As a Fulton high school student and the child of two teachers, Alex Ames saw what she considered a war on public education. She watched extremists at school board meetings demanding book bans, teachers being pilloried for teaching the truth and the Legislature pushing private school vouchers.
What Ames didn’t see was Georgia students fighting back, telling their own stories and standing up for their own education. Before starting Georgia Tech in the fall 2020 semester, Ames founded the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition, a student organization that has grown into an influential force, dispatching hundreds of high school and college students to school board meetings, legislative hearings and rallies. They balance dogged advocacy with calculus class, debate team and band practices.
Since the coalition began, 4,000 students from 87 school districts have participated in its virtual weekend trainings, summer boot camps and political advocacy. Attend any hearing on bills that affect schools at the General Assembly and coalition members will be there, often to the chagrin of lawmakers who value students in the abstract, not in the flesh questioning their motives and correcting their claims.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
What has been most impressive is how deeply the students, as young as 14, know the issues, including an understanding of school budgets and state funding. “You can’t just be mad about things,” said Ames. “When you want to win, you have to be willing to be strategic and you have to be willing to learn and put in the work.”
“Many times, their testimony has highlighted the disconnect between what citizens actually care about and what the Legislature is doing,” said state Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta. “Increased citizen involvement is critical in holding the Georgia government accountable to the people it is supposed to represent, and Georgia Youth Justice Coalition members add voices that should be heard but have been missing at the Capitol.”
Student testimony has been so informed that lawmakers grumble the teens are puppets, an allegation that amuses Ames. “They are showing their hand and revealing that their own tactics are so sneaky they just can’t imagine anyone really cares about the things we care about,” she said.
Authentic student voice is so integral that Ames, who just turned 21, is exiting the organization, confident her nine co-leaders will successfully carry on without her.
For most students active in the coalition, the appeal is not only a shared vision, but power. “I am actually making decisions. That I have power and my peers have power is the key aspect of GYJC,” said Isabelle Philip, 20, a University of Georgia junior from Alpharetta and the coalition’s press director.
This year, the coalition celebrated the defeat of Senate Bill 233, which would have diverted public funds to private schools, and rued the passage of Senate Bill 140, banning certain hormones or surgical treatment to transgender children to align with their gender identity.
Even the losses teach them important lessons, said Sa’Real McRae, 19, of Covington. “The students who spoke to legislators still feel empowered from those interactions. We realize this politician is just a person,” said the first-year Georgia State University student.
A UGA freshman from Fayette County, Shazan Samnani, 19, used his spring break to visit the Capitol and talk to his state senator about SB 140. “That was my first time speaking to a legislator in terms of legislative advocacy. So, I was kind of nervous. Overall, I felt good about speaking out against the bill to my legislator.”
The coalition is unusual in that it uses grants and donations to pay high school students and staff to attend training programs about how to tell their stories and provides stipends to travel to hearings. It held its first fundraiser last week at an Atlanta barbecue restaurant. With a base pay of $15 an hour (which matches the minimum wage for federal employees), the coalition has about 65 students on its payroll.
“I wouldn’t be able to do this work if it weren’t for the compensation,” said Yana Batra, 18, a first-year mechanical engineering student at Georgia Tech who, in 2018, organized a walkout at her Decatur middle school for gun reform after the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida. She serves as the coalition’s finance and operations director.
“Coming from a low-income background, I don’t have the luxury to do volunteer work,” said McRae, who became a registered lobbyist with the coalition. “I believe the oppressed communities in this nation are far too often overlooked in politics. As a Black woman, I never had a choice to ignore these facts. GYJC definitely gave me ways to sharpen my advocacy skills and my messaging skills.”
Hannah Lee, 17, a senior at East Coweta High School, visited the Capitol with classmates and tried to dissuade her Republican senator, Matt Brass, from supporting the voucher bill.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
Lee didn’t convince Brass, but Lee felt the conversation left an impression. “He was surprised young people who were his constituents were interested in what he was doing. I think we kind of unnerved him a little.”
“The Legislature should be the people’s house, but it is a place now where democracy goes to die,” said Ames. “We are saying no to that, to making decisions behind closed doors. At the end of the day, we are able to say it may be a broken democracy, but it is still a democracy.”
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