CYCLE Turns 4!
About 4-to-5-year-olds, WebMD notes “Your child is growing up. Have you noticed that your 4- to 5-year-old is becoming more independent and self-confident? If not, you will in the coming year.” Well, on November 13, 2021, CYCLE turned 4-years-old and true to developmentally appropriate form, we are excited to explore our organizational maturity and sense of self.
For starters, we have embarked upon CYCLE’s first ever strategic planning process. It is in the 4-to-5-year-old year that young people start practicing their use of the future tense. And, so it seems fitting that at CYCLE we are ready to dream more about our future together. With more than half our team joining CYCLE since its founding, including four new team members within the past year, it is exciting to revisit our organizational roots and rethink, together, who we want to be, what we want to do, and how we want to impact the world.
Of course, while we are strategically planning, we are actively engaged in work that grounds us in our partnerships and relationships with youth, families, educators, and other community stakeholders to build collective power for educational justice. Here, we share a few highlights of that work:
Over the past year as offices remained remote and meetings stayed in Zoom rooms, the CYCLE team pivoted to think critically about what work was possible in virtual space. We reshaped our CYCLE Strategy Institute (CSI) training curriculum, which was initially developed for an intensive 3-day in-person training, to facilitate a 3-month virtual training series completed by 15 participants from 6 different organizations spanning the east to west coasts. Participants met for full and small group sessions to reflect upon and strategize around past, present, and future organizing campaigns. In partnership with the RWU University College Center for Workforce & Professional Development, CSI Certificates were also awarded for completion. We are excited to build upon and expand our CSI offerings to the field in 2022!
In January 2021, we launched a new program called SCORE - Schools & Communities Organizing for Racial Equity, in partnership with the Social Policy Hub for Equity Research in Education (SPHERE) at RI College and leaders from Parents Leading for Educational Equity (PLEE). Through SCORE, over the past ten months, a community research team of five students and four parents from PPSD developed community-driven and derived educational equity indicators in four areas of particular importance to the community: 1) School culture and restorative practices; 2) Mental health and social-emotional learning; 3) Instructional equity, opportunity, and support (including multilingual learners’ equitable access to college-prep coursework); and 4) Communication with families. In a world where “indicator systems” are usually developed by academics and policy wonks, we are ready to work with the Providence community and PPSD to explore the adoption and utilization of the SCORE indicators that come directly from community-based wisdom and research.
The OurSchoolsPVD (OSPVD) Alliance has launched a campaign to organize for ethnic studies in the Providence Public School District (PPSD). This campaign is rooted in youth leadership and experiences, and the campaign demands go well beyond a simple call for new curricula. Instead, this ethnic studies campaign offers insight into the social, cultural, and political shifts required for PPSD to provide educational experiences that truly recognize, celebrate, and lift up young people and their families and communities in Providence. As one recent ethnic studies workshop participant reflected about what it means to fight for ethnic studies: “It means fighting for the power of communities of color to show up in our schools.” That isn’t just a curriculum. That’s a vision for our future.
Some of our best work happens when we bring people together. Of course, we haven’t been able to do that in-person since March 2020. But, we are hopeful that 2022 brings us opportunities to convene in-person. We just hosted a small convening of youth leaders and adult allies at a New England Youth Organizing Network (NEYON) Leadership Retreat on our birthday weekend (11/13-11/14)! And, after consecutive virtual gatherings, planning is underway for our Youth Leadership Institute to reconvene in person in August 2022. Whether it’s in the context of our youth leadership work or at a different convening for educational justice, we look forward to seeing more of our partners “in real life” in the coming year. Four-to-five-year-olds enjoy playing with others, after all!
As we embark upon our fifth year as CYCLE, we are growing in our understanding of what it means to become independent and self-confident as an organization. Ironically, we are increasingly aware that our independence takes form when we are actually in-relationship, in-community, and in-reliance with our partners; in these ways we seek growth and in-dependence. We know that all of the work we do at CYCLE is grounded in our relationships and partnerships with people and organizations in the field. Nothing we do is tucked away in an ivory tower, but instead we strive to ensure that we are grounded and engaged with youth, families, educators, and other community stakeholders in all of our projects. This work takes the time, patience, and care necessary to cultivate relationships and collective power, coupled with a sense of fire, energy, and urgency for the educational justice communities deserve yesterday, now, and into the future. We invite you to be with us in our work. Keep in touch. Donate! And, support youth, families, and educators to build together, all ways.
