WE NEED YOUR HELP WITH OUR SUSPENSION STORIES PROJECT!
Since last fall, the Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team (YWAT) has partnered with Project NIA to collect stories about students’ experiences of being suspended and/or expelled from school. Suspension Stories is a youth-led participatory action research project that addresses the impact of harsh disciplinary policies on students’ educational outcomes. For several years, YWAT members have complained about the zero tolerance policies in our schools which we believe contribute to pushing youth out of school and into the juvenile legal system. Suspension Stories is our attempt to “talk back” to the educational system and to show how these policies are actually harming young people.
The project incorporates surveys developed by YWAT members, art and storytelling to ultimately create an interactive website that can serve as platform for organizing.
WAYS TO GET INVOLVED:
Contribute video, audio, or written stories about the impact that harsh disciplinary policies have had on students, teachers, and school culture. We invite students, parents, advocates, community members and educators to submit their own “suspension stories” about the impact of harsh disciplinary policies. E-mail all submissions to us at projectnia@hotmail.com.
The following are some possible questions that you can respond to:
- What story about suspension would you like to share? Walk us through the very beginning.
- What were some of the causes of this suspension? What was going on beforehand?
- How did you feel about the situation?
- What happened afterward?
- What impact did this situation have on you and others involved?
- What do you wish had happened?
- Instead of using suspension and detention, what could schools do differently? What would you want to see happen?
Ask students and other youth to complete our School to Prison Pipeline Survey. Please return hard copies of the surveys to us at 1530 West Morse Ave, Chicago IL 60626. You can also have students and youth complete the survey online here.
Contribute your artwork illustrating the school to prison pipeline. We are accepting drawings, paintings, photographs, films depicting the school to prison pipeline to be featured on our suspension stories website.
For more information about YWAT, visit our website at www.rogersparkywat.org; For more information about Project NIA, visit our website at www.project-nia.org.
Please contact Project Coordinator, Lillian Matanmi at rpywat@hotmail.com if you have any questions about Suspension Stories.
I will contact you by phone to see how The Good Gifts Education Project can be of assistance.