Community Education Forum

Community Forum with Presentations And  Questions Pertaining To The Crisis in the Chester Upland School District!

Mark Your  Calendar:

April 21, 2012 (Saturday) 9AM – 1 PM
Chester Eastside Ministries (420 East 9th Street)
Chester, Pennsylvania 19013

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A Prayer Service Seeking Educational Justice

A Prayer Service
Seeking Educational Justice

 

When: April 16th, 7:00 PM

 Where: Thomas M. Thomas Presbyterian Church, 

 @ Third and Norris Street in Chester

All administrators, teachers, students, and employees of the Chester-Upland School District are urged to attend and pray for our schools.

* You are encouraged to wear hoodies in memory of Trayvon Martin and all young students of Chester who have lost their lives.

State Representative Thaddeus Kirkland's poor reaction to youth...

High School Students throughout Chester marched to Chester City Hall but found it closed so they go over to State Representative Thaddeus Kirkland's office to demand his help to get funding for their school district. Watch his response...

Action United - Take Back the Capitol - Jobs Rally

 

Action United members along with other community groups from Pennsylvania head to the House of Congress to apply some needed pressure on PA politicians to protect and support the working and middle 

class.

 

March on to K Street where we confront corporate lobbyist who buy off our congressmen. First stop GE Electric.

[ ACTION ] Protest Until Something Happens...PUSH!

Well where can I began? We must have done something powerful in DC at the Jobs rally because I am so tired. You know that feeling you get when you've done some good work and resting is easy because you are very satisfied with the progress so far? Yeah. I have that feeling. From Tuesday - Thursday this week Action United for Chester participated in the DC Jobs Rally! We were pushing for jobs to be created, unemployment benefits to be extended and for the 1% to pay their DARN TAXES just like the rest of us!

Here are some quick snap shops below... the video clips will come later on Saturday :)

Along with many other PA residents we waited patiently outside of Pat Meehan's Congressional Office for about two hours. Of course he never showed up to talk with us after he was on the House floor but we were cool because we had some other actions up our sleeves.

Angel pushes the door on Meehan's office trying desperately to get inside.

Neither Congressman Pat Meehan or Tom Marino would talk with us but we PUSH on.

The next day we marched onto K Street where the corporate lobbyist get their swag on and buy off our congressmen to vote against the will of the people they represent. Proudly enough we would shut K Street down for a few hours until a select few were arrested.

There were two teams of Marchers and we converged onto the intersection of 15th and K Street. We shut it down! Despite the rain the chants and energy were awesome and inspiring.

The work was not done. The next day we all marched onto the Capitol and blocked an exit for about an hour. We sang songs, we chanted and we sat in peacefully of course.

Some of the DC natives were not having it :) And they had a way of saying so.

 Gunmen with AKs stood at the top of the steps and police stood at the base, ready to pop us off if we did anything too crazy. They watched us stoically as we threw flowers at their feet. The flowers represented the unemployed around the country. Watch out for them flowers they are dangerous. :)

After a long need break on the last day we went to a Smithsonian and looked at some historic antiques and finally got some lunch... then all of a sudden Jesse Jackson shows up.

Jesse mobbed by crowd.

And despite how terribly tired we were we had to go see this beautiful memorial dedicated to MLK. It was breathtaking...

MLK Memorial in DC

[ STUDENT UNION ] State budget cuts have hurt the Chester school district ...

State budget cuts have hurt the Chester school district in many ways: Class sizes have grown beyond capacity, two high schools merged into one overcrowded building, some elementary school grades have been combined due to lack of staff. In this report, Chester students, parents and community members speak out about how the massive cuts to state education spending are affecting them. This piece was produced by Keith Lomax.

Chester Green Youth Collective: Chester's Green Thumb

by Angel Pabon aka ActivistKid20

Chester Green attendees focused on Non-Violent
Direct Action training given by Heather Milton.

On October 28th-30th, the Chester Green Youth Collective had launched its first ever Environmental Youth Engagement in Chester City. It was facilitated by 4 youth organizers in Chester; Mark Matthews, Chris Shavers, Ciara Williams and Angel Pabon. The event had free food, plenty of Environmental Justice/Awareness workshops, and a toxic tour that gave visitors an experience of the polluting facilities on the Chester Water Front. There were plenty of challenges to hop over when this particular event was still being discussed over an excessive amount of conference calls, and personal meetings with Community Organizers. But nevertheless, triumph had arose before many of the organizers and volunteers that refused top let this summit CRASH. Chester Green definitely had a huge turn out, and more collectives like this is to be expected from those who attended. There was a lot of stuff looked over about what we can do to get the community engaged, and how. Much of those concerns were explained through a Non-violent Protest workshop developed by "The Ruckus Society."

This event was an enriched and recreational experience, considering that there were a nice amount of Chester Youth and people from some parts of the U.S. (Texas, Mississippi, North Dakota, Louisiana). The exercises and activities had created a sense of positive fulfillment and hope for youth and the city of Chester. After that collective, Chester Green is slowly becoming a process for the Chester Youth Organizers to engage young people in a creative and innovative method.

There will be more to come from that collective in the future, most likely soon.