by H.A. Jabar
Dayton, Ohio community activist organization, Racial Justice NOW!, completed a calendar year full of activity, holding institutions accountable and disrupting the school to prison pipeline. Racial Justice NOW! is dedicated to fighting institutional and systemic racism and was co-founded by parent activist Zakiya Sankara-Jabar and University of Dayton Professor Emeritus of Law, Vernellia Randall.
RJN began the 2013-2014 school year by lobbying and agitating the Dayton Public School system, urging them to address school discipline and racial disparity in out of school suspensions. Their intensive efforts landed them on the cover of the Dayton Daily News.
As January 2014 rolled around, Zakiya Sankara-Jabar took Racial Justice NOW!’s membership with the national Dignity in Schools campaign to higher level by joining their Coordinating Committee. The coordinating committee steers the campaign and coordinates with its 90 plus member groups in 24 states.
In March, Racial Justice NOW! members were selected to travel to Washington, D.C. to meet with the Obama administration White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African-Americans and Hispanics to discuss the Federal School Discipline Guidance.
Racial Justice NOW! used April to introduced a resolution to the Dayton Public School Board, calling for a moratorium on all out of school suspensions for pre-K through third grade, and they requested that DPS look into its racial disparity in school discipline. They justified their stance by stating that children cannot learn unless they were in the classroom.
The Dayton Public School Board of Education responded in the month of June to Racial Justice Now’s efforts by eliminating all zero-tolerance language from the student code of conduct, downgrading disruptive behavior and truancy to a level I offense (making them both non-out of school suspendable actions), and DPS also implemented a preschool moratorium on suspensions.
After school let out for the summer and the hot months progressed, RJN used the month of August for training. Members traveled to Portland, Oregon for student code of conduct moratorium training, and were also selected to be a representative member group to participate in a panel discussion with the Portland Parent Union and Portland Public Schools, highlighting works done in Dayton, Ohio.
The training month of August was capped by a convening hosted by Racial Justice NOW!, which brought to town well respected child psychologist Dr. Umar Johnson to speak on the subject of ‘Education to End Incarceration’.
September brought in the 2014-2015 school year, but also tragedy to Dayton, Ohio and the surrounding areas. A young black man, John Crawford III, was murdered by police in a Walmart in Beavercreek, Ohio. RJN released an official statement showing the disgust of a non-indictment of the police officers involved, and they also advocated for civil disobedience, which was later picked up by the Ohio Student Association.
In October RJN participated for their second year in the Dignity in Schools Campaign National Week of Action to stop the school to prison pipeline, but this year was much different than the last. In 2014 RJN did what had never been done before, by creating the first-ever statewide school discipline report card. The school discipline report card gave a grade to all of the school districts in Ohio using statistics from the Ohio Department of Education. During the same week, RJN hosted national members of the Dignity in Schools Campaign for a press conference announcing the national charter school accountability statement. To end the week, RJN hosted a community forum that addressed the Dayton Public Schools safety and security team and the criminalization of young people.
RJN founders were invited and appeared on a web-based talk show called Knowledge Cipher In November, hosted by Steven Muhammad and Knowledge for Life. While on the show, Professor Randall announced that she had been invited to Sweden for a United Nations conference to represent Racial Justice Now! and their work against the school to prison pipeline.
In December, Zakiya Sankara-Jabar attended a quarterly school to prison pipeline meeting in Washington, D.C. with other national stakeholders at the Advancement Project and Alliance for Educational Justice.
In 2015 Racial Justice NOW! is continuing efforts to support education for Ohio students and will be working to expand efforts throughout the state. To learn more about Racial Justice NOW! you can view their webpage at racialjusticenow.org , you can like their facebook page at http://facebook.com/racialjusticenow, follow them on twitter at @RacialJsticeNow, or e-mail the group at z.sankara-jabar@racialjusticenow.org.