---------- Forwarded message ---------From:Loan Tran<loan@southernvision.

org>
Date: Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 3:26 PM
Subject: Press release: Students Organize Against School Push Out
To: "Babette B." <babette.barbosa@gmail.com>, Loan Tran <loan@southernvision.org>, Beatrice Galdamez
<beatrice@empoweryouthnc.org>

For Immediate Release

October 17, 2016
Contact:Babette Cromartie and Beatrice Galdamez, Youth Organizing Institute
babette.barbosa@gmail.com|336-934-0441
beatrice@empoweryouthnc.org|919-323-0816
STUDENTS ORGANIZE WEEK OF ACTION TO DEMAND #COUNSELORSNOTCOPS
The Youth Organizing Institute is participating in Dignity In Schools Campaigns 7thAnnual National
Week of Action Against #SchoolPushOut. During the week of action community groups and youth
organizations from across the country mobilize to demand an end to the school-to-prison-pipeline and
the punitive disciplinary measures that make it possible. This years week of action takes place October
15 October 23.
Local organizers, students, and parents are planning a series of events during the Week of Action to
draw attention to the reality of discriminatory disciplinary policies and actions in Wake County Public
Schools System (WCPSS) and Durham Public Schools (DPS).
In light of recent events transpiring in North Carolina, from the police murder of Keith Scott, a 43 year
old disabled Black man in Charlotte to the Governors decision to move disaster relief funds to
continue defending the anti-worker and anti-trans HB2 law: YOIs week of action seeks to connect the
dots between the police brutality and state violence we witness in our neighborhoods and communities
to that existing within classrooms.
North Carolina as a whole ranks 8th in highest suspension rates in the country as the state spends
$8,160 on education per student but $159,750 on incarceration per youth. Not only is this number
alarming alarming and indicative of hostile school environments, it is reflective of a larger society that
disregards Black lives and others who fall on the margins.
Our schools are more willing to spend money contracting police officers to place in schools grade k-12
than on counselors who offer students an opportunity to plan for the future, work through their
problems, and seek support. Our schools are more willing to put rifles in the hands of school resource
officers who are supposed to keep students safe instead of fully fund restorative justice programs and
pay counselors. Our schools are more ready to punish students for not being present in school than pay
teachers enough to teach and fund classrooms that have enough textbooks and seats.
Over the past 4 years, YOI and other local allies have worked to address the racial disparities in
suspensions, the heavy policing of students in their schools, and the need for restorative justice
programs available to students.

All students deserve a quality education, but over policing and unfair school discipline practices are
stripping Black, Latino and disabled students of their rights to a public education. We cannot let
another student get peppersprayed, jailed and forgotten. We cannot go another school year with the
highest number of long-term suspension in the entire state while those with the power to change
conditions in schools remain idle.
The Youth Organizing Institute is a member of the North Carolina Coalition for Education Justice;
other members include NC HEAT and Education Justice Alliance. Other partners and allies include El
Pueblo, INC., Advocates for Children Services, Ignite NC, Southern Vision Alliance, NC Fair Share,
Legal Aid NC, Inside-Outside Alliance, Prison Books, among many others.
When:
Press Conference and Speak Out at School Board Meeting
Tuesday, October 18 |4:30pm
Wake County Public Schools System Building
5625 Dillard Dr, Cary, NC 27518
Community Film Screening and Discussion On School Push-Out
Saturday, October 22 |6:30pm-9pm
The Youth Organizing Institute (YOI) is a popular education leadership development program
dedicated to empowering the lives and experiences of young people. We support young people in the
struggle to stop racism and school resegregation, challenge the school to prison pipeline, and make
schools safe for LGBTQ youth.
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