On Thursday, April 26th, Fresno Building Healthy Communities (BHC), a coalition of community organizations and residents, launched their #InvestInYouth campaign. This campaign, which kicked off with a community Town Hall event held at the Mosqueda Center, focuses on the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) and how the Fresno Unified School District (FUSD) is spending the money this funding has granted them.
The extra funding provided by LCFF is to be used to increase outcomes for three student groups: English Learner students, foster students and students coming from low income families. Based on community input and research, BHC has the following three requests:
1. The 2015–2016 LCAP will direct 2.5 million of LCFF funding to new family engagement approaches.
2. There will be at least one full-time FUSD staff (Community Connector) working with parents in each high school using family development approach by 2015–2016.
3. Update the Fresno Unified School District’s English Learner Master Plan in the 2015–2016 school year.
Beyond their suggestions to the district, #InvestInYouth is also asking the community to use their voices to show FUSD that they too believe in investing in Fresno’s youth. In that spirit, we asked the youth reporters of The kNOw how they believed the LCFF money should be spent to invest in their educations and this is what they had to say.
Join the conversation and tweet @theknowfresno how you think FUSD should #InvestInYouth!
In 2006, over 25 youth began participating in weekly after-school writing workshops where they congregated in the hallway of a two-story building in West Fresno and learned the essentials of creating media and telling their stories. The group evolved over the next five years and is now proudly recognized as The kNOw Youth Media.
Through our program, we create opportunities for our youth participants, who in turn create long-term positive change in their communities. Our approach weaves youth development and youth media innovation to produce our biannual youth publication, multimedia projects, and community forums.
The kNOw began as a project of New America Media, which was the country’s first and largest national collaboration and advocate of 2000 ethnic news organizations. In 2018 The kNOw became a project of Youth Leadership Institute.
