| Transforming Education by Putting Children First |
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IDRA Newsletter – This Issue's Focus: School Safety |
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In This Issue Students Demand Safe, Supportive Schools – Student Authors Call for Ending Zero Tolerance and School-Based Policing Where Some Policymakers and School Leaders Get School Safety Wrong Thirty Years Later, the 1994 Gun-Free Schools Act Continues to Harm Students and Communities IDRA Names Youth Advisory Board Members – Five High School Students Serve as Advisors for Education Equity Initiatives While Learning New Skills The IDRA Valued Youth Partnership Turns 40! - Recent News: Public speaking, media coverage, alerts
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Students Demand Safe, Supportive Schools – Student Authors Call for Ending Zero Tolerance and School-Based Policing |
by Paige Duggins-Clay, J.D. |
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Thirty years after President Bill Clinton signed the Gun Free Schools Act, students continue to face unacceptable threats to their safety and belonging at school. In response to school shootings, policymakers have prioritized funding on school hardening and increasing the policing of schools, which does not make students safer.
Improving school safety should foremost include the voices of students themselves, particularly traditionally underserved students. IDRA invited students to share their experiences, perspectives and thoughts on school safety. |
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This article includes the reflections of some students on school safety where they discuss an environment where students fear for their safety and have experienced isolation from the school community. They envision a better future where students, educators and their communities are truly connected and ensure students feel safe. |
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Where Some Policymakers and School Leaders Get School Safety Wrong | |
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Research shows that there are numerous factors that can meaningfully create safe and welcoming schools: strong relationships; diverse, well-trained teachers and staff (including mental and behavioral health professionals); proactive and meaningful problem solving; and swift, appropriate reactions to the needs of the school. Punitive, exclusionary discipline and school-based policing do not.
Unfortunately, some policymakers continue to draw incorrect connections between school safety and harmful forms of discipline and criminalization. |
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They enact expensive policies that set up ineffective interventions that can cause real harm to students and school climates. This entails a cycle where communities that do not have clear, proactive, effective safety plans experience fears of safety, leading to policymakers enacting punitive policies to satisfy these fears.
This results in harmful, ineffective measures that compromise holistic school safety, continuing the cycle. Instead of spending money on harsh, ineffective discipline policies and practices, policymakers and school leaders must invest in research-based practices that encourage relationship building and problem solving. |
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Thirty Years Later, the 1994 Gun-Free Schools Act Continues to Harm Students and Communities |
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Thirty years after the passage of the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994, schools are no safer than when it went into effect. Though the law mandated punitive punishments for students who brought a weapon to school, it also gave states wide latitude to design and implement policies.
Many states adopted “zero-tolerance” approaches that encompass even minor behaviors, such as disrupting classes or cursing. The result is an overly punitive system that continually harms students, particularly students of color, students in families with limited means and students with disabilities. |
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Though zero-tolerance policies eventually fell out of favor, in recent years, lawmakers from across the country, particularly in the U.S. South, have returned to proposing punitive school legislation. If history is any indicator, the resurgence of these practices will not make schools safer for students.
Solutions to address school safety must emphasize violence prevention, positive behavior interventions and support, and community wellness rather than exclusionary discipline. |
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Also see our issue brief: |
What Safe Schools Should Look Like for Every Student
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– A Guide to Building Safe and Welcoming Schools and Rejecting Policies that Hurt Students |
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IDRA Names Youth Advisory Board Members – Five High School Students Serve as Advisors for Education Equity Initiatives While Learning New Skills |
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Five Texas high school students will provide their insights about equity in education and advocacy with the 2024 Youth Advisory Board. The IDRA Youth Advisory Board provides a more focused way to engage with students to center their communities’ expertise, needs and dreams in our work. The students will learn to analyze policies and research, build networks with other groups of advocates, create engaging content and host a youth symposium. The recently-announced students are Diego Aranguiz Mourgues, Grace Ding, Inayah Naqvi, Mikel Quesada, and Aniyah Turner. |
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The IDRA Valued Youth Partnership Turns 40! |
See How VYP Improves Academics, Attendance & Socio-Emotional Learning |
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The IDRA Valued Youth Partnership is a research-based, internationally-recognized dropout prevention and student leadership program that has kept 98% of its tutors in school. This cross-age tutoring program transforms student socio-emotional learning and relationships with school. It directly addresses socio-emotional factors that are essential to reconnecting and re-engaging with students.
The IDRA Valued Youth Partnership is backed by research on socio-emotional factors and learning. The Hemingway Measure of Adolescent Connectedness & evaluation data show: |
61% of VYP tutors improved sense of self oriented toward the future |
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59% of VYP tutors improved their sense of involvement in & caring for their families
54% of VYP tutors improved their sense of being productive at their school work, enjoying school more & feeling successful at school 66% of VYP tutors improved reading test scores 57% of VYP tutors improved math scores |
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| - Website: See how the program operates, its research base and awards.
- Webinar: Learn how to bring the Valued Youth Partnership to your school.
- Student Essays: Read what students say about their life-changing experience.
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Aurelio M. Montemayor, M.Ed., and co-author Thomas Ray Garcia spoke about their book, El Curso de la Raza: The Education of Aurelio Manuel Montemayor, at the Museum of South Texas History on January 14.
Celina Moreno, J.D., spoke on a panel to commemorate the Lau v. Nichols 50th Anniversary. IDRA co-hosted the event with Claremont Graduate University School of Educational Studies, the National Association of Bilingual Education and others on January 22. Watch here.
Celina Moreno, J.D., spoke on "The Fight for Fair Funding" and Morgan Craven, J.D., spoke on “School Discipline & Policing: Legal & Policy Impacts for Students & Schools” at the Scholar Law Symposium, “Education and the Law: Legal Developments Impacting the Next Generation" held by the St. Mary's School of Law on January 22. |
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Mikayla Arciaga, M.A.Ed., spoke on a Peach State Policy Panel held at Emory University on February 7.
Lizdelia Piñón, Ed.D., and Michelle Martínez Vega spoke about "Empowering Emergent Bilingual Students through AI in Early Education" at the Alamo STEM Ecosystem K-12 Educators Conference on February 3.
Celina spoke on a Big Ideas in Education panel, "Immigrants' Educational Rights: Peril or Promise,” held by the American University School of Education on February 8. Watch here.
Paige Duggins-Clay, J.D., spoke on a panel on “Afrofuturism and the Law” at a symposium held by the Thurgood Marshall Legal Society on February 10. Lizdelia spoke on "Bilingual Education and Multilingual Learners" at the ¡Adelante! Conference held by the Austin Area Association of Bilingual Education on February 23.
Aurelio presented the keynote for the Educators in Solidarity UnConference, “Igniting Change: (Re)-Building Our Collective Capacity as Anti-Racist Educators on March 2. Paige co-led a plenary session at the Texas Higher Education Law Conference held at University of North Texas on March 4-5.
Stephanie Garcia, Ph.D., spoke on a panel at SXSW EDU on “Building an Ecosystem for Latina Prosperity” on March 6. Listen here.
IDRA’s MAS for Our Schools student researchers presented with support from Christina Quintanilla-Muñoz, M.Ed., and Aurelio at the annual conference of the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies on March 9. Also at this conference, Aurelio led discussions on Schools of Their Own: Mexican American Educational Self-Determination and Historic Preservation on March 8 and Building MAS Community in Texas on March 9.
Aurelio spoke on a Raza Schools Author Talk and Plática panel held by the San Antonio Public Library on March 16. |
Civil Rights Organizations Follow State Court Ruling with a Letter to Texas School Leaders Warning About Race-Based Hair Discrimination, Legal Defense Fund, March 27, 2024
Anti-Immigrant Texas Law, SB 4: Chaos, Courts, and the Clash Over Immigration, Texas AFT, March 21, 2024 North Texas families still await action years after reporting discrimination at schools, by Talia Richman, Dallas Morning News, March 14, 2024 Latinitas Shines at SXSW EDU with Panel on Latina Prosperity, Camila Dejesus, Latinitas Magazine, March 7, 2024 Sammie Lester Obituary, posted March 6, 2024 San Antonians to pitch education, workforce development at SXSW festival, by Edmond Ortiz, Community Impact, March 1, 2024 See these media stories and other recent media coverage with links on our website
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March 27, 2024 – IDRA Names Youth Advisory Board Members – Five High School Students Serve as Advisors for Education Equity Initiatives While Learning New Skills March 21, 2024 – Rodríguez court ruling anniversary today – Rodríguez v San Antonio ISDR was a terrible ruling for school funding – But it led to IDRA’s founding 🙂 March 19, 2024 – Student Research Team Calls for Expansion of Mexican American Studies – IDRA Releases MAS for Our Schools Report
February 29, 2024 – February 2024 issue of the IDRA Newsletter – Focus: Education Research February 28, 2024 – Georgia Education Policy Update – Pre-Crossover Day Update See these eNews with links on our website. |
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| IDRA is an independent, non-profit organization. Our mission is to achieve equal educational opportunity for every child through strong public schools that prepare all students to access and succeed in college. |
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