2012 Youth Summit

The 2012 Youth Summit took place on April 28, 2012, at Lincoln High School, in between main quadrennial Race & Pedagogy National Conference Years. This summit featured two workshop tracks—one for youth, another for parents and guardians.

The 2012 Youth Summit aimed to engage students as education decision-makers, and integrated family, school and community efforts for supportive synergies around student success through the simultaneous family summit. The primary program focus was on STUDENTS. This day of interactive programs aimed to make students and families think critically about education, their future, and ways to eliminate barriers to success

Youth Summit 2012 poster

The last Summit, the 2010 All City Race & Pedagogy Youth Summit, attracted more than 700 students from middle and high schools to a day of workshops aimed at empowering young people to take charge of their own education and preparing them for leadership in a diverse world. This year organizers built on that empowerment.
For Students, this involved creative writing about race, violence toward the perceived “other,” engaging black males, civic engagement, literary diversity in the classroom, and more.
For Parents and Guardians, they discussed College preparation, bully prevention, parents as partners in  education, parenting strategies, teaching black male learners, “Too Important to Fail,” and more.

Keynote Speaker: Michael Benitez Jr., social justice educator, speaker, and activist-scholar. Integrating hip-hop pedagogy, academic inquiry, and personal experience.

The 2012 Youth & Family Summit was a collaborative project of Race & Pedagogy Initiative (now institute) at University of Puget Sound, Tacoma School District (now Tacoma Public Schools), Tacoma 360, the REACH Center. The Youth & Family Summit was sponsored by Molina Healthcare, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tacoma Public Library, and WA Alliance of Black School Educators.