Grassroots Organizing

An Overview of the Grassroots Movement
Parents, youth, educators, and community members across the nation are all involved in the grassroots organizing movement to end the School-to-Prison Pipeline. One main goal of the movement is to educate youth, parents, and community members about the issues related to the STPP, open up conversations, and provide advocacy trainings. With these advocacy trainings, organizations are empowering individuals in the community to be able to articulate the issues, know their rights, and navigate the school system, so they are able to advocate for themselves, and ultimately advocate for policy change. Much of the grassroots organizing movement around the STTP is focused on empowering youth, and/or is youth led. The youth of these organizations engage in many forms of activism. Many of them conduct research and publish reports, raising awareness about the realities of zero tolerance, the school-to-prison pipeline, and the glaring racial disparities in this phenomenon. Most organizations are also working to directly influence school policy, and are making the following demands:

            1. The elimination of zero tolerance policies
            2. The elimination of suspensions for minor infractions 
            3. Reduced police presence in schools
            4. The implementation of Restorative Justice approaches to discipline 

7

Several youth-led grassroots organizations have had major successes.

In Philadelphia, after years of demanding an end to zero tolerance policies in schools, youth leaders as part of the Philadelphia Student Union (PSU) saw the School Reform Commission unanimously passed a new Code of Student Conduct declaring that students can no longer get out-of-school suspensions for minor infractions such as disrupting class, using profanity, skipping class and violating the dress code.8

In 2008, Padres & Jovenes Unidos won the passage of an incredibly progressive and restorative discipline policy for Denver Public schools. More recently, they have successfully gotten the super intendant of schools to agree to an implementation plan that they designed.9