Our Campaigns

 Movement-Building

For more than 20, years the YA-YA Network has worked to build the leadership and power of young people. So often youth are left out of the decision-making room when it comes to issues that affect them. YA-YA Network exists as an intervention to support young people in leading their communities in social, political, and economic transformation.

Current Campaigns

#PoliceFreeSchools

We work in coalition with Dignity in Schools Campaign-New York and countless students, parents, educators, and advocates to call for the total removal of police and policing infrastructure in NYC public schools—including the reallocation of the $450M school-policing budget to community-led restorative justice initiatives and supportive staff positions.

There are more police officers in New York City high schools than there are guidance counselors and social workers combined. YA-YA’s student organizers take leadership in policy advocacy, public speaking, direct action, and meeting directly with allies and decision-makers to demand divestment from a system which criminalizes students, and an investment in the supports that actually serve students’ needs.

Our coalition demands #PoliceFreeSchools and to #DefundthePolice in New York City. This entails:

“Investing in a Leadership Pipeline for young leaders to grow their work in contributing to the safety of their schools. As it stands, the responsibility of safety within schools is administratively handed to Safety Security Agents hired by the NYPD. The answers of, ‘What keeps us safe?,’ starkly change when it is young people taking charge of the questions. We need opportunities for students and community members to be mediators, community advocates, and restorative justice circle keepers that build a supportive path towards well-compensated positions that build school culture by democratizing the roles of safety and discipline and putting them in the hands of the community.”

#MakeSchoolsSafeAgain

For the last three years, YA-YA has worked to bring greater transparency and accountability on the racist placement and use of metal detectors in NYC public schools. Scanners are figuratively and literally the entry-way into the school to prison pipeline for many of our BIPOC students. Our campaign is an intervention in the continued funding of carceral infrastructures in our education system that siphons funds away from integral resources for students, teachers, guidance counselors, and other school professionals and paraprofessionals. YA-YAs are currently pressing the NYC DOE for specific changes to Chancellor’s Regulation A432 which governs the protocols for use of metal detectors in schools.

 Success Stories

Our youth have participated in multiple successful campaigns in the past that have had a measurable impact on State and municipal policies.

Taking necessary precautions in 2020, our Action Committee joined Black Lives Matter protests and education justice rallies with ally organizations throughout NYC to call for divestment in policing and investment in education and other social services. One of our campaigns in partnership with Teens Take Charge led to the reinstatement of 35,000 out of the 75,000 Summer Youth Employment Program jobs our youth population relies on.

In the year leading up to victory, YA-YAs were the only youth in active leadership of the “Drop the Rock'' campaign to repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws. We stepped up for the final push to pass “Raise the Age” legislation and were founding members of the “Students or Soldiers?” coalition which won one of the most progressive policies in the country restricting unbridled military recruitment in schools (Chancellor’s Regulation A825).  

A direct result of work that YA-YAs have engaged in includes significant changes to the school discipline code and changes to City and State legislation governing juvenile justice. YA-YAs provided thousands of students, parents and school staff with “Truth in Recruiting” and the many resources available to achieve their goals without having to join the military. The military recruitment policy we won has been used as a model by activists throughout the country.

 In 2009, we worked with our allies in the Urban Youth Collaborative and successfully prevented the cutting of student MetroCards.