Youth-Led Transformative Justice in East Palo Alto: Mediating the Dual Immersion Classroom through Abolitionist Pedagogy and Community Organizing
Abstract
This project emerged primarily out of an ask made by Los Robles educators to YUCA (Youth United for Community Action), for help implementing new restorative justice practices and frameworks at their school– Los Robles-Ronald McNair Academy. Los Robles is a TK-5 Spanish-English dual language immersion public school located in East Palo Alto. It is uniquely the only dual language immersion school in the Ravenswood School District and it predominantly serves economically disadvantaged students of color. YUCA is a grassroots community organization created, led, and run by young people of color from East Palo Alto. Through providing a safe, educational, youth-led space, YUCA empowers young people to organize against the oppressive systems that impact them and their communities. From shutting down the ROMIC Toxic Waste Facility poisoning the soil and residents of East Palo Alto in 2007, to organizing the first tenant union in East Palo Alto the last few years, YUCA’s campaigns have been widely successful and impactful. Hence, Los Robles educators reached out to YUCA for support and guidance regarding restorative justice because of their well established credibility in the community and experience with transformative youth-led frameworks. While Los Robles aims to be a very progressive institution, seemingly cognizant of their positionality and the various needs of their students, it remains implicated in a much larger system of oppression – the school to prison nexus. This project therefore aims to transform Los Robles into a site where healing, joy, and radical care neutralizes all signs of punitive education.