Education Equity
Unite Oregon advances educational equity by creating clear pathways for parent engagement through community education workers that prioritize the health of students and ensure that Immigrant, Refugee, and BIPOC parent and student voices are reflected within Oregon’s education system. We advocate for anti-bullying policies and the elimination of policies that disproportionately affect IR-BIPOC students. We support creating a more diverse teaching workforce and all students and parents have their language access needs met.
Current Projects
BUILD College Bound Families (Building Undergraduates through Inclusive Leadership Development): In 2015, Unite Oregon began partnering with Portland Public Schools to design, create, and implement BUILD, a program that serves 3,000 families with students in 7th/8th and 10th/11th graders in Jefferson, Madison, and Roosevelt clusters. Through BUILD, Unite Oregon provides parent programming on leadership development, issue organizing, and mobilizing. Through this collaborative approach, the program is addressing systemic barriers to educational attainment for many students of color.
YIELD (Youth-Led Involvement through Engagement and Leadership Development): YIELD is a new program delivered in partnership with Portland Public School’s Racial Equity and Social Justice (RESJ) department. YIELD is a 9-month leadership development program serving 6th, 7th and 8th-grade students at Caesar Chavez, Ockley-Green, and Harrison Park middle schools. Through YIELD, Unite Oregon provides students with workshops and activities centered on leadership development, organizing, advocacy, and public speaking in order to equip students with the necessary skills to collectively address educational inequalities they face within their schools. In its first year, YIELD students began gathering data for a student-led campaign against disparate discipline. YIELD students will learn to campaign against issues of disparate discipline, gaining the necessary skills to organize within their schools and communities.