SSAIS raises awareness of the detrimental effects on students of DeVos Title IX guidance rescission #MeTooK12 #MeToo #TimesUp

SSAIS raises awareness of the detrimental effects on students of DeVos Title IX guidance rescission | Stop Sexual Assault in Schools:

SSAIS raises awareness of the detrimental effects on students of DeVos Title IX guidance rescission

In a strongly worded letter to Department of Education Secretary Betsy Devos, the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education (NCWGE) opposed “any effort by this administration to repeal, replace, or modify any of Title IX’s regulations or guidance documents” that were open for public comment.

Stop Sexual Assault in Schools (SSAIS.org), one of 30 national NCWGE member organizations, is spearheading awareness of the potential negative effects on K-12 students of rescinding Title IX-related guidance and any weakening of the Department’s oversight and enforcement role.

The NCWGE is a national nonprofit that educates the public about issues concerning equal rights for women and girls in education. SSAIS contributed to the recent NCWGE publication Title IX at 45: Advancing Opportunity through Equity in Education.

FacebookTwitterGoogle+Pinterest

#MeTooK12 Campaign

Combating Rampant Sexual Harassment and Assault

by Esther Warkov, Executive Director, SSAIS

#MeTooK12 is a social media hashtag created by the national nonprofit Stop Sexual Assault in Schools (SSAIS.org). The campaign encourages victims of sexual harassment and assault by peers or school staff to share their experiences while they attend K-12 schools. It also encourages secondary victims—the victim’s friends, family, and allies—to share how sexual harassment negatively impacts students. The hashtag spotlights the widespread sexual harassment that students experience before entering college or the workforce, and underscores the urgency of addressing this problem in early education.

SSAIS invited the NWLC, a champion of the students’ civil rights, to partner in this campaign. Their participation continues a series of collaborative efforts that began with President and CEO Fatima Goss Graves’s inaugural blog for the SSAIS website and Director of Education Neena Chaudhry’s appearance in Sexual Harassment: Not in Our School! The NWLC website recently featured SSAIS in “Why We Need Title IX to Let Her Learn: A Parent’s Perspective.”

Read more

#MeTooK12: Centering Young Students in the Fight to End Sexual Violence

by Sabrina Stevens, Senior Digital and Mobilization Manager, National Women’s Law Center

A few weeks ago, when #MeToo was first beginning to spread online, I was chatting on a friend’s Facebook wall after she wrote a piece asking whether schools should teach boys to respect girls. Seeing some skeptics already popping up in the thread, I chimed in to affirm her stance, and expand it with some observations of my own: 

Read more

From survivor to advocate: demanding change in the Portland, OR, school district

by Annabelle Schwartz

[See Annabelle’s activism online: Oregon Live, KATU-TV, Planned Parenthood video]

My name is Annabelle Schwartz, I am 18 years old, an activist, and a survivor of a peer sexual assault. It took me a long time after my initial experience to realize what had happened to me. I remember the first person I told, my boyfriend at the time, who held me as I cried in his green Toyota.  At that point I could barely comprehend what I had been through, or how it would shape me into the person I am now. All I knew when I was 15 years old was that finally telling someone was my way of admitting to myself the truth of what had happened.

Read more

We proactively address the epidemic of traumatic sexual harassment impacting our nation’s students. We provide students, K-12 schools, and organizations resources so that the right to an equal education is not compromised by sexual harassment, sexual assault, and gender discrimination.

• Prevent

• Support

• Inform

• Empower

Photo credits: “Prevent” Kyle Stokes, KPLU-FM, “Support” Southern Poverty Law Center, “Inform” Diviya Rajesh, “Empower” Lindsey Cohen, KOMO-TV. “Prevent” and “Empower” from protest supported by SSAIS.

Survivors of sexual harassment and assault may immediately call 1-800-656-HOPE to be connected to the nearest crisis or counseling center. You can also use this interactive form to find local services. See additional resources here.

This website is intended to provide users with general information and resources that may be of interest. The information is provided as a public service and is not legal advice. Read more…

Stop Sexual Assault in Schools | To educate students, families, and schools about sexual assault prevention and the right to an equal education free of sexual harassment. - https://wp.me/P6aIHy-8

Sexual Harassment Defined

See also    Get Help   Awareness Videos   K-12 Sexual Assault in the Media   Sample OCR Complaints    Share Your Story

Students and families across the country struggle with the devastating impact of sexual harassment and sexual assault. Yet in many cases, victims haven’t acknowledge that they’ve actually been sexually harassed or assaulted.

That’s because victims have come to accept sexual harassment as normal and sexual assault as their fault. It’s gotten so bad that girls at this school think that feeling uncomfortable is normal.

Everyone must recognize the many forms of sexual harassment and violence so students are protected and afforded an equal education, as guaranteed by Title IX.  The US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has published an overview of sexual harassment titled Sexual Harassment: It’s not Academic. Here is some important information:

From The National Women’s Law Center:

How to Recognize and Combat Sexual Harassment: A Primer for Students Read online orRead Here

Cyberbullying and Sexual Harassment. Read online orRead Here

Resources for Students, Parents, & Educators Read online orRead Here

From RAINN:

Sexual Harassment in the Schools Read online orRead Here

From 1 is 2 Many (US Government):

Take Action Against Abuse – For Parents Read online orRead Here

For more information see our Awareness Videos, our selected media reports, or search sexual assaults K-12 online. Many forms of sexual harassment and violence are described in the OCR investigation letter of the Richmond (CA) School District. You may contact any OCR office for additional investigation reports or questions about definitions of sexual harassment and assault.

Sexual harassment is also defined in videos made by schools. One example is Confronting Sexual Harassment Bullying. However, although this video says schools will address reported harassment, this does not always happen. If schools always addressed harassment properly, families nationwide would not need to file complaints with OCR/other agencies, or file lawsuits. For additional descriptions of daily sexual harassment and school assault, see this video by students at Berkeley High School.

Parents have contacted SSAIS describing the following types of sexual harassment and assault (the links are to sample cases in the media):

• Cases compiled by Public Justice including verdicts/settlements
• Groping and constant sexual intimidation in the hallways
• Oral rapes upon girls in schools (in soundproof music practice rooms and unsupervised areas of the school)
• Rapes behind buildings during afterschool sports practice
• Sexual harassment/violence on school busses, at middle and high schools
• Rapes at school dances or off campus followed by social media postings and retaliation for reporting
• Teacher on student sexual harassment/assaults
• Sexual assaults on overnight school fieldtrips
• Sexual assaults of boys under the guise of “hazing”
• Self-harm and suicide when sexual harassment and violence destroys a student’s life at school, among numerous other tragic reports

SSAIS raises awareness of the detrimental effects on students of DeVos Title IX guidance rescission | Stop Sexual Assault in Schools:

Stop Sexual Assault in Schools | To educate students, families, and schools about sexual assault prevention and the right to an equal education free of sexual harassment. - https://wp.me/P6aIHy-8

The GOP’s Biggest Charter School Experiment Just Imploded – Mother Jones

The GOP’s Biggest Charter School Experiment Just Imploded – Mother Jones:

The GOP’s Biggest Charter School Experiment Just Imploded 

The west side of Columbus, Ohio, is a flat expanse of one-story houses, grimy convenience stores, and dark barrooms, and William Lager, in his business wear, cut an unusual figure at the Waffle House on Wilson Road. Every day, almost without fail, he took a seat in a booth, ordered his bottomless coffee, and set to work. Some days he sat for hours, so long that he’d outlast waitress Chandra Filichia’s seven-hour shift and stay on long into the night, making plans and scribbling them down on napkins.

The dreams on the napkins seemed impossibly grandiose: He wanted to create a school unlike anything that existed, a K-12 charter school where the learning and teaching would be done online, and which would give tens of thousands of students an alternative to traditional public schools across the state. It would offer them unheard of flexibility—a teen mom could stay with her child and study, while a kid worried about being bullied could complete lessons at home. And it would be radically cheaper than a traditional classroom, since there would be no buildings to maintain, no teachers’ unions to bargain with. At the time—the late 1990s—it was a revolutionary idea. Lager called it, in the heady days when the internet seemed to promise a solution to every problem, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow.

But back then—before Lager had his mansion and lake house, before he rose to become a hero of the school choice movement, before Jeb Bush flew in to give ECOT’s commencement speech and Betsy DeVos helped him and his cohort transform Ohio’s educational landscape—Filichia, the Waffle House waitress, could tell Lager seemed broke. Balding, round-faced, and concentrating intently as he scribbled, she even once caught him trying to pass off photocopies of discount The GOP’s Biggest Charter School Experiment Just Imploded – Mother Jones:

Sexual Harassment: Not In Our School #MeTooK12 #MeToo #TimesUp

Video | Stop Sexual Assault in Schools:

Stop Sexual Assault in Schools

Educating students, families, and schools about the right to an equal education free from sexual harassment

Click Here To Go To The #MeTooK12 Campaign On FaceBook

Click Here To Go To The #MeTooK12 Campaign On FaceBook

WATCH IT NOW PART 1    PART 2	SHARE IT NOW	READ ABOUT IT	TAKE ACTION

 is an innovative video for K-12 parents, middle and high school students, schools, and community organizations. It’s about gender equality in education, students’ protections under Title IX, and much more. Video Contents  Media Reports

As high school students plan for their new gender equality group, we watch them interview nationally recognized education, legal, and LGBTQ experts and learn from counselors, advocates, parents, and students. The video offers simple steps and engaging activities to make schools safer with equal learning spaces for all students.

In Part 2, a teenage victim learns about her right to privacy and mandated reporting when she speaks with a victim’s advocate.

 was created by parents who know—first hand—how important this information is for K-12 families. Share the video and Action Guide widely. Use the Presentation Guide to invite others to start the conversation!

 is free of charge. Your tax-deductible donation helps to defray production costs of Part 1 and allows us to produce Part 2.  To make your donation, please use PayPal. Thank you!

Send us your feedback and take the online evaluation.

 Video | Stop Sexual Assault in Schools:

Take Action

• •  Action Guide
  • Campus activism: How to Become a NOW Activist in High School

Read 6 more items ↓

Resources referenced in the video

In order mentioned

The assault that led to the founding of SSAIS

The Sexy Lie TEDx Youth Talk with Professor Caroline Heldman

Read 26 more items ↓

Fact Sheets

Read 11 items ↓

Know Your Rights

Read 6 items ↓

Is Your School Title IX Compliant?

• Title IX Compliance Checklist

Problem with your school

• Problem with your school (SSAIS.org)
• Filing complaints (SSAIS.org)

Abuse by school staff

• Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct, & Exploitation (S.E.S.A.M.E.)
• Talk About Abuse to Liberate Kids (TAALK)

Films, online talks, and PSAs

Read 19 items ↓

Books and Studies

Read 8 items ↓

Talking to Students

Read 1 item ↓

SSAIS thanks Terri L Rossi for supporting this page.

Video | Stop Sexual Assault in Schools:

Promoting healthy masculinity in K-12 schools - Marc Grimmett #MeTooK12 #MeToo #TimesUp

Promoting healthy masculinity in K-12 schools - Marc Grimmett - YouTube:

Promoting healthy masculinity in K-12 schools - Marc Grimmett

#MeTooK12 Campaign | Stop Sexual Assault in Schools: 

In this excerpt from Sexual Harassment: Not in Our School! psychologist and professor Marc Grimmett talks about ways to make our schools free from sexual harassment and violence. Watch the full video at http://bit.ly/2q6dVqt and Part 2 at http://bit.ly/2pvZZs8 "Sexual Harassment: Not in Our School!" is an empowering video for middle and high school students, K-12 parents, schools, and community organizations. It’s about gender equality in education, students’ protections under Title IX, and much more.
Visit SSAIS.org/video to learn how to bring Sexual Harassment: Not in Our School! to your audience free of charge. Share it widely using the Presentation Guide to start the conversation!
#MeTooK12 Campaign | Stop Sexual Assault in Schools
This video was created by parents who know—first hand—how important this information is for K-12 families. Visit SSAIS.org/video to support this work and get involved!
 Copyright 2016 SSAIS.org All Rights Reserved. For noncommercial distribution only.

#MeTooK12 Campaign | Stop Sexual Assault in Schools: 

Click Here To Go To The #MeTooK12 Campaign On FaceBook

Click Here To Go To The #MeTooK12 Campaign On FaceBook

Stop Sexual Assault in Schools

Educating students, families, and schools about the right to an equal education free from sexual harassment

#MeTooK12 Campaign

A campaign to promote awareness and inspire action
to counteract pervasive sexual harassment and sexual violence in K-12 schools.

Combating rampant K-12 sexual harassment and assault

by Esther Warkov, Executive Director, SSAIS

#MeTooK12 is a social media hashtag created by the national nonprofit Stop Sexual Assault in Schools (SSAIS.org). The campaign encourages ...
Read more

What adults can do about K-12 sexual harassment and assaultby Jeffrey Caffee, civil rights attorney

Action Plan

• Spread the hashtag #MeTooK12
• Tweet your experiences of K-12 sexual harassment or assault. 
• Post your experiences on the new #MeTooK12 Facebook page.
• Check out the video and action guide at SSAIS.org/video, and the SSAIS YouTube channel.
• Involve students, parents, school staff, clubs, community, media, and lawmakers.
• Learn about Title IX and implement the Action Guide at SSAIS.org/video.
• Contact SSAIS to become more involved with this campaign.

Coming soon: Blog by Sabrina Stevens, Senior Digital and Mobilization Manager, National Women's Law Center.

Coming soon: Vlog by professor and activist Caroline Heldman.

#MeTooK12 Campaign | Stop Sexual Assault in Schools:

New Year’s Resolution For Public Education

New Year’s Resolution For Public Education:

New Year’s Resolution For Public Education

Wayne Wlodarski, a labor relations consultant for OEA, is asking teachers and all other citizens to make a New Year’s resolution in support of public education.

He, with permission, turned a Network for Public Education (NPE) statement into the attached resolution:

I BELIEVE that public education is the pillar of our democracy. I believe in the common school envisioned by Horace Mann. A common school is a public institution, which nurtures and teaches all who live within its boundaries, regardless of race, ethnicity, creed, sexual orientation or learning ability. All may enroll – regardless of when they seek to enter the school or where they were educated before.

I BELIEVE that taxpayers bear the responsibility for funding those schools and that funding should be ample and equitable to address the needs of the served community. I also believe that taxpayers have the right to examine how schools use tax dollars to educate children.

I BELIEVE that such schools should be accountable to the community they serve, and that community residents have the right and responsibility to elect those who govern the school. Citizens also have the right to insist that schooling be done in a manner that best serves the needs of all children.

In so stating these beliefs, I will do whatever I can to support and promote public education in Ohio.

This resolution can be signed and sent to public official and the media as an expression of support for the public common school system.

Please circulate this resolution via all means available.New Year’s Resolution For Public Education:

Mapping the imaginary lines we use to segregate our schools - Vox

Mapping the imaginary lines we use to segregate our schools - Vox:

Mapping the imaginary lines we use to segregate our schools

Is your district drawing borders to reduce or perpetuate segregation?

Think about your elementary school.

If you attended an American public school, chances are you went to that school because your family lived in that school’s attendance zone. You probably didn’t think twice about it.

We tend to assume these are neutrally drawn, immutable borders. But if you take a step back and look at the demographics of who lives in each attendance zone, you’re faced with maps like this:

Once you look at the school attendance zones this way, it becomes clearer why these lines are drawn the way they are. Groups with political clout — mainly wealthier, whiter communities — have pushed policies that help white families live in heavily white areas and attend heavily white schools.

We see this in city after city, state after state.

And often the attendance zones are gerrymandered to put white students in classrooms that are even whiter than the communities they live in.

The result is that schools today are as segregated now as they were about 50 years ago, not long after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision.

But this exact strategy — gerrymandering school districts to include certain kinds of students Mapping the imaginary lines we use to segregate our schools - Vox: