This year's Long Island Leaders of Tomorrow Conference, in collaboration with Nassau BOCES, was held on March 18th at Hofstra University. 143 students gathered from 16 districts across Nassau and Suffolk County. Students from Baldwin, Bellmore-Merrick, East Williston, Glen Cove, Great Neck, Herricks, Hewlett-Woodmere, Hicksville, Locust Valley, Long Beach, Malverne, North Babylon, Plainview-Old Bethpage, Syosset, Valley Stream, and Westbury all met to engage in essential discussions and activities aimed at amplifying social justice and student empowerment on Long Island.

An essential part of ERASE Racism’s Youth Development for Leadership Initiative (YDLI) is our Student Task Force. The group consists of students from different school districts on Long Island working together to address injustice and inspire student-led change. This year, our student task force curated the theme “our roots are our routes.” They noted that although our “roots” shape our lives structurally, our “routes” enable us to choose the paths that will eventually make for a more equitable Long Island.

The conference programming was divided into three parts. In part one, students from all districts were divided into four classrooms accompanied by 3-4 Student Task Force members who led a presentation focused on race, racism and how it has shown up in Long Island. Student Task Force members engaged student participants in open, honest, and collaborative discussions.

Part two required participants to draw on the historical knowledge gained in part one and use it to consider how this history still impacts us today. In smaller, mixed-district groups, students were asked to identify and discuss challenges their schools or communities face. Then, they selected one of the challenges and imagined solutions – programs, activities, and efforts they could make in their schools or communities to address the issue.

During part three students returned to their fellow schoolmates. They shared the challenge and solution they identified in part two with the rest of their district. The group was then tasked with selecting one challenge and solution that they would tackle collectively. Once decided, students made a 3-step action plan to take back to their schools and communities.

The conference concluded with a panel featuring the Student Task Force leaders. Panelists answered questions and gave advice regarding student activism, their experience on the Student Task Force, ERASE Racism’s Student Leaders for Equity Internship, and most importantly how working with ERASE Racism in any of these capacities translates to real world application in our schools, communities, and even personal lives.

This year’s Long Island Leaders of Tomorrow Conference was intentionally aligned with The New York State of Education Department’s Portrait of a Graduate and Seal of Civic Readiness. The “Portrait of a Graduate” defines the essential skills, knowledge, and dispositions that all New York students should possess upon graduation. Chaperones who attended participated in a Professional Development session lead by Dr. Lorna Lewis about the Portrait of a Graduate; the slides can be viewed by clicking here. 

In similar fashion, the New York State Education Department created the Seal of Civic Readiness as “a formal recognition that a student has attained a high level of proficiency in terms of civic knowledge, civic skills, civic mindset, and civic experiences.” Students who participated in our conference qualify for 6 Service Learning Hours, applicable to the Seal of Civic Readiness. In conjunction with having gained hours towards the seal, the activities completed at the conference prepared students to achieve 1-3 of the 5 steps necessary for completing the mandatory capstone project that calls on students to identify and analyze a civic issue in their school or community.

Our post conference survey asked participants to describe their feelings after the conference in one word. We are very proud of this years’ most common response, “enlightened.” Other responses included: "empowered," “heard,” “aware,” “informed,” and “inspired.” One student wrote: “ This was a really good and educational experience. I would definitely recommend this conference to other students and schools.” Another wrote, “Learned that racism has a very large significance… and the different problems and perspectives from different schools. It was a good and powerful experience.”

Thank you to our esteemed partners at Nassau BOCES and Hofstra University for supporting this work.

Click here to view photos from the event.

Media coverage and videos to come soon!