A veteran youth organizer and advocate will lead the Chamberlin Education Foundation’s effort to strengthen and expand restorative student interventions in West Contra Costa K-12 public schools.
Kim Miyoshi brings over two decades of organizing, youth advocacy, and coalition building experience to the foundation’s Program Officer, Restorative Student Interventions role.
“I am so honored to join the Chamberlin team and partner with students, parents and educators in the West Contra Costa community in their efforts to center students with highest need, and create safe and supportive learning environments for all students to thrive,” Miyoshi said.
Miyoshi will assume the newly-created role in September.
Restorative justice is not just a practice to repair harm. It’s an approach to learning that builds community, strengthens relationships, and changes how we see and engage young people as leaders and partners in transforming school culture.
“This is a body of work that research suggests can make a significant difference in the educational experiences and learning outcomes of Black, Latinx and other historically underserved students,” said Dr. Stefanie Phillips, CEO of the foundation.
“We are excited that Kim will be joining us with over 20 years’ experience in coalition building for youth-focused initiatives. I’m confident she will partner effectively with our local community organizations and school leaders who will ultimately lead this work forward,” Phillips said.
The foundation’s Restorative Student Interventions focus area seeks to promote and support the wide-spread, systems-level adoption of restorative and just student behavioral and social-emotional interventions in West Contra Costa public schools.
Miyoshi’s organizing work in Oakland includes experience supporting students to strengthen school cultures that benefit from youth-led restorative justice implementation.
“Effective strategies and practices to build positive school culture have advanced significantly over the last decade,” Miyoshi said.
“Restorative justice is not just a practice to repair harm. It’s a framework and approach to learning that builds community, strengthens relationships, and changes how we see and engage young people as leaders and partners in transforming school culture and improving academic outcomes,” she said.
Miyoshi has dedicated her professional career to youth organizing and coalition building to support just and equitable opportunities for young people in the East Bay.
In 2000, Miyoshi became the first Executive Director of Oakland Kids First (OKF), a nonprofit organization that “increases youth voice, leadership, and power to create engaging and equitable public schools,” according to its website. She remained in that formative role for nearly two decades.
During her tenure, Miyoshi supported student campaigns to pass the Meaningful Student Engagement Standards policy and the A-G policy in the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), aligning high school and college requirements and improving access for underserved students to become college eligible.
Miyoshi also supported a youth-led Restorative Culture Change campaign that led to the adoption of student-created Codes of Respect policies at multiple high schools in OUSD.
Student-led solutions to building positive school cultures led to safer and more supportive learning environments for all students.
“We spent years focused solely on youth-led policy change [in Oakland], but it wasn’t until youth leaders expanded our focus to include culture change that we began to see greater impact,” Miyoshi said.
“Student-led solutions to building positive school cultures led to safer and more supportive learning environments for all students,” she added.
In 2017, Miyoshi co-founded the Justice for Oakland Students Coalition (J4OS) with other youth and parent organizing agencies. The coalition served as a “movement-building vehicle” that sought to organize community stakeholders to hold the Oakland Unified School District accountable for its record on student equity and its impact serving high-need students, according to the OKF website.
The J4OS coalition helped pass the Reparations for Black Students Policy Resolution in 2021, and supported the Oakland Youth Coalition’s campaign to pass Measure QQ in 2020, a ballot measure that provides youth ages 16-17 with the right to vote in local school board elections.
Miyoshi’s addition to the CEF team adds capacity for the foundation to invest in restorative practices that can advance student success in West Contra Costa schools, particularly for Black, Latinx, and other historically under-resourced student populations who are disproportionately impacted by punitive disciplinary practices.
The new program officer role stemmed from the foundation’s updated 2021 strategic plan that established Restorative Student Interventions as a critical area of focus for grant making and program support, alongside existing focus areas in leadership, curriculum and instruction, and the broader public school ecosystem.
“We have spent significant time over the past two years asking ourselves and our community partners how we could better support an acceleration of student outcomes across underserved student groups,” said Phillips.
“As we listened, our students and parents repeatedly echoed the need for support in creating learning environments where students (and their parents) have voice and agency as their full selves. Authentic learning starts with knowledge of self and self confidence.” Phillips said.
About the Chamberlin Education Foundation
The Chamberlin Education Foundation supports initiatives that advance education equity and academic excellence in West Contra Costa public schools. CEF’s grants and programs support effective education leadership, high-quality curriculum and instruction, restorative student interventions, and help create and sustain a student-centered public education ecosystem.
Click here for more about our team, our vision, and our foundation’s guiding principles.
