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EST. 2011
Police-free
Schools.
The American Criminal Legal System is a stain on our democracy. What our schools should not be is a mirror reflection of a system that replicates and reinforces patterns of racial and economic oppression that trace from slavery, including Black Codes, Convict Leasing, Jim Crow Laws, and The War on Drugs. What has resulted through the increased criminalization of youth and students in schools, an overreliance of law enforcement in schools, implementation discriminatory and exclusionary policies, and school hardening practices and tactics; is the school-to-prison pipeline that denies millions of youth and students the opportunities, legal equality, and human rights they deserve, even as it fuels high rates of racial disproportionality and traumatic harm to our Black and Brown children. To upend this oppressive and racist system hiding under the guise of school safety, we must listen to directly impacted students and youth to understand what safety means and looks like for them, build schools that are police-free, holistically safe and supportive, and provide culturally-sustaining educational practices.
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Meeting the Moment: A Guide to Defending Civil Rights in Our Schools
The Federal School Discipline & Climate Coalition (FedSDC) offers this guide to outline the goals, actions, and harmful effects of the anti-civil rights campaign. It highlights successful strategies and key resources for local advocates seeking to resist these attacks and preserve civil rights and education in our country.
we have voices.
FedSDC is a diverse group of local community organizers, national and local organizations, and local organizations, and directly impacted students, youth, and families committed to advocating for federal legislative action to protect the interests and educational rights of Black and Brown students and youth through racial and educational equity lenses. Establishing police-free schools and alternatives to school discipline through effective, non-punitive, and culturally- sustaining practices is a core value of our coalition.
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FREEDOM.
A
ABOLISH
C
COPS
T
THROUGHOUT
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SCHOOLS
Police-Free Schools
Research has shown Federal support for police in schools directly promotes the school-to-prison pipeline. The Department of Justice COPS Office has provided approximately $1 billion in federal grants for the policing, surveillance, and militarization of schools.
The largest sustained effort of DOJ’s COPS Office was the Cops in Schools (CIS) Program, which funded the hiring and training of thousands of school resource officers (SROs) by local law enforcement agencies. This has had a profound impact on the number of law enforcement officers in schools, with almost 57 percent of public schools nationwide reporting having security staff present at least once a week as of 2016. As is the case with law enforcement presence more generally, the increase in officers in schools disproportionately harms students of color, students with disabilities, and LGBTQ students.
Recent research has also directly linked the COPS Program funding to negative outcomes for students. For example, after reviewing data from 2.5 million students, researchers found that receiving federal COPS funding for school police in Texas increases disciplinary rates for middle school students by 6 percent, and exposure to the CIS grant decreases high school graduation rates by approximately 2.5 percent and college enrollment rates by 4 percent.
Another study examining the more recent COPS Hiring Program compared public schools that enhanced SRO staffing through that federal funding with a matched sample of schools that did not increase SRO staffing at the same time. The researchers concluded that increasing SROs does not improve school safety and that by increasing exclusionary responses to school discipline incidents it increases the criminalization of school discipline.” Despite research on the devastating harms caused to young people’s futures and educational outcomes, the federal government continues to fund racially discriminatory and ableist practices, systemic biases, disproportionality in discipline and the criminalization of typical adolescent behavior.
Moreover, school districts rely on federal funding to subsidize the addition of new officers or ongoing ineffective training costs. The COPS SRO grants that provide up to 75 percent of the cost of a single School Resource Officer (SRO)—up to $125,000 per position for the three-year grant period—and requires the school district or municipality to pay the remaining costs and retain the officer for at least a year after the grant ends is not the only program.
The COPS’ School Violence Prevention Program (SVPP), the DOJ will distribute $53 million in grants for FY 2021 specifically for school districts to coordinate even more closely with law enforcement, including hardening our schools through measures that only criminalize our students and further transform our schools into harsh, punitive environments. The DOJ also provides funding through the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA)’s Students, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Program, and $75 million has already been allocated for FY21 that can be used to train school police. There are other DOJ federal funding streams that school districts have tapped into to further entrench the presence of school police, including the COPS Hiring Program (CHP), and the Community Policing Development (CPD).
The largest sustained effort of DOJ’s COPS Office was the Cops in Schools (CIS) Program, which funded the hiring and training of thousands of school resource officers (SROs) by local law enforcement agencies. This has had a profound impact on the number of law enforcement officers in schools, with almost 57 percent of public schools nationwide reporting having security staff present at least once a week as of 2016. As is the case with law enforcement presence more generally, the increase in officers in schools disproportionately harms students of color, students with disabilities, and LGBTQ students.
Recent research has also directly linked the COPS Program funding to negative outcomes for students. For example, after reviewing data from 2.5 million students, researchers found that receiving federal COPS funding for school police in Texas increases disciplinary rates for middle school students by 6 percent, and exposure to the CIS grant decreases high school graduation rates by approximately 2.5 percent and college enrollment rates by 4 percent.
Another study examining the more recent COPS Hiring Program compared public schools that enhanced SRO staffing through that federal funding with a matched sample of schools that did not increase SRO staffing at the same time. The researchers concluded that increasing SROs does not improve school safety and that by increasing exclusionary responses to school discipline incidents it increases the criminalization of school discipline.” Despite research on the devastating harms caused to young people’s futures and educational outcomes, the federal government continues to fund racially discriminatory and ableist practices, systemic biases, disproportionality in discipline and the criminalization of typical adolescent behavior.
Moreover, school districts rely on federal funding to subsidize the addition of new officers or ongoing ineffective training costs. The COPS SRO grants that provide up to 75 percent of the cost of a single School Resource Officer (SRO)—up to $125,000 per position for the three-year grant period—and requires the school district or municipality to pay the remaining costs and retain the officer for at least a year after the grant ends is not the only program.
The COPS’ School Violence Prevention Program (SVPP), the DOJ will distribute $53 million in grants for FY 2021 specifically for school districts to coordinate even more closely with law enforcement, including hardening our schools through measures that only criminalize our students and further transform our schools into harsh, punitive environments. The DOJ also provides funding through the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA)’s Students, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Program, and $75 million has already been allocated for FY21 that can be used to train school police. There are other DOJ federal funding streams that school districts have tapped into to further entrench the presence of school police, including the COPS Hiring Program (CHP), and the Community Policing Development (CPD).
Seclusion & Restraint
Although Black students comprise 15 percent of the student population, they represent 22 percent of students subjected to prison-like seclusion rooms and 34 percent of students subjected to mechanical restraint (e.g., handcuffs, zip ties, straitjackets, etc.).
Of the 101,990 students restrained at school or placed in seclusion, 78 percent were
students with disabilities.
Of the 101,990 students restrained at school or placed in seclusion, 78 percent were
students with disabilities.
Corporal Punishment
One study published this in the journal Social Problems found that counties in
the South that had the highest historic rates of lynching are significantly more likely to use corporal punishment on students today, and that relationship is especially strong for Black
students. Black students receive far more corporal punishment than their white peers. Black
students were 2.5 times more likely to receive corporal punishment than white students in the 2017-2018 school year.
The history of corporal punishment as a discipline practice in schools chillingly recalls another
physical punishment that was once common in the South—lynching, a tactic used to terrorize,
traumatize, and maintain control over Black people. From 1882 to 1968, over 4,000 lynchings were carried out, primarily in Southern states. The Equal Justice Initiative calls many of these
murders “racial terror lynchings,” used to enforce Jim Crow Laws, racial segregation, and white
supremacy in the U.S. Many lynching victims were murdered for “minor social transgressions or
for demanding basic rights and fair treatment.”
Research has explored the connection between lynching and the current practice of corporal
punishment. One study published this year in the journal Social Problems found that counties in
the South that had the highest historic rates of lynching are significantly more likely to use
corporal punishment on students today, and that relationship is especially strong for Black students. The researchers concluded that, in the Southeastern states that were studied, the practice of corporal punishment “embodies and likely perpetuates histories of racialized
violence, socioeconomic marginalization, and race-based exclusion.” As one urban school
board president put it, “In my mind's eye, I see the sons and daughters of former slave owners
beating the sons and daughters of former slaves.”
the South that had the highest historic rates of lynching are significantly more likely to use corporal punishment on students today, and that relationship is especially strong for Black
students. Black students receive far more corporal punishment than their white peers. Black
students were 2.5 times more likely to receive corporal punishment than white students in the 2017-2018 school year.
The history of corporal punishment as a discipline practice in schools chillingly recalls another
physical punishment that was once common in the South—lynching, a tactic used to terrorize,
traumatize, and maintain control over Black people. From 1882 to 1968, over 4,000 lynchings were carried out, primarily in Southern states. The Equal Justice Initiative calls many of these
murders “racial terror lynchings,” used to enforce Jim Crow Laws, racial segregation, and white
supremacy in the U.S. Many lynching victims were murdered for “minor social transgressions or
for demanding basic rights and fair treatment.”
Research has explored the connection between lynching and the current practice of corporal
punishment. One study published this year in the journal Social Problems found that counties in
the South that had the highest historic rates of lynching are significantly more likely to use
corporal punishment on students today, and that relationship is especially strong for Black students. The researchers concluded that, in the Southeastern states that were studied, the practice of corporal punishment “embodies and likely perpetuates histories of racialized
violence, socioeconomic marginalization, and race-based exclusion.” As one urban school
board president put it, “In my mind's eye, I see the sons and daughters of former slave owners
beating the sons and daughters of former slaves.”
Threat Assessments
The Use of “Threat Assessment” Processes Has Negative Consequences For Black And Brown Children And Children with Disabilities. Students and communities have reported that the increased use of threat assessment in schools has led to abusive profiling of students by local law enforcement.
If Black and Brown students and students with disabilities are referred for threat assessment at higher rates than white peers without disabilities, they are in serious jeopardy of receiving harsher discipline as a result. Research has repeatedly borne out that Black and Brown students do not engage in behavior that violates school rules at rates higher than white students, yet schools punish them more frequently and more severely. There is reason to worry that if threat assessment referrals mirror the disparities found in suspension data, the outcome is likely to result in discrimination.
Black and Brown students and those with disabilities are suspended from school at a rate that is disproportionate to that of their white and nondisabled peers for comparable behaviors and they are frequently punished more harshly than white peers for similar offenses. For example, in the 2015-2016 school year, students with disabilities lost 44 days of instruction — more than double the loss of days for peers without disabilities. Black students lost 5 times the amount of instruction (66 days) as white students (14 days) due to suspensions, even though they represent only 15% of the student population. In the 2017-2018 school year, Black girls were 5 times more likely than white girls to be suspended. These patterns begin before some students are out of diapers: 47% of Black preschool students receive more than one out-of-school suspension, even though they make up only 19% of the public preschool population.
The percentage of students referred to law enforcement by school staff is also disproportionate. For example, in 2015-2016, 31% of public school students referred to law enforcement or arrested were Black students, which is highly disproportionate. Black students make up just 15% of the student population. Students with disabilities were similarly over-represented as they comprised 28% of students referred to law enforcement or arrested, yet 12% of the student population. For both groups, their share of the referred was more than double their share of the enrolled.
Threat assessment referrals do seem to track the discriminatory trends seen in other school discipline decision making. See this example from “Who’s The Threat” in Albuquerque: Children with disabilities made up 18% of the total student population but made up 56% of all threat assessments. Black children made up only 2.6% of the student population but made up 9.6% of threat assessments.
If Black and Brown students and students with disabilities are referred for threat assessment at higher rates than white peers without disabilities, they are in serious jeopardy of receiving harsher discipline as a result. Research has repeatedly borne out that Black and Brown students do not engage in behavior that violates school rules at rates higher than white students, yet schools punish them more frequently and more severely. There is reason to worry that if threat assessment referrals mirror the disparities found in suspension data, the outcome is likely to result in discrimination.
Black and Brown students and those with disabilities are suspended from school at a rate that is disproportionate to that of their white and nondisabled peers for comparable behaviors and they are frequently punished more harshly than white peers for similar offenses. For example, in the 2015-2016 school year, students with disabilities lost 44 days of instruction — more than double the loss of days for peers without disabilities. Black students lost 5 times the amount of instruction (66 days) as white students (14 days) due to suspensions, even though they represent only 15% of the student population. In the 2017-2018 school year, Black girls were 5 times more likely than white girls to be suspended. These patterns begin before some students are out of diapers: 47% of Black preschool students receive more than one out-of-school suspension, even though they make up only 19% of the public preschool population.
The percentage of students referred to law enforcement by school staff is also disproportionate. For example, in 2015-2016, 31% of public school students referred to law enforcement or arrested were Black students, which is highly disproportionate. Black students make up just 15% of the student population. Students with disabilities were similarly over-represented as they comprised 28% of students referred to law enforcement or arrested, yet 12% of the student population. For both groups, their share of the referred was more than double their share of the enrolled.
Threat assessment referrals do seem to track the discriminatory trends seen in other school discipline decision making. See this example from “Who’s The Threat” in Albuquerque: Children with disabilities made up 18% of the total student population but made up 56% of all threat assessments. Black children made up only 2.6% of the student population but made up 9.6% of threat assessments.
Exclusionary School Discipline
Exclusionary discipline policies and practices such as police in schools, threat assessments, corporal punishment, out-of-school suspensions, arrests, court referrals, expulsion, institutionalization, harmful and dangerous restraints, and seclusion. These practices and policies are racist, abusive, exclusionary, and known to support and perpetuate the school-to-prison-and-deportation pipeline.
School Pushout
Pushout refers to the punitive discipline practices schools use, which exclude students from class and too often push them out of school altogether, which disproportionately affect Black students, students with disabilities, and LGBTQIA students.
It is necessary to abolish the discriminatory use and overuse of exclusionary discipline practices based on actual or perceived race, ethnicity, color, national origin, sex (including sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, childbirth, a medical condition related to pregnancy or childbirth, or other stereotypes related to sex), or disability.
Research has also shown that there is still an overwhelming prevalance of racist and discriminatory criminalization and pushout of students from school, especially Black and brown girls, as a result of educational barriers that include discrimination, adultification, punitive discipline policies and practices, and a failure to recognize and support students with mental health needs or those experiencing trauma.
It is necessary to abolish the discriminatory use and overuse of exclusionary discipline practices based on actual or perceived race, ethnicity, color, national origin, sex (including sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, childbirth, a medical condition related to pregnancy or childbirth, or other stereotypes related to sex), or disability.
Research has also shown that there is still an overwhelming prevalance of racist and discriminatory criminalization and pushout of students from school, especially Black and brown girls, as a result of educational barriers that include discrimination, adultification, punitive discipline policies and practices, and a failure to recognize and support students with mental health needs or those experiencing trauma.
Counseling Not Criminalization
For too long, the presence of law enforcement in schools has come at the expense of Black and Brown students’ safety in schools. This has been coupled with the defunding and divestment of resources for personnel and services that create safe, healthy, and inclusive school climates.
CNC disrupts the school-to-prison and deportation pipeline and interrupts the continued proliferation of white supremacy through the presence of police in our public schools. This legislation redirects federal dollars to provide students and youth with the opportunities they deserve to learn, grow, and thrive in schools.
For Black and Brown students and youth, with and without disabilities, who are repeatedly and violently abused, assaulted, and bullied by police in schools, CNC provides a building block towards an opportunity to learn in a safe and supportive environment by establishing an urgently needed $5 billion grant program to provide adequately trained personnel and trauma-informed services to improve the learning environment for students and youth. CNC will also eliminate harmful and inefficient federal funding to schools and districts for police in schools.
CNC disrupts the school-to-prison and deportation pipeline and interrupts the continued proliferation of white supremacy through the presence of police in our public schools. This legislation redirects federal dollars to provide students and youth with the opportunities they deserve to learn, grow, and thrive in schools.
For Black and Brown students and youth, with and without disabilities, who are repeatedly and violently abused, assaulted, and bullied by police in schools, CNC provides a building block towards an opportunity to learn in a safe and supportive environment by establishing an urgently needed $5 billion grant program to provide adequately trained personnel and trauma-informed services to improve the learning environment for students and youth. CNC will also eliminate harmful and inefficient federal funding to schools and districts for police in schools.
Critical Race Theory
Critical race theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that race is a social construct, and that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies.
The basic tenets of critical race theory, or CRT, emerged out of a framework for legal analysis in the late 1970s and early 1980s created by legal scholars Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado, among others.
A good example is when, in the 1930s, government officials literally drew lines around areas deemed poor financial risks, often explicitly due to the racial composition of inhabitants. Banks subsequently refused to offer mortgages to Black people in those areas.
The basic tenets of critical race theory, or CRT, emerged out of a framework for legal analysis in the late 1970s and early 1980s created by legal scholars Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado, among others.
A good example is when, in the 1930s, government officials literally drew lines around areas deemed poor financial risks, often explicitly due to the racial composition of inhabitants. Banks subsequently refused to offer mortgages to Black people in those areas.
Educational Equity
Establishing inclusive, culturally-sustaining, and healthy school climates that promote educational equity is the mandate of our time. In the 21st century it is reprehensible, disgusting, and deplorable for the federal government to allow states, schools, and districts to engage in slave-era tactics and practices like corporal punishment and restraint and seclusion. These practices are abusive, violent, traumatizing, and cruel. These ongoing acts of violence to Black and Brown students, youth, and children, including students with disabilities and LGBTQ+ students, are deeply troubling.
The disruption to these students’ educational and emotional well-being and their continued criminalization is simply unacceptable. All students, youth and children deserve to attend inclusive, culturally-sustaining, and healthy school environments. There are efforts underway and legislation introduced in Congress such as the Counseling Not Criminalization Act (H.R. 4011/S. 2125), Protecting Our Students in Schools Act (H.R. 3836/S. 2029), and the Keeping All Student Safe Act (H.R. 3474/S. 1858). This suite of bills will help address the harms and racial inequities that Black and Brown students face in our education system.
The disruption to these students’ educational and emotional well-being and their continued criminalization is simply unacceptable. All students, youth and children deserve to attend inclusive, culturally-sustaining, and healthy school environments. There are efforts underway and legislation introduced in Congress such as the Counseling Not Criminalization Act (H.R. 4011/S. 2125), Protecting Our Students in Schools Act (H.R. 3836/S. 2029), and the Keeping All Student Safe Act (H.R. 3474/S. 1858). This suite of bills will help address the harms and racial inequities that Black and Brown students face in our education system.
Social Emotional Learning
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL): SEL can be a powerful tool for deep relationship-building with self, with others, with community, with passions, with ancestors, with land...when it’s culturally-sustaining. The promise of culturally-sustaining SEL is exemplified by:
1. Implementing restorative justice, not as a reactive tool, but a tool for relationship-building from the start; and
2. Building trusting relationships with students, instead of school hardening, where school administrators and teachers actively listen to students, parents, and communities to co-construct a positive environment.
Young people are still developing emotionally, behaviorally and socially, learning about social roles and concepts, and strategies to process emotions. It is unreasonable and unrealistic to expect children and teens to grow and learn about social and emotional development without positive encouragement, guidance, patience and kindness. When these tools are missing or lacking in schools, schools become emotionally, psychologically and intellectually unsafe and harmful environments for young people. To support replacement of exclusionary discipline practices, implementations of SEL should highlight in greater detail alternative strategies that teach social and emotional skills and foster identity-safe learning environments.
SEL and strategies that teach students skills that enable positive relationships, help them resolve conflicts peaceably, and prevent bullying. SEL approaches can be racially and culturally-sustaining and not another form of policing students of color. Supporting and educating the whole child is key. This includes creating identity-safe classrooms, such as teaching that promotes understanding, student voice, and student responsibility; cultivating diversity through regular use of diverse materials, ideas, and activities; and creating relationships in caring, orderly, and purposeful classroom environments.
1. Implementing restorative justice, not as a reactive tool, but a tool for relationship-building from the start; and
2. Building trusting relationships with students, instead of school hardening, where school administrators and teachers actively listen to students, parents, and communities to co-construct a positive environment.
Young people are still developing emotionally, behaviorally and socially, learning about social roles and concepts, and strategies to process emotions. It is unreasonable and unrealistic to expect children and teens to grow and learn about social and emotional development without positive encouragement, guidance, patience and kindness. When these tools are missing or lacking in schools, schools become emotionally, psychologically and intellectually unsafe and harmful environments for young people. To support replacement of exclusionary discipline practices, implementations of SEL should highlight in greater detail alternative strategies that teach social and emotional skills and foster identity-safe learning environments.
SEL and strategies that teach students skills that enable positive relationships, help them resolve conflicts peaceably, and prevent bullying. SEL approaches can be racially and culturally-sustaining and not another form of policing students of color. Supporting and educating the whole child is key. This includes creating identity-safe classrooms, such as teaching that promotes understanding, student voice, and student responsibility; cultivating diversity through regular use of diverse materials, ideas, and activities; and creating relationships in caring, orderly, and purposeful classroom environments.
Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC)
In many states the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) is the only source of information made accessible to the public regarding the experiences of students protected by anti-discrimination law as it is the only routinely collected data base that uniformly requires all public schools and districts in the nation to report key indicators disaggregated by race, disability and EL status, and sex, including the intersections of these categories.
The indicators collected include, but are not limited to, data on school discipline, staffing (including police presence), access to advanced coursework, per pupil expenditures, teacher experience. Further, the discipline data, on in and out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, referrals to law enforcement and school based arrests, are also required by the federal Every Students Succeeds act for inclusion in annual state and district report cards as it contains an explicit reference to the CRDC. Unfortunately, and despites the critical importance, these civil rights data are currently collected biennially, not annually. Finally, it is the only source of publicly available information on school policing, use of restraint and seclusion, identification of students with disabilities only eligible under Section 504, identification as gifted, and several other statistics that are not otherwise collected and report to the public in most states.
For at least the past 50 years, countless students – especially students of color – have had their education taken from them, and for far too many, their civil rights violated due to exclusionary discipline practices, police in schools, prison-like surveillance/search of their person, and the criminalization of school behavior. While the CRDC has continued to provide the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and the public with data necessary to ensure compliance with civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination in our nation’s schools. It has also provided community groups, education advocates, directly impacted families, and students an essential tool for ensuring student equity in public education. Specifically, the CRDC has been helpful in addressing racial inequities and providing data essential for the development and implementation of interventions, policies, and practices to advance educational
achievement and opportunities for students and youth of color in our nation’s schools while dismantling systemic inequities and institutionalized racism deeply embedded in our nation’s education system.
The indicators collected include, but are not limited to, data on school discipline, staffing (including police presence), access to advanced coursework, per pupil expenditures, teacher experience. Further, the discipline data, on in and out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, referrals to law enforcement and school based arrests, are also required by the federal Every Students Succeeds act for inclusion in annual state and district report cards as it contains an explicit reference to the CRDC. Unfortunately, and despites the critical importance, these civil rights data are currently collected biennially, not annually. Finally, it is the only source of publicly available information on school policing, use of restraint and seclusion, identification of students with disabilities only eligible under Section 504, identification as gifted, and several other statistics that are not otherwise collected and report to the public in most states.
For at least the past 50 years, countless students – especially students of color – have had their education taken from them, and for far too many, their civil rights violated due to exclusionary discipline practices, police in schools, prison-like surveillance/search of their person, and the criminalization of school behavior. While the CRDC has continued to provide the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and the public with data necessary to ensure compliance with civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination in our nation’s schools. It has also provided community groups, education advocates, directly impacted families, and students an essential tool for ensuring student equity in public education. Specifically, the CRDC has been helpful in addressing racial inequities and providing data essential for the development and implementation of interventions, policies, and practices to advance educational
achievement and opportunities for students and youth of color in our nation’s schools while dismantling systemic inequities and institutionalized racism deeply embedded in our nation’s education system.
Woke
Aware, especially of social problems such as racism and inequality.
PROTECTING THE INTERESTS AND EDUCATIONAL RIGHTS OF BLACK AND BROWN STUDENTS
We support and are committed to efforts to upend policies and practices rooted in white supremacy that continue to harm students and youth of color in our nation’s schools.
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