7.21.2020

ADVISORY: Students, School Staff Share Perspectives on Reopening K-12 Schools

As schools begin to release their reopening plans, the Education Justice Collective’s Move School Forward team, which includes the Student Voice Team, is hosting a Town Hall about organizing safe, equitable and justice-centered transitions back to school in the fall. Using a student-moderated “town hall'' format, those directly impacted by school reopenings — students, school staff and administration — will answer both pre-submitted and live questions from members of the media and the public. The event will close with specific calls to actions for viewers to advance increased federal funding for schools and participate in nationwide direct actions to demand teacher and student safety.

What: Town Hall on Reopening K-12 Schools

Who:

  • Krupa Hegde (moderator), Coping with COVID Project Lead, Prichard Committee Student Voice Team
  • Lu Young, Chair, Kentucky Board of Education
  • Chloe Pressley, high school senior, C.D. Hylton High School in Woodbridge, Virginia
  • Malinalli Perez, high school junior, Anahuacalmecac International Baccalaureate in Los Angeles, CA
  • Jonathan Haines, RN, school nurse in Boston Public Schools, member of the Boston Teachers Union Nurse Faculty Senate and the BTU Collective Bargaining Committee
  • Dmitri Holtzman (guest), Director of Education Justice Campaigns, Center for Popular Democracy (CPD)

When: Tuesday, July 21st at 7 p.m. EST / 4 p.m. PST

Where: Interested students, journalists and members of the public can register for the town hall on Zoom. The event will also be streamed live and posted afterwards to YouTube.

Questions: Students, journalists and members of the public are invited to submit questions for speakers ahead of time or ask questions in the live chat during the event. 

Please RSVP and direct additional inquiries to Jenna Yuan, Student Voice’s Director of Communications, at [email protected] or 425-260-8146.

About the Education Justice Collective

As we are inundated with calls for “reopening schools” and returning to normal, it is crucial that we demand a just future for our education system that includes students as full participants in the decision-making process, from the school to state levels. Where people are reimagining the future of schools, the voices of the most marginalized students are consistently sidelined. The Education Justice Collective, including KSVT, Student Voice, Our TurnUrbEd AdvocatesYouth Activism ProjectStudents for Equitable Public SchoolsGenUpStudents for Education EquityTeens Take ChargeYoung Organizers UnitedHISD Student CongressOregon Student Voice, and IowaSLI.

About KSVT

The Kentucky Student Voice Team is a statewide organization of young people who are co-creating more just, democratic Kentucky schools & communities as research, policy & advocacy partners. From 2012 to 2021, KSVT was incubated at the Prichard Committee, a nonpartisan, citizen-led organization working to improve education in Kentucky for all ages.

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