Elementary Justice Campaign

Redirecting the School-to-Prison Pipeline

“My daughter was expelled from 7th grade for talking during lunch.”

“My child was suspended for 10 days for looking out the window.”

POWER-PAC parents launched their first citywide campaign in 2004, out of their own experiences with their children in Chicago’s low-income African American and Latino neighborhoods.

Children are suspended in schools at an alarming rate; they attend schools where prison-like atmospheres prevail (82% of the students don’t have recess and many are not even allowed to talk during lunch), and parents are told their children starting kindergarten are already trailing their white and middle-class counterparts.

The goal of Elementary Justice Campaign is to break the cycle of criminalization of low-income youth of color by eliminating unnecessarily punitive discipline policies and practices in Chicago’s public elementary schools.

POWER-PAC parents see their families and communities experiencing what the Children's Defense Fund calls the "cradle-to-prison pipeline”. Children are discouraged in schools, drop out in large numbers by 9th grade, have limited opportunities to overcome poverty, and, too often, end up in the juvenile and criminal justice systems.

POWER-PAC Recommendations>>

Report on School Discipline>>
Restorative Justice Pilot Report>>