Presentation – Washington, DC

“School Diversity: Building a Movement for Racial and Socioeconomic Integration”
Save Our Schools People’s Education Convention
Marriott Wardman Park
Washington, DC
August 3-5, 2012
(ONI/NCSD panel is on August 3, 2012 at 4:00pm)

See One Nation Indivisible’s work in action at the Save Our Schools Conference this Friday from 4:00pm-5:30pm in Washington, DC. We organized a workshop entitled “School Diversity: Building a Movement for Racial and Socioeconomic Integration,” featuring members of the National Coalition on School Diversity and educators/organizers from New York, NY and Omaha, NE.

How can we create and sustain voluntary efforts to promote integrated learning environments? Please join us to explore common challenges and promising strategies for creating educational equity and opportunity.  We’ll review both what the research shows – and what the law allows – in terms of racially and economically integrated schools.  We’ll hear how community activists from New York City and a visionary superintendent from Omaha seek to improve public education through integrated schools in their highly segregated communities.  Panelists will provide an overview of their advocacy efforts, discuss the research that demonstrates a need for increased racial and socioeconomic integration in American schools, provide examples of state and local efforts to promote diversity, and share their perspectives on how conference participants can help support the movement to create quality, integrated schools.

Workshop Participants:

  • Gina Chirichigno, Co-Director, One Nation Indivisible (facilitator)
  • Dr. John Mackiel, Superintendent, Omaha Public Schools
  • Donna Nevel, Community Psychologist and Educator, Participatory Action Research Center for Education Organizing
  • Yasmin Secada, Organizer, Parent Leadership Project, Participatory Action Research Center for Education Organizing
  • Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, Assistant Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Education
  • Brenda Shum, Senior Counsel, Educational Opportunities Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law