Faculty members in SPU’s School of Education participated in a May 8 conversation with area community leaders about the “School-to-Prison Pipeline,” in which students are pushed out of classes into the juvenile and criminal justice system. Together they explored what educators of future school leaders can do to help reverse the trend.
The event, hosted in partnership with the Multicultural Education Rights Alliance (McERA), included an opening discussion by eight panelists with wide-ranging experience in education, the criminal justice system, social service, and advocacy.
During six roundtable break-out sessions, faculty and guest leaders discussed topics such as “How Programs Who Prepare School Personnel Can Consider and Integrate Social Justice,” and “What Administrators Need From Colleges of Education: Preparing Teacher Candidates Who Are Ready to Disrupt the School-to-Prison Pipeline.”
Members of the School of Education Diversity Committee, who organized the event, hope it will lead to further conversations and gatherings that connect experience to professional practice — or even a series of similar events that explore factors leading to a phenomenon like the pipeline.
Committee Member Jill Heiney-Smith said, “We want to be known as a place that values the knowledge of the community and wants to grow and learn, as opposed to providing all the answers.”