Black Students Create Student’s Rights App

Published On June 30, 2015 | By Tom Huskerson | Now You Know
Boston Student Advisory Council president Glorya Wornum, left, and BSAC member Ayomide Olumuyiwa show off the Boston Student Rights app in the hallway of Madison Park Technical Vocational High School. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/WBUR)

Boston Student Advisory Council president Glorya Wornum, left, and BSAC member Ayomide Olumuyiwa show off the Boston Student Rights app in the hallway of Madison Park Technical Vocational High School. (Peter Balonon-Rosen/WBUR)

A group of Boston Public School students recently launched the website and mobile phone app Boston Student Rights. The app is intended to inform students of their rights and responsibilities as students in the Boston School System.

The app provides the district’s student population with the code of conduct in a condensed, simplified format. Information contained in the app includes subjects ranging from types of suspensions to cellphone policies, LGBTQ students’ rights, teacher evaluations and dress codes.

The app was created with the help of Ayomide “Ayo” Olumuyiwa, a senior at John D. O’Bryant High School in Boston. “You can’t defend yourself anywhere if you don’t know the type of rights that you have,” says Olumiyiwa.

According to Olumiyiwa the app provides information on proper school discipline processes and emphasizes the student’s rights and responsibilities according to state law and provides listings of legal aid resources available to students.

Olumuyiwa hopes that by educating fellow students of their rights the app can help disrupt a legacy of harsh disciplinary practices in urban schools. Harsh discipline could potentially push students out of the classroom into a process known as the school-to-prison pipeline.

Research indicates that black students in Massachusetts schools are almost four times more likely than whites and Latino students are 3 times more likely than white students to be suspended often for minor offenses.

Two federal agencies, the Justice and Education Departments, are now urging the nation’s school districts to dial back zero tolerance policies that often result in harsh punishments for seemingly minor offenses.  Congress and student advocates feel these policies are the beginning of the  “school-to-prison pipeline.” “A routine school disciplinary infraction should land a student in the principal’s office, not in a police precinct,” former Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.

“In our investigations, we have found cases where African-American students were disciplined more harshly and more frequently because of their race than similarly situated white students,” the Justice and Education Departments wrote in a recent letter to the nation’s school districts. “In short, racial discrimination in school discipline is a real problem.”

Olumuyiwa acknowledges her generation loves their smartphones. “We chose an app because we’re the generation of phones,” says Olumuyiwa. “Like, we all have our phones for everything, so an app is just one click away.”

The Boston Student Advisory Council, of which Olumuyiwa is a member, is the group that created the app. BSAC is made up of elected student activists working to address student identified issues in the district and across the city. BSAC promotes fair school discipline practices. They decided this year that by educating students about their own rights this would hold school staff accountable to honoring those rights. From this thought, came the idea for the app.

“The school-to-prison pipeline, student rights and responsibilities, suspensions, expulsions, legal aid resources, alternative discipline and restorative justice,” says Glorya Wornum, BSAC president and a senior at Edward M. Kennedy Academy in Boston. “And you’re able to click on any one of those tabs and it’ll open you up to another page. And once you’re in another page you’re able to scroll up or down to read on information that could help you.”

The app will soon be available for Apple and Android or can be viewed on the  Boston Students Rights website.

Now you know

 

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About The Author

Tom Huskerson Bio Born in Richmond Virginia Tom Huskerson is a military veteran who settled in California after his discharge. Tom attended Santa Barbara City College where he began his writing career as a campus reporter. He worked as an intern news reporter for the Santa Barbara News-Press writing feature stories before moving on to San Francisco. At San Francisco State University Tom studied broadcast communications and began to focus on the Internet. He completed his graduate thesis on Internet advertising. Tom was the first student to ever focus on the Internet as a graduate student at San Francisco State University. After graduation he went to work for Zona Research in California’s Silicone Valley. As a research associate Tom supported senior analyst writing on the latest developments in the Internet industry. During the dot com boom Tom worked for several web businesses as a market researcher and analyst. As a writer and researcher Tom has authored various technical works including a training program for Charles Schwab security. Other projects included professional presentations on workplace violence and hiring security contractors. Tom has also written both fiction and non-fiction works and blogging for a travel website. He has published two books of short stories and completed two novels. Tom is the owner of Scribe of Life Literature and EbonyCandle.com. Tom is not the chief editor for the OnTechStreet. com. A news and information blog that focuses on tech news for African-Americans. The blog is the result of his desire to inform the African American community of the dangers and benefits of the cyber age. In his blog Tom reports on information security, new and analysis, scams and hoaxes, legal happenings and various topics that arise from the age of information. Tom believes that technology is a necessary tool for black people and they should know what is happening. Tom writes believing that techno speak is for the professional and that valuable information can be communicated using plain language. As a result he has embraced the motto, Less Tech, More Knowledge.

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