago.org/

Blocks Together, an organization in the West Huboldt Park Blocksneighborhood on Chicago’s West Side that was created in 1995, has worked on restorative justice, and training security guards, among other things.  More generally, when confronting education, the organization believes that it should allow people “access to more opportunities and an increased ability to participate in activities that benefit the entire community.”4

http://www.gwinnettstopp.org/Gwinnett

The Gwinnett Parent Coalition to Dismantle the School to Prison Pipeline (Gwinnet SToPP) is an organization in  Gwinnett County, Georgia formed in 2007 to make policy changes in opposition to the school-to-prison pipeline.  It includes community stakeholders and it aims to “build and strengthen relationships with the community in two constructive ways – parent/community advocacy and cooperative policy-change facilitation.”5

 http://www.poder-texas.org/ysj_program.htmlPoder

People Organized in the Defense of Earth and her Resources (PODER) is a grassroots organization in Austin, Texas with a holistic approach towards promoting environmental issues as social and economic issues that need to be addressed as basic human rights.  In education, its project “Young Scholars for Justice” is of some note in regards to the opposition of the school-to-prison pipeline.  This project has addressed racial profiling issues in Texas and issues that students have felt with the disciplinary aspects of their schools and juvenile courts.6

http://www.poweru.org/index.php?page=about-usPower

The Power U Center for Social Change is a grassroots organization affiliated with Power University – they both work on urban issues in low-income inner-city neighborhoods.  This organization has helped in the fight against the school-to-prison pipeline with restorative justice training, pressure on school boards to reduce suspension rates, and community forums to “end the Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Pipeline.”7

http://padresunidos.org/padres

Padres y Jovenes Unidos is an organization in Colorado that seeks to keep kids safe and in school while “ending racial disparities where students of color are 6 times more likely to be more harshly punished than their white peers for the same offense.”  Started in 1992, the most recent effort of the group has been the Ya Basta! campaign, which is an effort to reform all schools in southwest Denver.8

http://www.eja-nc.com/EJA

The Education Justice Alliance, located in Wake County, North Carolina, is a grassroots group that is involved in civic engagement efforts to enable students to stay on an academic track.  This group is led by a five person steering committee and works to make education equitable, effective, and inclusive. 9

http://www.cadre-la.org/core/accomplishments/CADRE

CADRE is an organization in Los Angeles that is working to invoke systemic social change and end the school-to-prison-train.  On its “Accomplishments” page, the organization mentions its grassroots database of parents and its efforts to elevate the school-to-prison pipeline crisis to the national scale.10

http://colemanadvocates.org/who-we-are/mission-core-values/Coleman

Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth does not mention the school-to-prison pipeline explicitly as an item on their agenda.  However, located in San Francisco, this organization does try to empower low-income youth and parents to advance racial and economic justice in the city and its schools.  This seems to be in line with the fight against the school-to-prison pipeline that is prevalent nationally. 11

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