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Black Lives Matter At School is a national coalition organizing for racial justice in education. We encourage all educators, students, parents, unions, and community organizations to join our annual week of action during the first week of February each year.

Please see our slide presentation on BLM at School that accompanied our national webinar.

During the 2017-2018 school year, from February 5 to 9, thousands of educators around the U.S. wore Black Lives Matter shirts to school and taught lessons about structural racism, intersectional black identities, black history, and anti-racist movements for a nationally organized week of action: Black Lives Matter at School. Educators in over 20 cities participated in this national uprising to affirm the lives of Black students, teachers, and families including, Seattle, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, New York City, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and beyond.

In this era of mass incarceration, there is a school-to-prison-pipeline system that is more invested in locking up youth than unlocking their minds. That system uses harsh discipline policies that push Black students out of schools at disproportionate rates; denies students the right to learn about their own cultures and whitewashes the curriculum to exclude many of the struggles and contributions of Black people and other people of color; and is pushing out Black teachers from the schools in cities around the country. With this analysis educators in the BLM at School movementdeveloped these demands for the movement:

1) End zero tolerance discipline, and implement restorative justice

2) Hire more black teachers

3) Mandate black history and ethnic studies in K-12 curriculum

4) Fund counselors not cops

The lessons that educators taught during that week of action corresponded to the thirteen guiding principles of Black Lives Matter:

Monday: Restorative Justice, Empathy and Loving Engagement

Tuesday: Diversity and Globalism

Wednesday: Trans-Affirming, Queer Affirming and Collective Value

Thursday: Intergenerational, Black Families and Black Villages

Friday: Black Women and Unapologetically Black

The Black Lives Matter at School movement started as a day of action in Seattle during the fall of 2016, when thousands of educators in Seattle came to school on October 19th wearing shirts that said, Black Lives Matter: We Stand Together. Hundreds of families and students did too. Many of the shirts also included the message #SayHerName, a campaign to raise awareness about the often unrecognized state violence and assault of women in our country.

This action attracted national news, helping it spread to Philadelphia. That citys Caucus of Working Educators Racial Justice Committee expanded the action to last an entire week that year with teaching points around the thirteen principles of Black Lives Matter. Educators in Rochester, New York also held a Black Lives Matter at School day in 2017.

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About Black Lives Matter At School