April 2024

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March 2024

Both the education and juvenile criminal systems often purport to be rehabilitative in nature, but the reality experienced by my clients tends to be primarily punitive. From what I have witnessed among my clients, systemic punishment generally does not help them to learn from their mistakes, support them in improving behaviors, or address the root causes of the difficulties in their lives. Instead it often makes them feel stripped of their agency and overwhelmed while simultaneously expecting them to be accountable for their actions with minimal support.

One of my clients initially got into trouble at school after the school failed to implement a restorative justice intervention that they had promised and which could have prevented the incident which led to the school discipline. Since then, I and another of my client’s advocates have pushed the school district to recognize that the root causes of the client’s behaviors have not changed and that the district should offer support to address them. Despite once again promising restorative intervention, the school failed to implement it, which resulted in another incident and further discipline. Another of my clients, who was already struggling in school, was also punished for a school discipline incident which could have been addressed through prior or alternative interventions by their school. However, the punishment from the school has caused my client to further disconnect from their education, which will likely ultimately result in further punitive measures from their district.

Statistical research as well as qualitative observations of my clients show that exclusionary discipline tends to do more harm than good. It creates cycles of behavior which ultimately exclude students from their education without helping to address what is preventing them from doing better. In both my clients’ cases the incidents themselves showed a clear need for certain supports from their schools to resolve conflicts and bullying from school staff and peers. However, their districts elected to use punitive responses which have worsened, rather than helped, my clients to engage with their education or improve their behavior.

The young people caught in the school discipline system are often struggling with trauma, disabilities, and other serious challenges in their lives. Yet, they and their families are charged with navigating complex requirements of their time and energy to meet the expectations of school districts to demonstrate their accountability. The system expects young people already struggling to follow expectations, to comply with even more difficult rules and requirements than they had to follow when they initially did something wrong.

As an advocate I try to emphasize to the young folks that I work with the connection between their ability to choose their actions and the consequences that the systems they interact with may levy depending on their choices. I discuss with them that they have agency, even in the face of system-imposed restrictions, to make choices that will further their own goals with respect to how their schools and the courts treat them. However, these young people should not be expected to bear the full weight of responsibility for the challenges they face, especially when the systems punishing them are the same ones that failed to support them in the first place.

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February 2024

The last month has been among the busiest so far in my fellowship. I did my second expulsion hearing, my first juvenile court appearances, and have been supervising a law student for the first time. Supervising a law student and experiencing several firsts in my own career has reminded me both how little law school prepares students for the practice of law and how correspondingly valuable clinical experiences can be for law students.  

In my experience, law school at its core is not a practical training for being a lawyer, despite being a professional degree program. Instead law school aims to give students the foundations of broad areas of law and, as a mentor put it to me before I started my 1L year, “teaches you how to think like a lawyer.” However, the law school pedagogy often disregards the critical practical skills of daily strategic decision-making, communication, and trauma-informed best practices, and the basic understanding of the formalities of different legal spaces like court. While there are some practical law school courses (shout-out to my amazing legal writing professor), they are relatively few and far between.

Instead, clinics and internships tend to fill the gaps. These practical experiences give a first taste of the practice of law and in the best examples, give students a chance to stretch their comfort zone—participating in making decisions for cases, working closely with clients, and doing oral advocacy. When my clinic’s law students started this semester, they asked me what it was like to be in my first year as a lawyer and I told them honestly, that there are many moments where it feels very scary. I am still learning how to deal with the weight of the responsibility I feel for my clients. However, the experience would have been so much more difficult if I had not had the excellent clinical education I received in the same clinic for which I now work. Through my clinical experience, I learned many of the practicalities of education advocacy, how to advise my clients while still following their stated goals, and some of the soft advocacy skills so often required outside of court. While my career will continue to have many firsts and though my learning curve is still very steep, my clinical experience made me substantially more prepared than I would have been otherwise. As a supervisor for a law student in clinic this semester, I am working to provide that same level of confidence building experience as I received from the education justice clinic at EBCLC.

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January 2024

Both the education and juvenile criminal systems often purport to be rehabilitative in nature, but the reality experienced by my clients tends to be primarily punitive. From what I have witnessed among my clients, systemic punishment generally does not help them to learn from their mistakes, support them in improving behaviors, or address the root causes of the difficulties in their lives. Instead it often makes them feel stripped of their agency and overwhelmed while simultaneously expecting them to be accountable for their actions with minimal support.

One of my clients initially got into trouble at school after the school failed to implement a restorative justice intervention that they had promised and which could have prevented the incident which led to the school discipline. Since then, I and another of my client’s advocates have pushed the school district to recognize that the root causes of the client’s behaviors have not changed and that the district should offer support to address them. Despite once again promising restorative intervention, the school failed to implement it, which resulted in another incident and further discipline. Another of my clients, who was already struggling in school, was also punished for a school discipline incident which could have been addressed through prior or alternative interventions by their school. However, the punishment from the school has caused my client to further disconnect from their education, which will likely ultimately result in further punitive measures from their district.

Statistical research as well as qualitative observations of my clients show that exclusionary discipline tends to do more harm than good. It creates cycles of behavior which ultimately exclude students from their education without helping to address what is preventing them from doing better. In both my clients’ cases the incidents themselves showed a clear need for certain supports from their schools to resolve conflicts and bullying from school staff and peers. However, their districts elected to use punitive responses which have worsened, rather than helped, my clients to engage with their education or improve their behavior.  

The young people caught in the school discipline system are often struggling with trauma, disabilities, and other serious challenges in their lives. Yet, they and their families are charged with navigating complex requirements of their time and energy to meet the expectations of school districts to demonstrate their accountability. The system expects young people already struggling to follow expectations, to comply with even more difficult rules and requirements than they had to follow when they initially did something wrong.

As an advocate I try to emphasize to the young folks that I work with the connection between their ability to choose their actions and the consequences that the systems they interact with may levy depending on their choices. I discuss with them that they have agency, even in the face of system-imposed restrictions, to make choices that will further their own goals with respect to how their schools and the courts treat them. However, these young people should not be expected to bear the full weight of responsibility for the challenges they face, especially when the systems punishing them are the same ones that failed to support them in the first place.

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December 2023

My last blog post focused almost exclusively on an expulsion hearing that I worked to prepare for intensely over the course of a few weeks. Expulsion cases are fast, time intensive work. However, outside of expulsions, most of the work I do in EBCLC’s EDJY clinic is much more long term. It involves monitoring the implementation of special education services throughout the school year, supporting clients through their terms of probation, and perhaps most importantly, staying in touch with and building trust with my young clients and their families.

Checking in with my clients, understanding their goals and needs, and then thinking through how I can help to support those goals and needs is the foundation of my current work. The Education Defense & Justice for Youth clinic uses a stated interest, rather than best interest model. This means that I seek to understand what my clients want and to advocate for those outcomes, trusting that my clients are the experts in their own lives. Young people who have often experienced adults who say they want to help, but who do not necessarily listen to or work towards what that young person wants have no reason to trust me when we first meet. Working to earn their trust is essential to understanding and advocating for my clients’ goals for themselves and their cases.

As a colleague recently noted to me, with some youth clients, actions speak louder than words. Meeting them in their community, helping them to start at a school they like or access a resource they need, or being by their side at expulsion and delinquency hearings are extremely important ways of earning trust. A major event in my life as a young almost-attorney was being sworn into the California bar this month. As a licensed attorney I will be able to speak in court on behalf of my clients and sit next to them before the judge. I look forward to being able to show up for my clients in this way soon.

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November 2023

My past month of work has been largely focused on preparing for and presenting a client’s case at an expulsion hearing. Preparing for and attending an expulsion hearing is an odd experience. It requires much of the same preparation that an attorney would do for court—writing opening and closing statements, gathering witnesses and witness statements, and planning for cross examination. However, an expulsion hearing lacks many of the rules and formalities of court—hearsay can be admitted, though not entirely relied upon; objections to evidence are ruled on by school administrators who may or may not be familiar with the law; and the procedures followed at hearings differ dramatically between school districts. While this offers some additional flexibility to present a young person’s case, it also means they do not have as much access to protections like the 6th Amendment right to confront witnesses.

Expulsion hearings occur after a student has been referred for expulsion proceedings by their principal or superintendent. The expulsion referral and the district’s case often focus on a specific incident, but provides very little context about why or how it happened. The district’s case also typically reviews every difficulty the student has faced in school. This is generally done without acknowledging gaps in support provided to the student and contexts such as a student’s disabilities, racial biases against them, and the roles that others play in conflicts at school. Advocates like myself at expulsion hearings help ensure that the young person’s side of the story is told. I also aim to explain why expulsion is not allowed under the education code; the alternative ways the school could have responded; and to provide the broader context of who my client is—a young person with strengths, goals, and challenges in their life.  

Expulsion is meant, under the California education code, to be a last resort for schools. In most cases, they are required by law to offer students “alternative means of correction” if feasible and potentially effective. This law is meant to force schools to fulfill their fundamental purpose—educating students—by giving students support to learn and grow from their mistakes and to feel safe in their own schools. However, too often, administrators jump to expulsion without considering whether the cause of an incident can be addressed another way. Does a student need help to feel safe when they walk between their classes or to and from school? Were they ever given a chance to reflect on the impact of their words or behavior and support to learn better ways to respond to challenging situations? Could a student be given services for their disability that will help them engage at school? These young people generally need help to feel safe, to learn with counselors and through restorative processes how to improve their social-emotional skills, and/or to participate in their education. Instead, in the moment when they need the most support, they are pushed out. As a client recently poignantly put it “they were on me to go to school for so long, and now they suddenly don’t want me anymore.”

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October 2023

I am nearing my first full month of work with the East Bay Community Law Center’s (EBCLC) Education Defense & Justice for Youth (EDJY) clinic. Over the course of the last month I have begun working with four clients: one in the midst of a delinquency case, two seeking to seal their juvenile records, and one facing an expulsion from school.

Although the law underlying each of these cases differs significantly, the core of my work on them does not. Each case involves helping my client to share their story with a court, a probation department, or an expulsion panel. In several of my cases this involves putting together a written motion, letter, or brief along with a packet of materials in support. Later, I may also be able to advocate verbally in meetings with opposing counsel, a hearing, or in court. In some of my cases, other advocates have already worked with my client, allowing me to lean on the work already done in collecting records and information about them, their experiences, and their accomplishments.

However, as I have met with my clients, I realize how much of their stories do not fit into the records I have reviewed. Their records may touch upon the impact of still having a juvenile record, but they do not fully convey the sense of frustration a client expressed to me about the discrimination in housing and employment they face nearly a decade later. The details of an incident do not communicate the hurt that another client shared about the unfairness of the blame for a situation being placed on them.

I wish more courts, school administrators, and probation officers took to heart these impacts of the juvenile court and carceral systems and of the handling of school discipline. Both the school and juvenile court systems are often framed by those who work within them as helping young people to “rehabilitate” or thrive. However, in my clients’ cases, the ways in which they thrive are attributable to themselves, their families, and their communities and not the systems they have had to deal with. Their needs for healing or help are not served and are often increased by the impact of those systems on their lives.

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September 2023

I just began my work as an Equal Justice America and Brian Lewinstein fellow at the East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC) on September 18th. I am so excited to be back at EBCLC within the Education Defense & Justice for Youth Unit (EDJY) as a fellow after having worked with this organization for two years as a clinical law student. I can speak from personal experience about the exceptional training in community and client centered lawyering that law students receive at EBCLC and I am looking forward to supporting the clinical education of law students over the next two years.

I am also excited to be working within a team that seeks to provide holistic support to its clients and that strives to uplift and center the voices of the young people we work towards dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline. For example, I heard this week about a training that was done over the summer building on the work I did as a law student last year developing community education and engagement projects. One of those projects was creating a full day training for an amazing partner organization that trains youth organizers within one of the school districts where EDJY often works. Since the training was over the summer I was not able to attend, but heard from my colleague that it went well and that EDJY is remaining in touch with the youth organizers that attended and is waiting to see if there are additional ways that we can support their work. For more information about EDJY’s mission, take a look at this webpage: https://ebclc.org/about/the-work/education-defense-justice-for-youth/ .

For now I am familiarizing myself with some of the specialized areas of law in which EDJY works, including learning about the record sealing process and the details of delinquency law in California. Soon I will put that knowledge to work as I begin to work with clients and partner with my colleagues on ongoing cases and policy advocacy efforts.