Sign now to stand with the Black and Native youth & families who are working to take down the racist "Life of Washington" mural at the SFUSD high school at 600 32nd Ave. in the “Richmond District”, which is on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Territory. The large-scale painting at this school depicts George Washington standing over the bodies of dead Indigenous people, it depicts Black people as enslaved and docile, and it is a symbol of white supremacy that Black and Native students are forced to walk past every day. It is a, it is a constant reminder that the institution, that is supposed to care for and educate Black and Native youth, them glorifies the genocide, colonization and enslavement of their people. Over three years ago, Amy and Kai Anderson, parent and student at the school that contains the murals, reignited the “Take It Down” campaign. It first started in 1968, with the school's Black Student Union and the SF Black Panther Party demanding that the district remove the racist murals. During that time, in protest, ink was thrown upon the fresco murals and can be seen there to this day. For the past few years, the American Indian PAC listed the removal of these murals as one of their top priorities. As a result the district established a “Reflection and Action Committee” to decide how, not if, the murals were to come down. The committee met and studied the issue for months and voted to have the murals digitally archived and painted over before the first day of school in the fall of 2019. San Francisco’s diverse school board courageously listened to Black and Native students and believed them when they testified about the trauma these murals create for them. The board voted unanimously to follow the committee’s recommendations and paint down the mural (or cover it with panels if it takes more than 3 years to paint down). We are so proud that our school board centered directly impacted student’s voices and voted to “Paint It Down” & give youth a clean slate. However, the work of giving students a clean slate is just beginning. The Washington Alumni Association has vowed to file lawsuits and use ballot initiatives to try to overturn and silence the decisions of youth, families and electeds of color. White nationalist publications like Breitbart have bashed the decision, using the same logic being used to preserve Confederate statues and symbols across the nation. The opposition is hoping that by pushing the School Board to put wooden panels over the mural instead of destroying it, they can one day remove the panels altogether so that things remain exactly the way they are now. We call on the San Francisco School Board to show up for Black and Native youth, to tell them that we hear their voices, we believe them, and we’ll continue to show up for them until we get the clean slate they deserve. Sign this petition to let the board know that you pledge to work with these youth and their families, to show up online or in person as needed, and to lift up and amplify their voices until they get the clean slate they are demanding and that they deserve.

A 15-year old Black boy was brutally assaulted by Broward County Sheriff deputies in front of a McDonald’s in Tamarac, Florida -- for bending down to retrieve a friend's phone. Delucca “Lucca” Rolle was with a group of friends who gathered in front of a McDonald’s after their high school let out for the day when the police were called to respond to a fight happening on the corner. Although the fight had already ended by the time they arrived, police began arresting the young people who were still present. One of those boys was Lucca’s friend, whose phone slid out of his pocket as the deputies grabbed him and wrestled him to the ground. What happened next is all captured in horrifying detail on video. Instead of allowing Lucca to step back once he bent down to retrieve the phone, the police pepper sprayed him, body slammed him to the ground, and punched his head into the pavement, breaking his nose. Across the country, Black children continue to be brutalized by law enforcement both on and outside of school property with little to no repercussions. From Louisiana to Chicago, police attacks on Black minors have been well-documented but rarely result in consequences for the police in question. In his follow up report, Deputy Krickovich stated that as he and Sgt. LaCerra arrested Lucca’s friend, they saw Lucca “[take] an aggressive stance” and that he “feared for his safety.” The students who were there and the thousands who have seen the video since recognize the Deputy’s statement for what it is. A blatant lie. After his arrest, Lucca was charged with assaulting an officer and resisting arrest - charges notoriously levied against civilians who themselves are assaulted by the police. These charges have since been dropped -- but we know that this is not enough. As long as Deputy Krickovich and Sgt. LaCerra are allowed to remain on the force, there is little to stop them from continuing to brutalize the Black residents of Broward County, and their children, with impunity. The actions of the Broward County Sheriff Office have reinforced a hard truth. The police do not see Black boys like Lucca as children to be protected, but as threats to be eliminated. Demand justice for Lucca and accountability for our children now. Tell Sheriff Gregory Tony and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office to fire Krickovich and LaCerra immediately!

New York City (NYC) must reverse policies that have proven ineffective at creating safe and supportive environments for students. Policing in schools promotes the exclusion and criminalization of Black and Latinx students, rather than their education. NYC should end arrests, as well as the issuance of summonses and juvenile reports, in schools for non-criminal violations and misdemeanors. Research shows that policing in schools fails to make schools safer or reduce bullying or fighting. The presence of police criminalizes typical adolescent behavior, such as disorderly conduct, which is the number one reason for summons in our schools. Experiencing an arrest for the first time in high school nearly doubles the odds of the student dropping out, and a court appearance nearly quadruples the odds of the student dropping out. Police in NYC schools largely police low-level offenses, including normal youthful behavior. In the last year, nearly 85 percent of all arrests, summonses, and NYPD juvenile reports of young people in NYC schools were for misdemeanors and violations. For Black and Latinx students our schools continue to be an on-ramp into the criminal justice system. Policing in schools creates extreme and persistent racial disparities. -Black girls are 10.4 times more likely to be arrested and 6.3 times more likely to be issued a summons than their White peers. -Black boys are 5.6 times more likely to be arrested and 9 times more likely to receive a summons than White boys. -Black and Latinx students account for 92% of all summons and 89% of all arrests. To end racial disparities in arrests, summons, and juvenile reports, the city must commit to ending these practices altogether. Instead of criminalizing young people, New York City should invest in supportive services like restorative justice, mental health supports, guidance counselors, and social workers.

The people of New Jersey need your help. In 2017, 94 Percent of Black voters cast their ballots for Governor Murphy. Without this support from the Black community, it is unlikely that Phil Murphy would be New Jersey’s governor—53 percent of white voters supported his opponent. But nine months into his administration, Governor Murphy has not focused on critical issues facing the 94 percent: 1) Transforming New Jersey’s youth justice system: New Jersey has a shameful system of youth incarceration in which a Black child is 30 times more likely to be incarcerated than a white child—the highest disparity in the nation. 2) Restoring the right to vote to people with criminal convictions: New Jersey denies the right to vote to nearly 100,000 people who are in prison, on parole, or on probation. Although Black people make up 15 percent of New Jersey's total population, Black residents represent over 60 percent of the people who lost the right to vote due to a criminal conviction. 3) Closing the racial wealth gap: In New Jersey, one of the wealthiest states in America, the median net worth for New Jersey’s white families is $271,402—the highest in the nation. But the median net worth for New Jersey’s Black families is just $5,900. We must ensure that Governor Murphy keeps his promises to the Black voters that put him in office.

Despite community demands to make cuts at the top and keep cuts away from students, OUSD made cuts closest to the kids. Now 3,000 low-income kids will lose daily meals and 500 kids will lose sports programs. When studies clearly show that: kids who are hungry struggle to learn, kids need safe places to go after-school, and sports can provide pathways to academic success for underserved kids. To protect our most vulnerable children, we demand the Board and the Superintendent: 1. Immediately Reinstate Funding to bring back the Free Supper program and the ten Oakland Athletic League sports programs 2. Adopt the following Student Equity Criteria: ● No cuts to direct services to kids in classrooms or on campus that are core to kids’ ability to learn and succeed in school. ● No cuts that disproportionately harm students with highest-need by conducting an impact assessment for any proposed cuts. Moving forward, in order to resolve our budget crisis AND protect our students, we need a new public budget process and stronger community oversight to ensure the hard decisions required (to shift significant resources out of Central Office to schools) can be made. What the first round of budget cuts has shown is, that without greater community control over resources in the district and a collective vision for equity - the students most in need will have their supports cut first. HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW! ● SIGN and SHARE this petition tinyurl.com/reversecutstokids ● EMAIL Board members to Bring Back Supper and Sports for all Oakland Kids! tinyurl.com/emailousdboard ● ATTEND the Board Fiscal Vitality Ctte meetings from now through December to protect the highest need students in any future cuts (the board will make up to $60M in cuts over the next two years)! The Justice for Oakland Students Coalition (J4OS) is a group of deeply concerned students, parents/families, teacher allies, and community organizations who came together around four pillars that center students with highest need – so all kids can learn and succeed! 1) Shift money from Central Office directly to schools; 2) Stop the proliferation of charter schools and re-invest in making all in-district schools excellent; 3) Divest from school police and reinvest in a culture of restorative justice, real school safety and inclusion; and 3) Honor the principles of equity, meaningful engagement of students and parents, democratic decision-making and shared governance.

A mother who is a veteran had to return home from Iraq and fight the battle for her children. The children were taken from her safe and sustainable home, and 50/50 custody order. The mother was falsely arrested. The charges where dismissed but the ramification lingered. Nine years later the mother and her children have no relationship. The children were forced to live full-time with their abusive father leaving them vulnerable to mental, physical and emotional abuse at critical developmental stages in there lives. The court's decision has traumatized the mother and placed the children in danger. As of September 24, 2018, at least 657 children have been murdered by a parent involved in a divorce, separation, custody, visitation, or child support situation in the U.S. since 2008. Abusive parents are often granted custody or unprotected parenting time by family courts—placing our nation’s children at ongoing risk. Researchers who interviewed judges and court administrators following some of these tragedies found that most believed these were isolated incidents. Needed reforms have not been implemented. Many court-related child homicides occurred after family courts granted dangerous parents access to children over the objections of a protective parent. We recognize that the women's right's movement is still a work in progress. Marginalized women face multiple oppressions, and we can only win freedom by bringing awareness on how they impact one another. The women of color need a national movement to uplift the needs of the most marginalized women and children. As women of color we need to stand for our human rights to parent the children we have in a safe and sustainable community.

On May 1st, at 5pm at City Hall, The Philadelphia Coalition for a Just District Attorney is gathering our movement under a call to end mass incarceration and reinvest in the communities most affected. For too long, “tough on crime” policies have deliberately targeted our black, brown, and working class communities -- ICE is tearing apart families, our youth are being criminalized in school and treated as adults by our overzealous criminal justice system, and the legal system's reliance on cash bail continues to overcrowd our prisons, keeping the House of Correction facility open despite its notoriety for its decrepit conditions. While District Attorney Larry Krasner has made significant progress in his mandate to challenge mass incarceration, our coalition recognizes there are other political actors who hold the power to divest from prisons and invest in people. In the upcoming months, the School District of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Police and Prison Departments, and the First Judicial District will be presenting their fiscal year budgets to City Council for approval. On May 1st, both the Police and Prison Department will be presenting their budgets. We need Philadelphia City Council to support a "People's Budget" and use these hearings to advocate for increased funding for our public school system and decreased spending on incarceration.

We are concerned community members of Baldwin Hills Elementary Pilot, a school doing amazing things with and for our Black and Brown babies, 80% Black. 1. Local, Black District officials (one of whom went to Baldwin) and local, Black LAUSD Board office heads are laying low, doing nothing to protect our school’s programs. 2. Charter school needs space, wants to move to another LAUSD campus with space, while LAUSD is actively NOT pursuing this alternate agreement to move the charter. 3. What space on Baldwin Hills campus does LAUSD want to give to the charter? a). Our music room b). Our arts room c). Our technology lab d). Our parent run after school childcare room, where one our mothers pays LAUSD rent, to house her program on our campus for our families 4. What makes Baldwin Hills a special place, one worth preserving? a). 2 out of 3 students score near/at/above standards in mathematics b). 3 out of 4 students score near/at/above standards in language arts c). We’re a Pilot school with autonomies to innovate. We focus on culturally responsive teaching, STEAM, and project based learning. d). We are a highly rated arts program school. e). Multiple Excelling Magnet Awards f). National Board Certified Teachers alongside LAUSD Rookie of the Year Teacher 5. We’re doing this with children that nationally are underserved and underperforming: Black and Brown students. So, while the District lays low, we stand up! Do what's right! Move the charter to another site! #westandupforbaldwinhills #whoarewebhep

The state of Florida needs change to prevent more tragedies, but it will not come with more children staring down the barrel of a gun. Three weeks ago, 17 students and school staff were murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and Florida was shaken to its core. The Florida legislature followed Governor Rick Scott's lead in drafting "solutions" that involve filling Florida schools with even more guns. Our state's elected officials have approved a bill that provides funding to arm school staff, including teachers, coaches, librarians and counselors, while dramatically increasing funding for police and high level surveillance security in schools. At Governor Scott's direction, this bill will make Florida schools a lot scarier for students, particularly students of color, across the state. After Columbine, 10,000 school police officers were hired to prevent another mass shooting. Two decades later and more police presence in school has not proven to be an effective solution and has not stopped a single mass shooting. Instead, police in Florida have locked up 1 million children, mostly black children, for routine behavior disruptions, like talking back to a teacher or getting into schoolyard scuffles. The proposed bill allots $400 million to make our schools feel more like prisons when they should feel sanctuaries. This bill will have catastrophic consequences for insurmountable numbers of black, brown and poor youth in Florida. Our representatives have a responsibility to act in a way that keeps all Florida children safe. Tell Governor Rick Scott to veto any bill to allocate resources for more police and guns in schools. Supporters Dream Defenders Power U Center for Social Change Advancement Project National Office Color of Change Florida’s Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 1199 New Florida Majority Miami Worker's Center Alliance for Education Justice National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

School privatization is a hustle and our children are not for sale. The We Choose Campaign has given a voice to the real experts and people that are directly impacted by school privatization tactics. Our Why is because of stories like this: My name is Irene Robinson, grandmother of 18 children who are in Chicago Public Schools. In segregated Chicago, we are fighting for our right to live here; where under mayors Daley and Rahm Emanuel, over 200,000 Black people have been forced out of this city over the last decade. I live in the Bronzeville community on the south side and entered the fight for education justice when CPS closed my grandbaby's elementary school, Anthony Overton. Despite the fact we had over 400 children in our school and for two straight years had some of the greatest test score increases in the city; they closed our school. They dumped our babies in two schools with no consideration. My grandson was in a kindergarten class with over 52 other students and I know this is because he is Black. The children blamed themselves, as if they failed because their school closed. The truth is, they were failed by Chicago Public Schools. CPS is guilty of the sabotage of Black and Brown children's education and nothing showed this more than when they closed Walter Dyett High School; our last open enrollment neighborhood high school. We held town hall meetings, got over 4000 petition signatures in support of our plan and it did not matter; closing this school was a part of pushing us out. But we stood up. After 3 years of getting the run-around from the city, we waged a hunger strike to save Dyett. Today Dyett is open as a neighborhood school with $16 million dollars in new investments; but we had to starve ourselves for 34 days to win. I was hospitalized twice and many of us suffered health issues as a result; but I would do it again in a heartbeat. School privatization in not about helping our children, but destroying our communities; we need equity, not the scam called school choice. From July through October, the #WeChoose campaign has held “Critical Conversations” (CC) in over 30 cities across the United States. Here a snapshot of participating cities: Chicago, Detroit, Seattle, New York, New Jersey-Paterson, Camden, Newark, Maplewood, Trenton, Elizabeth, Kansas City, Dayton, Prince George's County, Oakland, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Pittsburg, Arizona, Denver, Jackson and Milwaukee,. These conversations have been effective in uniting around a comprehensive education platform rooted in local campaigns and building multi-racial grassroots coalitions that can speak “power to power” to decision makers. The framing of #WeChoose has resonated with the public, as coalition members recognize that real school choice does not exist in our communities. #WeChoose to put an end to the manufactured misery that is plaguing our black and brown communities.

Our children deserve more than what these prison facilities are serving them. Over the last two years, several lawsuits have been filed against Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake youth prison facilities documenting severe abuse. Some of the lawsuits filed include; a young person whose toes had to be amputated after a guard smashed his toes in a door; a guard who actually assisted a young woman as she attempted to hurt herself; and allegations of suffocation, strangulation, and sexual assault. Locking up youth in these facilities is the most expensive option with the worst results, guaranteeing that every young person sent there will be put in harm’s way. It's time to leave behind the old outdated ways of criminalizing and punishing young people without holistic support. Theses youth prisons continue to perpetuate extreme racial and ethnic disparities. This is another key reason why Milwaukee County needs to undertake comprehensive juvenile justice reform. They need to address and tackle the persistent racial and ethnic inequities in Wisconsin’s juvenile justice system. Wisconsin still ranks in the top five least equitable states, with disparities that far exceed the national average. The vast majority of youth committed to Wisconsin state facilities are Black children. In 2014, young Black people made up almost 70% of youth committed to juvenile prison facilities in the state, but only about 10% of Wisconsin’s total youth population. Most of these young people are coming from Milwaukee County, where the majority of Black folks live in Wisconsin. Milwaukee County spends over $100,000 a year to send one youth from Milwaukee to Lincoln Hills or Copper Lake. Milwaukee should abandon the youth prison model and replace it with less costly and more effective non-residential, community-based alternatives to incarceration. Locking up young people in cages does not ensure public safety in any way. Over 60% of the young people who go to Lincoln Hills or Copper Lake re-offend within three years of release, largely due to the intense trauma young people experience while incarcerated. To have a safer community, it is critical that Milwaukee County stops sending youth to Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake and instead invest in a range of effective community programs that offer targeted supervision and services. Programs that include restorative justice, intensive mentoring, mental health treatment, family therapy and other interventions that are proven to lower risk and sustain long-term behavior change among adjudicated youth. WI and Milwaukee County should invest in community-based solutions that work for young people, their familiies and the communities they come from.

Right now, the challenges our communities face are many. Imprisonment is a big one. Corporations and their politician friends have made it their life’s work to enact policies that keep our families and communities in jails. Every time someone in our neighborhoods is locked up, someone at a corporation makes money. These corporations, like Florida-based GEO and CCA, operate in the dark, away from public view and work hard to keep it that way. Their lavish vacations and retirement funds depend on it. On top of that, most people aren’t aware of how the prison industry operates and thus feel powerless to change it. We want to change that. Dream Defenders is a small, young organization with limited resources in the face of a goliath, seasoned system of paper pushers with unlimited resources. The prison system is tearing up our families, communities, and future generations. According to Miami New Times writer Jerry Ianelli: "Investigative reporters Carol Marbin Miller and Audra D.S. Burch obtained stomach-churning video of Florida juvenile offenders fighting one another after being groomed as attack mobs by state guards. Scores of surveillance videos show groups of teenage boys sucker-punching, stomping, and beating up other kids, breaking noses, eye sockets, and a host of other bones in the process. The Herald uncovered tales of rape, molestation, children beaten to death, and a justice system that let almost every guard involved walk free without consequence. The list of nightmarish allegations in the series is too long to fully recount. The Herald noted cases where staffers set up fights and bet on them; instances where the DJJ hired guards who had formerly been caught having sex with inmates; other cases where guards showed a teen pornography and watched him ‘fondle himself’; raped a transgender inmate; had sex with a child detainee in a closet; and abused one female detainee by using her head as a ‘toilet plunger.’ One Broward County youth counselor was allegedly so brazen about having sex with teen inmates she became known as the ‘cradle robber.’ The 12 juvenile deaths the Herald noted seem due to state negligence." In 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice condemning the state of juvenile detention in the country. A report of the National Institute of Justice, research arm of the Justice Department, added: “This ill-conceived and outmoded approach is a failure, with high costs and recidivism rates and institutional conditions that are often appalling… Every youth prison in the country should be closed, and replaced with a network of community-based programs and small facilities near the youths’ communities.” We agree. The Dream Defenders goal is to end the prison system's hold on our states’ policies, profits, priorities and people. We work in classrooms, communities and prisons to educate and organize to end this incredible threat to our lives. We can’t continue to watch this happening to the people in our communities, we have to act. If we can do this; if we can begin to break this massive machine by freeing our children from it's hold, then we can begin to collapse it in our lifetime. If we do not, we risk losing many more generations.