Why focus on education equity for Black students?

As a result of many organizing meetings with parents, caregivers and community members, we have learned that school discipline is just a by-product of underlying inequity.

In the early years of our organization we focused primarily on school discipline. As our work expanded we saw the need to address root causes related to discipline disparities and inadequate resources, such as implicit bias and cultural relevancy in curriculum and schools.

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According to a 2014 Schott Foundation study, 100% of Ohio children suspended in pre-k were Black boys.

Suspending and criminalizing the behavior of youth is one of many steps that lead to increasing youth incarceration rates.

Eurocentric curriculum that disconnects youth from the learning process and the biases of teachers and staff are also contributing factors that negatively affect Black youth.

The national trend of adding police in schools is another great challenge for Blacks students in educational settings. The historic relationship between Blacks and police is not a positive one and is rooted in racism.

our theory of change

RJN! Organizes, provides leadership development and advocates for policy and practice change in Black communities to:

Build community and collective consciousness towards a shared vision and mutual aid

Develop leaders with the power to create and/or make demands or advocate for the community’s shared vision

As a result of many organizing meetings with parents, caregivers and community members, we have learned that school discipline is just a by-product of underlying inequity.

In the early years of our organization we focused primarily on school discipline. As our work expanded we saw the need to address root causes related to discipline disparities and inadequate resources, such as implicit bias and cultural relevancy in curriculum and schools.

our vision

Racial Justice NOW! Is dedicated to ending Institutional and Systemic Anti-Black Racism.

Our Values

Truth & Integrity

We move in truth and in line with our values and principles. Being reliable and honest to the best of our ability. Understanding that we all have different supports that allow us to move in integrity or not, similarly as with love and grace. This includes having an intention to do what we said we would do, to be in integrity with our words and values.

Power, Self Determination, Liberation, & Freedom

As Black people we intend to define and name ourselves and our intersecting identities. To create for ourselves and our educational networks, to love ourselves, to worship as we wish, to support ourselves, and to speak for ourselves. Freedom and autonomy. This includes our communities having the power to decide how public resources are allocated.

Love, Grace, Cooperation, & Relationships

We move with kindness, accountability, compassion, thoughtfulness, and a collective smooth movement in the ways in which we interact with each other. This includes an understanding of intergenerational trauma, and never placing the blame for harm on our own people, but rather on systems of oppression.

Health, Healing, & Well-Being

We aim to become free of physical/ physiological, spiritual, emotional, mental illness and injury. This includes having access to spaces to heal from harm and trauma.

Fun & Joy

We surrender to allow for limitlessness of creativity and transformation. Something pleasurable. This includes generating opportunities for Black joy through play, dance, arts, music, and other culturally appropriate mechanisms.

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