Student Engagement & Advocacy

Awareness-Building, Advocacy, and Organizing Efforts

New York City, NY

  • Lock-Ins and Walkouts: The Students Changing City Schools From the Inside (Sept. 5, 2019)
  • Integrate NYC “is a youth-led organization that stands for integration and equity in New York City schools,” that believes that “True, meaningful integration requires a transformation in our school system that centers students and communities of color. We have developed and are advocating for [the] 5Rs of Real Integration to create lasting, revolutionary change in our school system.”
  • Teens Take Charge “develops civic leaders who shift power in the education system to students.”
  • The FairPlay coalition “stands together for all high school students in New York City public schools to have equitable access the PSAL, and to all athletic fields and courts controlled by the DOE— regardless of the size of the school, the borough in which the school is located, or the demographics of the school.”
  • EPIC Theatre Ensemble “create[s] bold work with and for diverse communities that promotes vital discourse and social change.”
    • Several of EPIC’s recent plays have addressed issues related to segregation and racial inequality in schools, including:
      • Nothing About Us is a rigorous, passionate and hilarious exploration of educational segregation written and performed by those most affected and least consulted: NYC Public High School students. What does separate but equal mean to us today? Transformation, empathy, and youth voice drive the conversation in this thirty-minute touring play by Epic NEXT. “Nothing about us without us is for us.” Commissioned by New York Appleseed.
      • Over 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, New York City is one of the most segregated school districts in the United States. Conceived, written, and performed by NYC Public High School students, Laundry City is a hilarious and provocative exploration of what “Separate but Equal” means to us today. You can watch Laundry City here (live performances ended in 2018).

Montgomery County Students for Change (Montgomery County, MD)

Charlotte, NC

Mount Diablo School District, CA

  • “‘I don’t live within the district lines, the school lines for Northgate, so if this does go through, I will be excluded,’ high school senior-to-be Lucy Siale said. ‘I don’t see it as reasonable. I don’t see it as something they are doing in favor of the students. I think they are doing it against the students.'” — Battle Over Dividing East Bay School District at Boiling Point (June 26, 2017)

Related Projects

  • Wide Angle Youth Media (Baltimore, MD) created a desegregation timeline
  • Critical Exposure (Washington, DC) “trains DC youth to harness the power of photography and their own voices to fight for educational equity and social justice.”
  • Californians for Justice – “At the state level, Californians for Justice is advocating for: Policies and funding to create a well-funded public education system and a diverse, prepared, and supported educator workforce–two critical conditions for Relationship Centered Schools.”
  • A list of youth organizations doing diversity, educational equity, and racial justice work can be found here.