Lock-Ins and Walkouts: The Students Changing City Schools From the Inside
Teenagers are helping to lead integration efforts, protesting against discrimination and demanding more inclusive curriculums.
They have locked themselves inside school buildings for days on end to protest discrimination.
They have called into Mayor Bill de Blasio’s weekly radio show to demand action on integrating schools, and have even followed him to Iowa to confront him about arrests and suspensions for students of color.
Education politics in New York City is often controlled by well-connected lobbyists, wealthy benefactors and crisis communications professionals.
But recently, the most prominent — and sometimes most effective — movements for change in the nation’s largest school system have been created and fueled by those with the most at stake: students.
A new crop of student groups, led by highly organized teenagers who have staged major rallies and protests, have helped define a swirling citywide debate about how race and class exclude vulnerable students from accessing all city schools have to offer.
Here’s how six teenagers with different backgrounds, political viewpoints and public school experiences are working to change a public school system of 1.1 million students and 1,800 schools — along with some of the city’s most prestigious private schools.
Protesting Discrimination in Elite Private Schools
Chassidy Titley, 17, Harlem
Chassidy wasn’t nervous about getting in trouble when she and her classmates locked themselves in a building at her prestigious Riverdale private school, sleeping on an air mattress in her principal’s office for three nights in a row.
She was only worried that her group, Students of Color Matter, would be ignored in their fight against what they believe is a racist school culture at Ethical Culture Fieldston School in the Bronx.
But by the second day of the protest, prompted by a video in which CONTINUE READING: Lock-Ins and Walkouts: The Students Changing City Schools From the Inside - The New York Times