​"Just one suspension can double the chances that a student will drop out of school" ​

The Every Student Matters (ESM) campaign is the first student-led policy advocacy campaign being organized by the BHC Youth Committee. The ESM campaign is focused on promoting practices, policies, and programs in the Long Beach Unified School District that help students stay in school and graduate on time. The campaign seeks to work in partnership with LBUSD leaders, educators, parents, and students to promote a positive school climate and proactive alternatives to punitive, exclusionary discipline practices that currently remove students from the classroom and school. We seek to foster school discipline practices that address the root causes of behavioral issues, restore justice, and put students on a path to success.

Youth Rally for Change

​ESM Youth Leaders Speak Out to Support LBUSD School Climate Resolution

On October 8, 2013, the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) passed a resolution to end the practice of using suspensions and expulsions as disciplinary actions.
This resolution, which promotes positive options to traditional discipline practices, was made possible through the work of grassroots community youth groups including Khmer Girls (and Guys) in Action (KGA), Californians for Justice (CFJ), Educated Men With Meaningful Messages (EM3), California Conference for Equality & Justice (CCEJ), Children's Defense Fund (CDF), LBCAP Men Making a Change, and Centro CHA. 

Pedro Jimenez, a Centro CHA youth leader,  was one of few students who spoke in front of the Long Beach School Board to support the resolution and provide his personal testimony. As a result the School Board voted unanyomously to approve the the School Climate Resolution a forward  step in the right direction to increasing positive school climate within LBUSD schools.  ​