This article was originally published in the Winter 2019 edition of LeaderBoard from the Michigan Association of Student Councils.
Imagine all the excitement of a school board fostering effective school improvement using existing resources while catalyzing a generation of public school supporters while you’re at it. Sound too good to be true? Its not! Your district could be the next to join the growing national movement focused on engaging students on school boards!
For almost 20 years, I’ve been studying and advocating for
new roles for students throughout the education system. Given their essential
role, school boards have been a focus of my efforts as I’ve worked to lift
student voice, build student engagement, and usher Meaningful Student
Involvement for every student in every grade throughout every school,
everywhere, all of the time. This article explores some of what I’ve found
throughout the years, and what I see as the future of this movement.
In 2001, I was hired as the first-ever student engagement specialist
in Washington state’s education agency. While facilitating a three-year action
research project, I conducted more than 100 listening sessions with individual
students, parents, educators and leaders from many, many rural, suburban and
urban communities across my state. At the same time, I examined the
international literature surrounding decision-making for students within the
education system. My study took me from individual classrooms to school
hallways, principals’ offices to district school boardrooms, state education
agencies to state school boards. What I discovered nearly 20 years ago was a
gaping hole of substantive opportunities for students to positively, powerfully
and meaningfully affect the places where they spent the majority of their
waking hours for more 13 years in a row.
Instead, I discovered that students were routinely
minimized, frequently dismissed and alternately tokenized and lionized for who
they were and what they could do. Student governments across the country would
give young leaders opportunities to choose dance themes and school colors
without ever showing them the budgets that drove their educations or the
processes for selecting curriculum and assessing learning. When learners
brought concerns to school leaders for consideration, it was routine to
congratulate their initiative then forget them when students walked away.
Brought on stage to show compliance and acceptance of adult-led initiatives in
education, student leaders were pointed at as the stars of shows they hadn’t
written, didn’t speak for, and couldn’t show disagreement with. In the early
2000s, many schools still followed the adage, “Kids are better seen than
heard.” Additionally, student voice activities were frequently treated as the
exclusive provenance of high achieving, highly involved learners who usually
identified as white, middle- and upper class, heterosexual students. Largely a
homogeneous group, they couldn’t be said to represent their lower income,
under-achieving peers who may be students of color or identify as LGBTQ
students.
Since 2001, there’s been an explosion of interest following
increased research and practice of Meaningful Student Involvement, which I
define as “the process of engaging students in every facet of the educational
process for the purpose of strengthening their commitment to education,
community and democracy.” School boards can have a vital role in fostering
Meaningful Student Involvement throughout their districts by supporting
individual teachers learning about the approach, empowering building leaders to
infuse the strategies, and enabling activities within their own sphere of
action, including district offices and board activities. Engaging students as
decision-makers is one way this happens, as well as intentionally creating
roles for students as school researchers, education planners, classroom
teachers, learning evaluators, and education advocates. Through SoundOut.org, I
support K-12 schools, districts, agencies and associations nationwide through
training, program development, evaluation and more to build these efforts.
What I’ve found is that on school boards nationwide,
students are taking important roles to improve schools. For decades, there have
been roles for students to inform and consult school boards. Many districts
routinely invite students to inform board members on activities in their
schools, and sometimes students are invited to share their concerns at board
meetings. In addition to this, boards are creating permanent, regular positions
for students to participate on school boards. Working with state laws, they are
creating fully-empowered seats for students who are elected by their peers,
supported by their teachers and principals, and trained to be sustained in
their positions. Other district boards are also creating long-term policies and
advocating with state legislatures to expand student roles. Instead of creating
a single position for students, some districts have made multiple seats for
learners—up to half the board—while partnering students with adult members to
encourage mutual mentoring.
For instance, in Maryland students serve on every district
board of education in the state. Students host multiple town hall forums for
their peers, parents and community members, as well as over a dozen student
advocacy groups throughout the state’s the school system. Student members are
trained at the local level with support from a statewide organization. A recent
report said district officials believe “giving students a larger say in what
happens to them while they are at school has prompted students to take a larger
interest in their education and to tackle issues with maturity and
professionalism.”
That means that in addition to joining school boards,
students across the U.S. are participating in district grant activities,
including choosing grantees, facilitating training for educators and others,
and evaluating grant performance in local schools. In district offices
nationwide, students are researching and evaluating school policies, developing
powerful campaigns to transform school culture, and building community
coalitions to transform learning, teaching and leadership. Their involved in
district budgeting, facilitating new building design and siting, advocating for
healthy and nutritious school foods, and helping establish safe and supportive
learning environments for all students, regardless of how they identify or
perform in classrooms. They are doing all of this with encouragement, support
and empowerment by school boards.
Another example comes from Massachusetts. The Boston Student
Advisory Council, or BSAC, has partnered with the Boston Public Schools school
committee (school board) with a variety of policies and activities. Students on
BSAC have addressed a wide range of issues, including student rights and
responsibilities, school discipline and climate, transportation, and the
district budget. BSAC is credited with improving district policy-making, school
climate, and student-teacher relationships.
In my research, I’ve found that at least 19 states currently
have student representatives on their state school boards; at least 25 allow
students to be involved on district school boards. They include Minnesota,
Wisconsin and Illinois; they do not include Ohio and Indiana. Only two states
currently having voting roles for students on the state school board;
California and Maryland. Those two states have seemingly done more to foster
local school board membership than any others nationwide, too.
Building a movement for Meaningful Student Involvement in district decision-making will require several steps. A great starting point is my 2017 tome called Student Voice Revolution: The Meaningful Student Involvement Handbook. In this 374-page book, I share examples, tips, research and more about empowered student voice, including practical, purposeful ways to take action.
Another essential step for every board member is to read the Michigan Association for School Boards Students on Boards Toolkit, which includes tips and sample policies. My website at http://www.soundout.org provides dozens of free tools, several free publications, and many articles and examples.
All of these highlight the ways Meaningful Student Involvement is happening, as well as the actions and effects of student voice and student engagement in schools. After you’ve reviewed those resources, I suggest districts create a districtwide plan for Meaningful Student Involvement highlighting roles for students on boards; train board members, educators, principals, parents and others on Meaningful Student Involvement, and then; implement and evaluate plans routinely, fostering the cycle of engagement throughout activities and building on every action taken to support even more action in the future.
Engaging students on school boards is packed with benefits
for learners, board members, and schools overall. Research has shown board
members can feel more effective through these positions by connecting directly
with students, developing camaraderie with their peers, and sustaining regular
connections with what’s happening in individual schools and classrooms
districtwide. Experience has shown that involving students in decision-making
has been shown to save time, energy, and money in education, too, benefiting
board members’ effectiveness and outcomes. As society evolves, students are on
boards can help individual school building support the ethical imperative
facing educators today. That means supporting democracy, civic engagement and
culture building throughout local neighborhoods and communities. Finally,
positioning students on boards benefits both the students who are involved as
well as others, too. Student members build skills, gain knowledge and take
action every time they do board-related work; in turn, younger and older students
can see themselves, hear their voices and feel their aspirations reflected in
board decision-making. There are literally countless benefits.
After working with school districts in more than 30 states across the country, I believe the many districts are moving to the forefront of American schools as they expand this movement. Fostering strategic, substantial and effective Meaningful Student Involvement in districts statewide will mean addressing what I call the “4 Ps” of school administration: policies, personnel, procedures and programs. This means new and refined policies should to be created to support empowered roles for students on school boards statewide; personnel will have to be supported as their champion and sustain students on school boards; procedures can be created to engage, enliven and sustain student and adults as they embark in this work as partners; and programs could be developed to train, substantiate, maintain, expand and evaluate students on school boards.
All of this could amount to creating one of the most powerful, most impacting and most substantial agendas for Meaningful Student Involvement in the United States. In turn, it could transform schools across the country and benefit every learner in every school immediately, and well into the future. Can you truly afford to wait any further?
Old vs. New School Boards
Old ways for school boards to see students:
- Students as passive recipients of adult-driven
schools
- Students as data points
- Students as unfinished products until graduation
- Students as incapable of contributing to the
greater good
- Students as Dorothy, and boards as the Wizard
New ways for school boards to see students:
- Students as active partners of schools led by students and adults together
- Students as members of learning communities, with teachers, parents, building leaders, board members and others
- Students as whole people with significant opinions at any age
- Students as essential members of schools and the larger communities
- Every student as a co-creator, co-leader and co-learner throughout the education system
This article was originally published in the Winter 2019 edition of LeaderBoard from the Michigan Association of Student Councils.
Recommended citation: Fletcher, A. (Winter 2019) “Welcome to the Movement for Meaningful Student Involvement,” LeaderBoard 5(1) pp 18-21.
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