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Dear Friends, Campaign Update Save the Date!October 1-8, 2011: Dignity in Schools Campaign National Week of Action This year's National Week of Action will be held on October 1-8, 2011. The Week of Action will include teach-ins, workshops, rallies and town halls in more than 15 cities across the country to support local and federal policy change to end school pushout, reduce suspensions, expulsions and arrests, and implement positive approaches to school climate and discipline like restorative practices and positive behavior supports. Read about last year’s National Week of Action Contact DSC Campaign Coordinator, Chloe Dugger, at [email protected], to get involved. The Dignity in School Campaign Goes to Washington  On July 25 and 26, students, parents, educators, and advocates from 11 states, representing 26 different organizations, traveled to Washington, D.C. for two days of meetings with Members of Congress to raise awareness and build support for urgently needed school discipline reform. The DSC called for funding and technical assistance for school districts to help reduce suspensions and expulsions and implement restorative practices and positive behavior supports.The trip to Washington came less than a week after the release of an alarming study on school discipline by the Council of State Governments Justice Center (CSG) and an announcement by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice that they will form a joint Supportive School Discipline Initiative to address the ‘school-to-prison pipeline.’ Members of the DSC met with Department of Justice officials to discuss this inter-agency initiative to address the disciplinary policies and practices that push students out of school. Read more about the DSC Days the Capitol Member Group Spotlight 
On Tuesday, June 21st the Dignity in Schools Campaign-New York (DSC-NY) hosted a press conference regarding the rising suspension rates in NYC schools and positive alternatives that can be implemented. Over 100 students, parents, educators, advocates and elected officials strongly spoke out against punitive approaches to discipline and showed support for restorative justice practices at the press conference and public hearing on proposed revisions to the NYC Department of Education’s Discipline Code. The students, parents, and advocates, representing over twenty-five organizations collectively, wore t-shirts that highlighted statistics on school pushout and positive alternatives.DSC-NY is working to reform the NYC Discipline Code to reduce suspensions and implement positive approaches to discipline, like Restorative Practices and Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS). Members of DSC-NY include Advocates for Children, DRUM, Urban Youth Collaborative, Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, New Settlement Apartments Parent Action Committee, New York Civil Liberties Union, NESRI, Teachers Unite and Children's Defense Fund New York. DSC-NY holds workshops and teach-ins, organizes testimony before the Department of Education, and develops policy recommendations. Click here to read more about the DSC-NY rally and press conference. Click here to watch video footage of the DSC-NY rally. From the DSC Blog
DSC Statement on the Council of State Governments Report on School Disciplinary Practices in Texas  by Annette Fuentes, author of Lockdown High: When the Schoolhouse Becomes a Jailhouse
In October 2008, advocates with Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Southern Legal Counsel filed a complaint with the state department of education against Palm Beach County school board. The complaint involved the district’s treatment of several young students with learning and behavioral disabilities but it was based on years of legal wrangling with the district over very high suspension rates and alleged mistreatment of students. Read more Parent Group Files Complaint Over Gwinnett School Goals Your Take: Bill a Threat to Poor Students In Washington, Youth Advocates Call on Congress to Address the School to Prison Pipeline Study Exposes Some Myths About School Discipline School Discipline Study Raises Fresh Questions |
 Failed Policies, Broken Futures: The True Cost of Zero Tolerance 
Telling It Like It Is: Miami Youth Speak Out on the School to Prison Pipeline  Arresting Justice: A Report about Juvenile Arrests in Chicago, 2009-2010
 Building Safe, Supportive and Restorative School Communities in NYC
About the Dignity in Schools Campaign (DSC) The Dignity in Schools Campaign is a national coalition of youth, parents, advocates, community-based organizations, educators and policymakers working together to seek human rights-based solutions to the systemic problem of pushout in U.S. schools. |
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DIGNITY IN SCHOOLS | 90 JOHN ST. STE 308, NEW YORK, NY 10038 | TEL: (212) 253-1710 Ext. 317 | FAX (212) 385-6124 | [email protected] |
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