Student Voice.
Students come to their learning with different needs, interests, and dreams. An equitable school district commits to doing everything it can to meet these needs, interests, and dreams. Adults sometimes believe they know best, drawing parallels from their own student experience and relying on the cultural notion that age equates to wisdom, as they seek to eliminate barriers to student opportunities. These well-intentioned efforts often fall short because student voice is ignored or only included on the periphery of the conversation.
Equity Journey Partners believes that embracing and empowering student voice is a key driver of equity. Student voice helps school districts identify how the interplay between educator unconscious biases and cultural competence and district policies, practices, and procedures contribute to student opportunity and achievement gaps. Responding to these gaps through student-driven design results in more culturally appropriate and sustainable solutions.
Student voice is an essential component of an equity journey when a district or school’s staff demographics differ significantly from student demographics, as is the case in many public schools. According to a recent report by Chiefs for Change, the US teaching force is ~80% White while Global Majority students comprise more than half of all public school students.
Equity requires students’ voices to be sought, amplified, heard and incorporated into district and school policies, processes and practices. EJP offers the following equity services to empower students and amplify their voices:
Establishing Superintendent Youth Councils and Student Equity Ambassadors
Many school districts already include vehicles for student voice, generally in the form of a student representative on the school committee or a school student council. These traditional forms of involvement acknowledge the importance of student voice but rarely empower students or amplify their voices. Student school committee members sometimes are non-voting members and student councils can exclude voices of traditionally marginalized student populations.
Districts can elevate students’ voices to drive equity by establishing a Superintendent's Youth Council or Student Equity Ambassadors:
A Superintendent’s Youth Council is an advisory body that provides input to the district superintendent on policies and practices
Student Equity Ambassadors, which can be district-wide or school-based, are teams of students who take an active role in fostering school and district climates and cultures that affirm and sustain cultural identities through the development of programs and projects that address students’ equity needs
These structures can be powerful tools to empower students and to amplify their voices. Student members also have the opportunity to develop leadership, advocacy and civic engagement skills. Policies and practices for these programs should incorporate principles of effective student engagement, beginning with a design process that includes students. Notably, designing the recruitment and selection process should ensure that participating students reflect the diversity of the school or district and welcome voices from all segments of the student population - including those students who may not typically hold leadership positions.
EJP services include supporting schools or district to:
Create a student voice vision.
Design and implement an inclusive recruiting and selection process.
Establish student voice structures, including by-laws, teaming norms, meeting protocols etc.
Design community engagement project-based curriculums.
Evaluate the design and implementation process and results.
Training for Educators and Staff
Elevating student voice as a driver of equity requires educators and staff to be knowledgeable about best practices in empowering and amplifying student voice. Our workshop for educators and staff, “Embracing and Empowering Student Voice” provides educators with a broad understanding of the importance of including student voice, and techniques and strategies to put this knowledge into practice.
Want to learn more about how to amplify students’ voices to improve equity in your school or district, contact us or set up a 30min meeting to discuss.