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What is Students Deserve?
We are students, teachers, and parents working for justice in and beyond schools.
We are in schools all over the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), which is the second largest school district in the U.S.
We are volunteers who are member-leaders. We strategize, organize, set our own agendas, develop our leadership, decide for ourselves, experiment, create, and try to contribute to a broader movement for justice. We are a multi-racial organization that prioritizes the leadership of Black students for the sake of Black liberation.
What does Students Deserve do?
Students Deserve is working towards Making Black Lives Matter in Schools. We want schools to divest from criminalization and policing. We want schools to invest in us as Black, Muslim, undocumented, indigenous, and queer youth in poor and working class communities of color. We follow the lead of Black Lives Matter in demanding that our schools defund the police and defend Black life.
Our work has three main strands:
1. EDUCATE OURSELVES:
We use political education to name and challenge all oppressive systems that harm people at school and beyond. By learning and teaching histories of dignity and resistance by oppressed communities, we build unity among people for the sake of increasing justice. At our schools, this means supporting and protecting Black, Muslim, undocumented, and queer students who are vulnerable to being targeted. For example, just because something is normal does not mean it is ok. Slavery was normalized, prisons are normalized, and all sorts of other inhumane practices are made to seem rational and necessary. But they're not. We keep learning so we can keep imagining new possibilities, just like abolitionists before us did.
There is a continuum of violence against Black people. In the streets, that violence looks like police targeting and murdering Black people. In schools that looks like Black youth being excluded, under-funded, discredited, demeaned, criminalized, policed, and punished. As part of Making Black Lives Matter in Schools, we learn to recognize, name, and speak to the ways that anti-Blackness plays out in schools. When we understand these dynamics, we can better organize to end those conditions and create solutions that support the health and well-being of all Black youth and communities.
2. ORGANIZE TO END POLICING & PRIVATIZATION:
We want an end to all forms of policing. We want to stop charter the school expansion and reconstitutions that target Black, indigenous, and low-income communities. These practices treat students, families, and teachers like problems rather than seeing us as beautiful, creative, and human. We want public schools to be places that welcome, support, and work with Black students rather than excluding, criminalizing, and pushing us out. That's what can make public schools so powerful - they can be for all of us. Ending policing and privatization are two ways that we are working to end anti-Blackness and to prioritize the leadership, experiences, and knowledge of Black people.
3. PUSH TO INVEST IN BLACK YOUTH & COMMUNITY SCHOOLS:
We want real support for Black communities, indigenous communities, and poor and working class communities of color. This means schools with smaller class sizes and more arts, electives, college counselors, therapists, librarians, custodians, and healthcare services. We know that funding safe and high quality schools is one important part of winning what students deserve. Investing in public schools is also part of challenging policing, privatization, charter school expansion, and reconstitutions or school closures and conversions. When our communities have well-funded and high quality public schools, we don't need to turn to charter schools or rely on policing. #fundblackfutures! We must DIVEST from a culture and a budget that polices Black students and INVEST in the well-being of Black students.
The heart of our work is our vision for what Black youth and communities deserve.
We know our schools and communities can't wait. We organize, grow community bonds, and do the work to make our vision real NOW.
We are students, teachers, and parents working for justice in and beyond schools.
We are in schools all over the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), which is the second largest school district in the U.S.
We are volunteers who are member-leaders. We strategize, organize, set our own agendas, develop our leadership, decide for ourselves, experiment, create, and try to contribute to a broader movement for justice. We are a multi-racial organization that prioritizes the leadership of Black students for the sake of Black liberation.
What does Students Deserve do?
Students Deserve is working towards Making Black Lives Matter in Schools. We want schools to divest from criminalization and policing. We want schools to invest in us as Black, Muslim, undocumented, indigenous, and queer youth in poor and working class communities of color. We follow the lead of Black Lives Matter in demanding that our schools defund the police and defend Black life.
Our work has three main strands:
1. EDUCATE OURSELVES:
We use political education to name and challenge all oppressive systems that harm people at school and beyond. By learning and teaching histories of dignity and resistance by oppressed communities, we build unity among people for the sake of increasing justice. At our schools, this means supporting and protecting Black, Muslim, undocumented, and queer students who are vulnerable to being targeted. For example, just because something is normal does not mean it is ok. Slavery was normalized, prisons are normalized, and all sorts of other inhumane practices are made to seem rational and necessary. But they're not. We keep learning so we can keep imagining new possibilities, just like abolitionists before us did.
There is a continuum of violence against Black people. In the streets, that violence looks like police targeting and murdering Black people. In schools that looks like Black youth being excluded, under-funded, discredited, demeaned, criminalized, policed, and punished. As part of Making Black Lives Matter in Schools, we learn to recognize, name, and speak to the ways that anti-Blackness plays out in schools. When we understand these dynamics, we can better organize to end those conditions and create solutions that support the health and well-being of all Black youth and communities.
2. ORGANIZE TO END POLICING & PRIVATIZATION:
We want an end to all forms of policing. We want to stop charter the school expansion and reconstitutions that target Black, indigenous, and low-income communities. These practices treat students, families, and teachers like problems rather than seeing us as beautiful, creative, and human. We want public schools to be places that welcome, support, and work with Black students rather than excluding, criminalizing, and pushing us out. That's what can make public schools so powerful - they can be for all of us. Ending policing and privatization are two ways that we are working to end anti-Blackness and to prioritize the leadership, experiences, and knowledge of Black people.
3. PUSH TO INVEST IN BLACK YOUTH & COMMUNITY SCHOOLS:
We want real support for Black communities, indigenous communities, and poor and working class communities of color. This means schools with smaller class sizes and more arts, electives, college counselors, therapists, librarians, custodians, and healthcare services. We know that funding safe and high quality schools is one important part of winning what students deserve. Investing in public schools is also part of challenging policing, privatization, charter school expansion, and reconstitutions or school closures and conversions. When our communities have well-funded and high quality public schools, we don't need to turn to charter schools or rely on policing. #fundblackfutures! We must DIVEST from a culture and a budget that polices Black students and INVEST in the well-being of Black students.
The heart of our work is our vision for what Black youth and communities deserve.
We know our schools and communities can't wait. We organize, grow community bonds, and do the work to make our vision real NOW.
