Katherine Terenzi

The Project

Schools across the country rely on punitive school climate strategies – in-school police presence and high rates of arrest and suspension – which are ineffective, harm students and exacerbate inequities along lines of race and disability For example, in 2016, law enforcement in NYC, executed 1,263 arrests and issued 907 summonses against students in schools. In the 2015-16 school year, suspensions led to children missing a minimum of 316,104 days of school, the equivalent of 1,756 school years. The disparities are stark. Black and Latinx youth make up 67.6 percent of the total student population, but account for 92 percent of arrests. While students with disabilities are 18.7 percent of the student population, they are 42.7 percent of all those students receiving long-term suspensions.

Fellowship Highlights

In the past two years, Katherine has:

• Published a groundbreaking report with Urban Youth Collaborative that estimates the fiscal impact of NYC’s school-to-prison pipeline and presented a youth-led “Young People’s School Justice Agenda”
• Launched a partnership with the Suspension Representation Project and Proskauer Rose LLP to provide suspension representation and provided training for associates
• Supported Leaders Igniting Transformation (LIT) in launching a campaign to transform Milwaukee’s approach to school discipline and published a report with LIT on that campaign.
• Worked with more than twenty youth of color organizing groups and more than twenty national networks and allies to publish a Youth Demand petition which centers racial justice in school safety solutions.
• Worked with sponsor, Proskauer Rose LLP, on legal research to support the project.
• Convened youth from thirteen organizations to consider collective action and began planning a regional campaign to attack the school-to-prison pipeline.

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