~STUDENT VOICE

To further extend this year's CLAD webinar series' theme–Student Voice–we asked a few of our schools how they provided opportunities for student voice in their classrooms, schools, and communities. A couple of responses are below, and we'll feature more over the next couple of months.

Andrew Martinek (Hancock, 2013)

The heart of our Student Voice efforts run through our Student Council and its Student Voice Committee. Our Student Council has elected leaders but is open to everyone. We average around 40 students per weekly meeting. Any student is able to bring concerns to the Student Council, and our two representatives per grade level periodically reach out to their peers, either through Google Form surveys or in-person visits to homerooms to identify if there are any issues their peers want addressed. The Student Council examines issues in our school community and poses questions about and solutions to these issues during quarterly meetings with the school administration. Some issues are quick fixes, while others may evolve into an action project for the Student Council. Some issues evolve into their own standing committees on the council. For example, we have had a Mental Health Committee for a couple of years now, developing resources and outreach events for the student body. More recently, a group of Student Council students formed a Race and Equity Committee. We have a similar committee for staff; and students also wished to engage in this work.

Within the classroom, we try to provide our students with voice and choice in how they demonstrate standards. For example, in a recent Civics lesson, students were presented with a simulation of a school community as part of the Power of Activism unit. Each group represented a different stakeholder group within the community. The first part of the simulation, the class was presented with a problem impacting the community. Each stakeholder group had to examine the problem from the position of their chosen role and decide on a course of action. For the second part of the simulation, each group had to create and present an artifact that they could use to fulfill their action items. In this lesson, students were able to choose their groups, address a problem, and determine a method of solving the problem, as well as how they would demonstrate their solution to the rest of the class.

Andrea Seipp (Belleville East, 2014)

Student Voice has been a focus at Belleville East for several years. We have had great success with a Law Day Program where we bring in legal professionals from the community for a "Guest Speaker Series." We allow students to suggest topics in the legal setting they would like to learn more about, and then we have professionals from a variety of positions come in to speak to our Civics classes. The students are given a presentation by the guests and given an opportunity for a Q&A session, then assigned a Reflection assignment. This has been a great tool to connect our students with the legal community.

We are also utilizing student voice with one of our current Democracy School goals. Prior to Covid/2020, we had an idea presented to our committee by the JROTC to create a Flag Retirement location and ceremony on our campus to memorialize the flag. The idea was delayed the last couple of years and has rejuvenated on our campus with two students who accomplished similar goals in the community for their Eagle Scout projects. These students have now taken the lead on the project and have met with administration with a developed plan for execution, have reached out to community partners, and our industrial arts classes to help construct a flag retirement receptacle and place to properly bury the ashes. They have plans of incorporating our art department, music department, JROTC, and social studies classes in hosting our first Flag Retirement Ceremony for the school and community in May.