By Samuel Motley

Intern@salisburypost.com  

SALISBURY — The advocacy group Actions in Faith and Justice will sponsor a workshop on school discipline disparity focused on dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline.

The presentation will be from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday at Park Avenue Community Center.

The workshop and an accompanying effort by Actions in Faith and Justice are an opportunity for Rowan-Salisbury Schools to lead the way, said organizer Susan Lee.

The school-to-prison pipeline is a system of policies and practices that push students out of school and into juvenile and adult criminal systems, advocates say. Saturday’s presentation aims to help “improve school and community life by creating equitable policies, procedures and approaches to school discipline,” Lee said.

By using measured outcomes and data to discuss inequities in Rowan-Salisbury Schools, Lee said, Actions in Faith and Justice hopes to “moves away from blaming institutions and individuals” in order to focus on “policy and procedures that produce equitable outcomes.”

Other goals include learning about the school-to-prison pipeline as well as points of entry to the pipeline; understanding ways to dismantle the pipeline; and hearing from leaders of organizations that have successfully taken action to end the pipeline.

Peggy Nicholson and Letha Muhammad will speak about ongoing successes in dismantling the pipeline. Nicholson is director of the Youth Justice Project. Muhammad is director of the Education Justice Alliance, a group from Wake County working to reduce the number of students pushed off the academic track.

The workshop is free and open to the public.