“Parents in this campaign knew that harsh discipline and punitive punishments in schools weren’t right. We didn’t back down even when others did.”

When Lynn saw how Black and Brown students were being suspended and expelled from Chicago Public Schools for behaviors that were simply age-appropriate, it stopped her cold.

“They weren’t looking at our children’s humanity,” she said. “Our children are not prisoners in schools and shouldn’t have been treated that way.” 

Lynn’s passion and determination for looking at the whole child and their humanity became the foundation of POWER-PAC IL’s Elementary Justice Campaign.

Lynn and other COFI-trained parent leaders in POWER-PAC IL started reading through the student code of conduct, which was very dense and not friendly toward parents. Lynn said it read more like a “legal document,” and one of their first parent-led wins was to make it more accessible and parent-friendly. 

At the same time, they started traveling and searching for alternatives to suspension and expulsion in schools, and found restorative justice. It was a practice that instantly resonated with parents because it was rooted in the whole child’s experience and the belief that something is usually going on in a young person’s life when they act out. 

“Our kids aren’t bad,” Lynn said. “They are going through things inside and outside of school, and they’re not always okay.”

When others urged the campaign and parents to slow down, Lynn and POWER-PAC IL didn’t. She would push back, telling them they weren’t pushing hard enough. And the wins kept growing: rewriting the student code of conduct and replacing “zero tolerance” with “restorative justice”, eliminating fines and fees for student misconduct, and, most recently, removing police officers from schools and passing a Whole School Safety policy.

Lynn’s passion for restorative justice has also deepened beyond COFI and POWER-PAC IL. She’s trained as a restorative justice practitioner and dreams of taking parent-led peace circles nationwide.

This spring, Lynn was even recognized as the Ora Schub Trailblazer at the BUILD Restorative Justice Conference. It’s an honor that reflects her transformative restorative justice work across Chicago and her work as a practitioner.

Now, her dream for the campaign is for it to become a model for other parent-led movements across the nation. 

“My dream for this campaign is that Chicago is the beacon and model for something bigger across the nation,” she said.

And, to those who dismiss parent leaders as “just parents,” Lynn says: “Parents are leaders in their families, and we have a PhD in raising our children. We don’t lack the knowledge to shape the systems in our children’s lives. We need more seats at the table.”