VOYCE
Youth Transforming School and Community Safety Through a Holistic Approach
Voices of Youth in Chicago Education
Convened by Communities United, Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE) is a youth organizing alliance led by students of color from across Chicago. Through VOYCE, young people have been leading a movement to transform what safety means in schools and communities, advancing a vision for healing-centered schools and communities.
Through organizing efforts and by lifting up their narratives, VOYCE youth leaders have made significant progress in shifting the narrative on what safety should look like for communities of color, making sweeping changes to end zero-tolerance practices and expand the use of restorative justice, and helped paved the way to the reinvestment over $3.2 million from police in schools into holistic approaches to school safety.
PROGRESS MADE
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Created the nation’s most comprehensive statewide school discipline reform, SB100, ending zero tolerance at all publicly-funded schools in Illinois.
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Youth-led research and organizing work led to key changes in Chicago Public Schools Student Code of Conduct to approach student drug and alcohol use through a public health approach.
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Along with our allies: Community Organizing on Family Issues (COFI), The ARK of St. Sabina, BUILD Inc, and Mikva Challenge, VOYCE partnered with CPS to lead the district’s community engagement process leading to a reinvestment of over $3.8 million from police toward holistic approaches to school safety in the third-largest school district in the country.