What We Do

Coleman Advocates for Children & Youth is a member-led, multiracial community organization, organizing young people and parents to make change in their schools, their communities, and in their own lives. 

We have three primary grassroots leadership projects >>

Youth Making a Change * Parents Making a Change * Students Making a Change

Through a national model of grassroots leadership development, youth and parent organizing, budget and policy advocacy, civic engagement and strategic alliance-building, Coleman is transforming public schools, increasing city investments in a local safety-net, and winning economic opportunities for thousands of young people of color and their families.

With the leadership of young people at the center of our work, Coleman member families’ identify common community problems, conduct research to find solutions, and build a base of support needed to win their policy, budget and civic engagement campaigns.

 

P-MAC: PARENTS MAKING A CHANGE

P-MAC organizes parents and guardians of San Francisco public school children to secure a better future for themselves, their children and their communities.

PMAC parents are organizing in “low-performing” elementary and middle schools in San Francisco, in schools where students face the greatest barriers to success. Parents learn how to become advocates for their own children, to become parent leaders at their schools, and how to build collective power to change policies at the school district. In recent years, a few examples of PMAC parent victories include:

  • Resolution of parent grievances regarding discipline, special education, ESL student needs, and culturally appropriate school activities;
  • Increased parent voice through stronger school site councils and ELACs;
  • A new elementary school technology center;
  • A new school plan for parent-teacher collaboration to improve classroom learning;
  • Increased parent oversight of federal “school improvement grant” funds;
  • The creation of the SFUSD Parent Advisory Council (PAC) which advises the school board;
  • Passage of the “Close the Achievement Gap” school board resolution, and
  • Passage of the landmark “A-G College & Career for All” policy, with Y-MAC

 

Y-MAC: YOUTH MAKING A CHANGE

Y-MAC organizes young people of color in San Francisco public high schools to improve their own lives, their schools, and their communities.

Founded in 1991, Y-MAC is one of the nation’s oldest and most successful youth organizing programs in the nation, with hundreds of alumni across the country. Y-MAC students organize their peers in San Francisco’s racially diverse high schools, working to overcome the widest racial achievement and opportunity gap of any urban school system in California.  Y-MAC focuses on building the leadership of Black, Latino and Pacific Islander students because they face the greatest barriers to graduation and the least opportunities to graduate prepared for a college or a good job. Through Y-MAC, students become strong advocates for themselves and each other, develop membership bases on campus that win improvements in their own schools, and build unity across high schools, with Coleman parent leaders and with allied youth movement organizations. Y-MAC gives struggling students the opportunity to work together to identify problems and win policy solutions that improve the lives of thousands of the city’s young people, becoming community leaders and life-long agents of change. A few examples of YMAC student victories include:

  • Winning student grievances around student discipline, bathroom security policies, and anti-gay harrassment;
  • Winning $1.4 million to start 7 school-based Wellness Centers, which are now in every major high school and middle school in the school district;
  • Creating the SF Youth Commission, funding staff for the Student Advisory Committee to the School Board, and winning start-up capital funds for YouthSpace.
  • Winning reforms at juvenile hall which led to a significant decrease in the un-necessary incarceration of young people of color who posed no public safety threat;
  • Winning increased funding for school-based youth employment services;
  • Winning passage of the “Close the Achievement Gap” school board resolution; and
  • Winning passage of the landmark “A-G College & Career for All” policy, with P-MAC, that now allows all students the opportunity take the courses they need to be prepared and eligible any four-year college in California, instead of a select few.

 

SMAC: STUDENTS MAKING A CHANGE

SMAC organizes students at the City College of San Francisco, one of the nation’s largest community college campuses. In San Francisco’s changing economy, students who grow up here are not able to stay here without a college education and access to good job opportunities. SMAC specifically organizes and advocates for “under-represented” students – primarly Black, Latino and Pacific Islander young adults — who want to transfer to a four year university or complete a career certification program.  SMAC students are fighting to stay and make a positive contribution to the city they call home.