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California activist group pays students $1,400 to become racial and social justice warriors

An activist group in California has paid nearly 100 public high schoolers $1,400 each to learn how to fight for racial and social justice, The Free Press has learned. Contracts between Long Beach Unified School District and Californians for Justice from 2019 to 2023, exclusively obtained by The Free Press, show the school district used taxpayer funds to pay the group nearly $2 million to facilitate equity and leadership development training for students and teachers. In addition to the student stipends, the contracts also allocated a total of $20,200 to 13 parents for participating in the groupâs programs. Starting from December 2019 until now, the Long Beach Unified School District south of Los Angeles has paid at least 78 students a total of nearly $100,000 for participating in a club run by the organization, also known as CFJ. The most recent contract runs until June 2024. CFJ boasts on its site to have âtrained hundreds of youth of color in Long Beach to be community leaders and organizers.â In Long Beach, the group successfully advocated for implementing ârestorative justice practicesâ across the districtâs 84 schools, according to its site.

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A progressive activist group in California is paying students $1,400 each to become racial and social justice warriors — with the school district forking out hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund the “propaganda” programs, according to a report.

The Long Beach Unified School District funneled nearly $900,000 for a one-year contract to Californians for Justice (CFJ), a “youth-powered” non-profit that provides education and organizing on racial justice issues, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by the Free Press.

The hefty contract, which runs until June 2024, includes $60,200 for 33 students and 10 families or parents to receive $1,400 each to participate in CFJ’s training programs.

The agreement states it is to “provide assistance to teachers, administrators and selected students in building strategies to support cultural understanding and change.”

On its website, CFJ boasts it has “trained hundreds of youth of color in Long Beach to be community leaders and organizers.”

The group explains it “provides leadership development opportunities throughout the school year and summer to ensure our youth leaders gain the political education and valuable organizing skills they need to lead social justice movements.”

‘It’s so fun! You get paid good, you can have a fun time,” one student participant gushed in a recent video on the CFJ Instagram.

A spokesperson for the Long Beach district – which, at 65,500 students, is that state’s fourth-largest – told the Free Press that the student stipends are “internships.”

It is to ensure “equitable participation in CFJ programs, embracing diverse perspectives in education,” they added.

Four teachers from the Long Beach district, however, told the Free Press that they had serious reservations about CFJ’s work.

One educator denounced the payments for participating as a “horrible propaganda strategy.”

Four teachers from the Long Beach district, however, told the Free Press that they had serious reservations about CFJ’s work.

“I am shocked and horrified at such a fact,” another teacher told the outlet of the student and family stipends.

This isn’t the first year that the Long Beach district has partnered with CFJ. Since December 2019, the district has paid the group nearly $2 million to work with them, according to the Free Press.

In 2021, CFJ ran three professional development sessions at Long Beach high schools, the outlet said, citing a past contract.

During those sessions, participants were encouraged to embrace the role of “student voice” and to work with teachers and admins “to advance a district wide Equity Agenda,” the 2021-2022 contract read.

CFJ was contracted to host 15 more of those trainings during the 2023-24 school year, according to the latest contract.

One teacher – who declined to give her name – told the Free Press that she thinks the workshops have become open forums for students to simply complain about the schools.

“[One student said] they would come to class on time if we built relationships with them,” she recalled.

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