Student Voice in Education

Last school year, the Cheltenham School Board gathered at the district’s high school for a town hall meeting with the community. This time, though, instead of teachers and residents of the community asking the questions, students peppered the board with inquiries about school safety, start time, equity and achievement, gender non-conforming students and more.

This event was one of the many ways Cheltenham School District – like others around the country – is including student voice into the decisions surrounding education.

 “Student voice in education is critically important,” said Julie Haywood, board president of the Cheltenham Board of School Directors in Elkins Park, Pa. “Their perspective really does have an impact on our decision making. You have to look at each of these students as a future leader, and having them participate in the democratic process is an important part of their education.”

More and more districts are turning to students for their input on everything from the food served in the cafeteria to education funding policies. With students being the ones impacted by these decisions, many schools are questioning why young people are often left out of these critical conversations, said Dr. Dana L. Mitra, Professor of Educational Theory & Policy at Penn State College of Education and expert on student voice in education.  

 “We give that right to adults to have a voice in their own lives,” Dr. Mitra said. “Why not our students?”

Student voice in action

Typically, most student voice initiatives fall into three larger categories: at the classroom level, at the districtwide level, and at the state and local politics level, said Dr. Mitra. In the classroom, including student voice can be as simple as giving students the option to help set classroom expectations. As districts continue to focus on social, emotional, and personalized learning, including student voice in these dynamic conversations is coming naturally to many.

 “Even just listening to students is the most basic level of including student voice in education,” said Dr. Mitra. “It helps to raise issues to adults and administrators that may not be seeing them.”

At the organizational level, more districts and boards are actively soliciting student input for important policy decisions. At Cheltenham School District, students are involved both formally and informally with the board, said Haywood. The district has two members of the high school’s student council that meet with the board during its monthly legislative meetings to report on what is happening at the high school.

 In addition to this monthly meeting, Haywood notes that when the board is looking at policies or curriculum that directly impact students, they will “actively solicit their views.” When the board was recently looking at the district’s dress code, Haywood said that the board sent the proposed policies to the student council, who then solicited input from their peers before sending the feedback back to the board.

By having these types of interactions and discussions, Haywood noted that students have been able to work with the board to make changes that impact students directly. For example, after the school stopped its open campus program that allowed students to leave for lunch, students reached out and asked if there could still be a way to reward seniors with a special privilege instead. The students and board worked together alongside their food services department, and were able to carve out a separate area of the cafeteria for seniors to have lunch away from the rest of the student body.

“This provides the board an opportunity to listen,” said Haywood. “The policies and decisions we make directly or indirectly affect students.”

At Pittsburgh Public Schools, student voice is such a priority that they have created a role dedicated to including student voice in the conversation surrounding education. Project Manager for Student Voice Asia Mason said that her main focus is managing Pittsburgh’s Student Advisory Council. This group consists of roughly 65 students who are trained as leaders and come together quarterly with district officials to discuss some of the decision-making processes surrounding curriculum, behavior, policies, communications and more.

Anyone can nominate a student for the council from one of the district’s high schools. Then they are placed on a ballot, and their peers then vote on who should serve. Once nominated and voted in, students then attend a four-day intensive leadership workshop, where they learn about leadership skills, the mission and vision of the council, and how to engage with various district stakeholders.

During the first year of the council, it created a survey that was sent to students to help identify a few of the student body’s top priorities. Some of these included school lunch, class schedules and college opportunities and programs. The students in the council worked directly with school officials to learn how they made decisions that impacted these priority areas and worked to created realistic solutions. For example, Mason said the council wanted to expand school lunch opportunities. Working with administrators, she said that students knew that “it was not possible to go out to lunch every day or to order in Pizza Hut,” but they were able to work with food services to sample different types of food and new recipes.

The council is also shaping the district’s curriculum and board policies. Mason noted students have served on subcommittees that helped shape the district’s suspension ban and create new programs for ESL families. They even had a group of students travel to Poland last summer and then use what they learned there to help enhance the district’s curriculum surrounding the Holocaust.

Schools that are interested in providing more opportunity for student voice need to keep a few important keys to success in mind, said Dr. Mitra. She noted the importance for organizations to seek out diverse students, including those who may be struggling in school. These students are often the ones who can provide valuable information that shifts policy changes and makes a positive impact on the student body at large.

Then there are the smaller details districts should pay attention to. Dr. Mitra noted how things like the geographical space, how to arrange the chairs to show equity among the young people and adults, and even the timing of the meetings can impact the success of the initiative. It’s also crucial for both the adults and young people to recognize the strengths they are bringing to the table.

“For example, the adults will obviously need to do a lot of the work that involves the legal side of things,” she said. “While young people are probably better at collecting data about the experiences of their peers.”

Expanding outside the classroom

As districts continue to seek out student voice for more and more of their decisions, the movement is now turning towards the inclusion of student voice in local and state politics, said Dr. Mitra. Specifically, she points to lobby groups that now have youth wings that actively engage with local and state governments about educational issues.  

“This is an enormous opportunity for young people to make an impact in state legislatures where the education policies are actually decided,” said Dr. Mitra.

At Pittsburgh, their work on student voice inclusion expanded last year to include a partnership with the Pittsburgh City Council. The 25-member Youth Participatory Budget Council, made up of students from Pittsburgh Public Schools, met throughout the year to discuss issues that faced the city and worked to come up with a proposal for spending a small portion of the city budget, set at $125,000. Mason said the district is hoping to expand that program, and ensure that “holistically our students across all schools are exposed to those types of opportunities.”

“In education, I believe including student voice is important because they are our main constituents,” Mason said. “That’s who we are here to serve. They are directly impacted by our decisions… why wouldn’t we include them in the process? They are the experts in being students.”

SIDEBAR:

Making it work

While student voice initiatives that are wholly grown within the district can “tend to lose sight as they get pulled in a million different directions,” Dr. Mitra said that there is a strong correlation between a successful student voice program and a school working with a third party nonprofit organization. Here are a few resources to help get districts started on their student voice initiatives: 

• International Journal of Student Voice. A journal co-founded by Dr. Mitra, the International Journal of Student Voice encourages practitioner and student submissions. Readers can sign up for the list serve and will be alerted as articles are published. (https://ijsv.psu.edu/)
• Youth and Adults Transforming Schools Together. YATST is a network of youth and adult teams committed to building school communities in which learning is engaging for everyone and students are fully empowered. (http://www.upforlearning.com/)
• The Neutral Zone. The Neutral Zone is a diverse, youth-driven teen center dedicated to promoting personal growth through artistic expression, community leadership and the exchange of ideas. (http://neutral-zone.org/)
• Youth on Board. Youth on Board is a youth-led, adult supported program where young people have the space and tools to recognize and utilize the power they hold to dismantle political and economic structures that reinforce inequity (http://www.youthonboard.org/)
• Youth Leadership Institute. Youth Leadership Institute builds communities where young people and their adult allies come together to create positive community change that promotes social justice and racial equity. (http://www.yli.org/)
• Gardener Center for Youth and Communities. The Gardner Center for Youth and Communities engages in research-practice partnerships to produce research that informs policy and practice, and emphasizes the importance of equity and capacity building in youth-serving organizations. (http://gardnercenter.stanford.edu/)

This article was published in the November/December edition of the PSBA Bulletin.