We're really gaining ground in our fight for civil and human rights in our schools and communities. We need to highlight a few reasons why the policy changes on truancy/tardy ticketing that we won two weeks ago from LASPD are important. The media coverage was great but there's a few things they didn't cover.

Check out news coverage on the new report co-authored by the BRU and 14 other civil rights, labor, environmental, public health, and housing organizations from around los Angeles. The report Transit Civil Rights & Economic Survival in Los Angeles: A Case for Federal Intervention in LA Metro details the 4 year storm since the end of the consent decree.  LA Opinión, LA Weekly, and Streets Blog report.

This statement is from parents, students, and community and civil rights groups in response to a report released today about the Los Angeles Unified School District's implementation of the School-Wide Positive Behavior Support policy. The policy was adopted in 2007 with support from Public Counsel and CADRE parents to reduce out of school suspensions, particularly of students of color, and improve graduation rates, student performance and school culture. The report was conducted by the University of Oregon Institute on Violence and Destructive Behavior in consultation with LAUSD leadership. Public Counsel, CADRE, Youth Justice Coalition, Community Rights Campaign and Children's Defense Fund are part of Dignity in Schools Los Angeles.

Media trumpeted the news as the Los Angeles School Police Department unveiled protocols intended to reduce the number of daytime curfew tickets written to students. The revised procedures are a result of collaboration and discussions between Public Counsel, the Community Rights Campaign, the ACLU of Southern California, Children's Defense Fund, CADRE, and Youth Justice Coalition - groups that work to keep students in school - and Los Angeles School Police Department (LASPD) leaders.

Civil rights, labor, environmental, public health, and housing organizations argue bus service and fare increases result in civil rights harms for transit-dependent people and obstruct economic recovery for low-income transit-dependent Angelenos.

The collective voices of students and parents rang through the cities of Fresno, Sacramento, Oakland and Los Angeles as they demanded an end to the criminalization of their children, increased parental involvement in all school related decisions, and greater funding for schools. The event, which was hosted by the California Endowment, included a rally, a school to prison pipeline art installation and finished with a panel.

On Tuesday, October 11th, the Bus Riders Union held its first Tea Time
with Korean elders in two years. Eleven Korean bus riders attended the
Tea Time to listen to a presentation that provided historical and
political context around the Bus Riders Union, and the environmental
justice campaign, Clean Air, Clean Lungs, Clean Buses

It looks like a school assembly except that sitting in the auditorium are 200 LA School Police officers, and on the stage is a panel of community organizers who are giving the police officers a workshop in how to treat students more fairly.

On Tuesday October 4, 2011, the Strategy Center held a screening of "Precious Knowledge:" The Love Struggle of Learning, a documentary about the battle to save the Ethnic Studies Program in Tuscan Unified School District. The documentary follows four high school seniors in the Mexican American Studies Program and their emotional journey to put an end to HB-2281.

So why is it important to know your rights?

Throughout the week of October 1-8, 2011, thousands of parents, youth, and educators are taking part in student-led actions and events in 27 cities to expose the school pushout crisis in our nation and advocate for the human right of every young person to a quality education and to be treated with dignity.