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OUTLINE & INTRO

= Students at the Center (SAC) = Founded in 1996 by Jim Randels, along with two of his students, Erica DeCuir and Kenyatta Johnson, Students at the Center (SAC) is an elective grassroots high school based writing organization in New Orleans. The program encourages students to stay in school and graduate. The staff members of SAC perform a variety of tasks; they teach students how to read, they hold writing workshops, they assist in writing resumes, and they train senior high school youth for key staff positions in the program. The goal of the program is to engage the students in writing (i.e. stories, poems, music, art, film) as a way to improve both their school and their community. Through their engagement with testimonies, or counter-stories, the youth of these programs are able to gain a sense of community and unity that recognizes their experiences as valid and worthy. A large part of their current testimonial work is deeply rooted in both the leading up to and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; where they aim to show the ways in which race-based policies have impacted communities of color.

Organization & Founders
SAC is a New Orleans high school elective course offered at Fredrick Douglass High School and Eleanor McMain Secondary School in which students participate in for 5 days a week. SAC was created in New Orleans in 1966 in an effort to address the problem faced by overcrowded classrooms and the lack of teacher to student connection. SAC provides smaller class sizes so that students can garner a solid relationship with their teachers; this provides them with the ability to get detailed feedback on their work and one to one counseling. Many of the senior and graduating members of SAC come back as volunteers. They assist younger SAC members with their writing, their resume, their homework etc. "Story Circles" are a key component of SAC electives. Students sit in a circle and discuss a theme or concept by relating it to their own personal experiences which they share to the class. As a result, these story circles place value on the lived experiences of students. This ideology hopes to see people's lived experiences as sources of wisdom and knowledge.

Owner Jim Randels is a New Orleans veteran teacher, who has continuously done work to support local New Orleans schools and the youth. This includes raising over $5million dollars in grant money for public education in New Orleans. His activism as a black veteran teacher includes the fight against public policy such as New Orlean's Bring New Orleans Back Commission (2006) that would replace public schools with charter schools in New Orleans.

Born March 24, 1947, Kalamu Ya Salaam, an activists and one of the co-teachers of SAC, is a professional editor, writer, poet, producer of music and arts administrator. Salaam has a history of using his different forms of expression (art, poetry, music etc.) to organize for social justice; we see this expressive social justice work continued through SAC.

Counter-stories
Students at the Center define counter-stories as testimonies, in this case by youth of color, that reveal the centrality that race continues to play in a society that is argued to be post-racial/colorblind. Through an alaysis of their lived experiences and testimonies, SAC staff members aim at developing students who are critical thinkers. SAC places an emphasis on the African tradition of story-telling, and many of these counter-stories begin to form in what SAC calls "story circles." Story circles consist of the entire classroom sitting in circle in the classroom, discussing their assigned readings, and sharing with the class the ways in which their lived experiences are related to the reading. These counter-stories include accounts by students regarding the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, their struggles with learning in crowded and underfunded classrooms, the effects of charter schools, the passiveness on the part of the state and government to do anything to fix student's political, social and economic oppression, etc.

Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, SAC shared a collection of stories in the book Pedagogy, Policy and the Privatized City: Stories of Dispossession and Defiance from New Orleans by Kristen L. Buras. Following the natural disasters, public policies were put in place in an attempt to "remedy" the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. One example is New Orlean's new charter school system; premised on the idea that charter schools will give parents more choices as to where they want to send their children to school. This policy created more "so called" choices by eliminating public neighborhood schools and replacing them with costly and highly selective charter schools outside the proximity of many poor, inner city families. As a result of this policy, 7,200 custodians, veteran teachers, and other employees were fired. This has also led to the creation of a "Recovery School District" or RSD district in which those students who are not accepted into or cannot attend private charter schools, are sent. The RSD school district is filled with inexperienced teachers, poor infrastructure, violence, and a lack of paperwork for those who requires special education needs. The counter-stories in this book by youth of color in pre and post-Katrina New Orleans present a critical analysis of these post-Katrina race based public policies. Students recount the failing infrastructure of public schools, the lack of national aid or rescue teams in the 9th ward, the emphasized poverty in post-Katrina, the unsanitary streets and buildings that have yet to be cleaned after the Hurricane etc. SAC aims at using the students' counter-stories as means to improve and organize around community and school issues such as these.

Publications
1. Published book: Who Am I? Reflections on Culture & Identity. Black & White. 2011

2. Published book: The Long Ride: Second Edition. Black & White. 2013

3. Published book: Next Steps: Writings from Students at the Center Class of 2010. Black & White 2010

4. Published book: Men We Love, Men We Hate. Black & White 2009

5. Anthology: Ways of Laughing : An Anthology of Young Black Voices. 2009

Peer Response- Jillin Colunga
The intro paragraph is clear it gives a direct explanation of what the organization is and what it does. The heading are also clear and support the intro because it includes more information about how SAC relates to Black Feminist thought. SAC seems like a great organization to write an article on because it relates to the black feminist epistemology in the way that these kids use experience to communicate and relate to their community. Through the ethics of caring and lived experience these students are able to help one another succeed. One way to make this article stronger is to include a heading on what the Black Feminist Epistemology is and how it is useful to communities.