Dear CJSF Friends,

Summer is so traditionally a time for resting, recharging, and preparing for the year of learning ahead. My early childhood memories of summer are bare feet on hot asphalt, hours spent roller skating in parking lots, and collecting soda cans to buy ice pops.

As we find ourselves in the dog days of this summer and prepare to head back into the classroom, I am reflecting on all of the active learning that CJSF's community partners have been engaged in this summer - teaching history, civics, and political education in community and modeling learning in ways that are intentional about the power and wisdom of students and parents of color, and educators. Check out some summer learning highlights led by our partners below (a special shout out to our partners at Urban Youth Collaborative and Make the Road New York for inviting CJSF to join them at their Day at the Capitol in July) and join me in thinking about what the summer memories of the youth in CJSF's partner network are likely to be twenty years from now - memories of lessons learned that extend beyond the boundaries of traditional classrooms and shape lives.

In that spirit - before you fall back into the schedule of the school year, please join Communities for Just Schools Fund and the Southern Education Foundation as we help channel educators' #RedforEd and #MarchForOurLives energy towards active solidarity with Black, Brown, and LGBTQ youth and communities demanding (and modeling) liberatory, relationship-centered, police- and ICE-free schools. We are hosting a Back to School webinar entitled Back to #JustSchools : How Educators Can Show Up for Youth of Color & Queer Youth in the New School Year on August 22nd, at 4:30 pm ET. You can register here and please share this invite with teachers in your network. 
Jaime T. Koppel
Deputy Director for Strategic Partnerships
REGISTER NOW FOR BACK TO #JUSTSCHOOLS
CJSF and the Southern Education Foundation will co-host a "Back to School" webinar on August 22nd at 4:30pm EST on how educators can better ally with youth of color and LGBTQ youth in the new school year to create safe, culturally relevant, student-centered learning environments. As schools across the country gear up for the new academic year, this webinar will:

  1. Introduce youth- and teacher-led organizations advancing restorative practices, social-emotional learning, and culturally competent curriculum & pedagogy to improve school climate;
  2. Offer educators concrete tools to take into classrooms to advance racial justice and model the nurturing, affirmative world we all deserve to live in and;
  3. invite educators and education justice allies to follow the developments of CJSF's Education Anew Institute for more resources and training opportunities to advance #justschools.
ADVOCACY
Make the Road NY hosted a Federal Youth Action to End the School-to-Prison-and-Deportation Pipeline in Washington, DC on Thursday, July 12. More than 100 youth from all over the Northeast traveled to Washington DC to participate. The day began with a People's Listening session in front of the U.S. Department of Education to address the Federal School Safety Commission. Young people visited senators and members of Congress - calling on them to prohibit federal funding for school policing and criminalization of schools and invest in restorative justice, mental health supports, and resources for schools, students, and families. Legislators were invited to sign the Youth Demand Pledge , to support the vision of youth of color for safe and supportive schools.
On August 8, Dream Defenders and United We Dream came together to #ShutDownGEO in Washington, D.C. The GEO group is ICE's largest contractor - profiting roughly $146 million from the separation of families and the incarceration of Black and Brown immigrants and children. Read Democracy NOW!'s coverage of #ShutDownGEO here. Also, read an excerpt from Dream Defenders' powerful letter to GEO group below!
COMMUNITY PARTNERS - A SUMMER OF LEARNING GAINS
Carrying on the legacy of Freedom Summer, Youth Organizing Institute welcomed applicants into their Summer Freedom School Program through 4 tracks - offered in Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro, and Chapel Hill. YOI's Summer Freedom School program focuses on developing organizing skills, political analysis, restorative justice, and delving into young people's movement history alongside high school students passionate about changing the world. Learn more about the program here.
The Philadelphia Student Union hosted BAYM - Building a Youth Movement, this summer, which began with guest speakers Amanda Evans and Gregorio Cojulun, from Friends of Malcolm X, to discuss oppression and the importance of young people leading efforts in school and in their communities. Once Philly Student Union's week-long leadership and organizing institute, BAYM has been expanded this year to run a month-long, allowing PSU members more time and space to develop political education, leadership skills, and organizing acument while deepening relationships with the West Philly community. Learn more about BAYM here.
Dream Defenders brought hundreds of young people across Florida together to launch a young peoples' new political agenda: The Freedom Papers. Young people at all levels of engagement - through Camp Power - are able to learn, practice, and participate in building a youth-led political powerhouse at a time when the NRA is put on notice, a new governor assumes office, and the restoration of voting rights for 1.68 million people is realized this year. Learn more about Camp Power here.
Teachers Unite kick-started the PAR institute this summer where participants engaged in intergenerational conversations about restorative justice and learning how to have difficult conversations about the meaning of safety, accountability, discipline, and participatory action research #OnOurTerms.
IN PHILANTHROPY

The Neighborhood Funders Group is hiring an Oakland, CA-based Program Coordinator! The person in this position would work with all of NFG's programs, including Funders for Justice. Click here to apply.
Join the Southern Education Foundation on November 13-15 for their 2018 Issues Forum -The Politics of Equity: Navigating a Path for Public Education, as they convene education officials, academic scholars, and education advocates in developing a cohesive education policy strategy for the South that will serve all students.
SCHOOLHOUSE: EQUITY IN EDUCATION
Our SchoolHouse: Equity in Education podcast is taking a break for the summer months. When we return, we'll dive into the Back to #JustSchools season with follow-up conversations on the upcoming webinar: How Educators Can Show Up for Youth of Color & Queer Youth in the New School Year. We cordially invite you to register and be part of the initial dialogue on August 22. Please click here to register and read more about the event.

As always, thank you for your "listens, shares, and comments" and overall support of the SchoolHouse: Equity in Education podcast.
BOOK CORNER
In this work, James W. Loewen, author of the national bestseller Lies My Teacher Told Me , brings to light decades of hidden racial exclusion in America. In a provocative, sweeping analysis of American residential patterns, Loewen uncovers thousands of "sundown towns" - almost exclusively white towns where it was an unspoken rule that blacks could not live there - that cropped up throughout the twentieth century, most of them located outside of the South. These towns used everything from legal formalities to violence to create homogenous Caucasian communities - and their existence has gone unexamined until now.

Sundown Towns combines personal narrative, history, and analysis to create a readable picture of this previously unknown American institution all written with Loewen's trademark honesty and thoroughness.. More