Schools, Not Pre-Prisons Campaign

From our view point, the AIC will serve as "truancy detention" centers rather than a space that has the actual resources and services to implement successful forms of prevention and intervention to address the underlying reasons for the student's tardiness/truancy. Thus, the Community Rights Campaign is urging the LAUSD Board to rollback and re-conceptualize the Attendance Improvement Centers.

On October 2nd 2010 the Labor Community Strategy's Center's Community Rights Campaign erected a "School to Prison" pipeline Walking Maze & Resistance Art Exhibit. This innovative art piece displayed a day in the life of a high school student at a LAUSD school. The exhibit was not only a viewing of art, but also a theater piece that encapsulated the experiences that a student faces when attempting to get to school on a poor y run and expensive bus system and the police harassment they encounter when they finally arrive to campus.

Lissett Lazo, SYOA Alumni '07 and Community Rights Organizer, reflects on the highlights and breakthroughs of this year's Summer Youth Organizing Academy class. She looks back to her own experience as a SYOA student as a pivotal point in her own growth and transformation as an organizer and young Salvadoreña, Hondureña, Nucaraguense womyn.