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Young people take the lead to change how
students and teachers
work together in the classroom
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Dear (Contact First Name),
On October 15 and 16th over 70 people, from 10 states came together at Harvard Graduate School of Education to share experiences, learn from one another, and begin to build a national movement to put student voices at the center of their education by improving student-to-teacher relationships and communication and to push for students' voices to be included in teacher evaluations.
Young people and adults from Los Angeles, Oakland, New York, Newark, Denver, Providence, Boston, and Chicago came together to share their experiences and hopes about including student voices in the classroom, in constructive feedback, and teacher evaluation. Already in several states, there are policies that give students a voice in the classroom, but only a few, and many other states and districts would like to change their own policies through student input.
BSAC Alumni
Driven by the simple belief that students are the ones in the classroom and they should be asked about their learning experiences, participants worked together to come up with key elements that make these campaigns successful and began planning next steps for this movement.
There was so much excitement and enthusiasm to work together to improve the current dynamic and experiences in schools for both students and teachers. this excitement was shared by students, organizers, teachers, advocates, union members, and state and city administrators. By sharing experiences and ideas with one another, and brainstorming together for two days, these stakeholders realized that they all have shared goals and came up with ways to help support one another.
Participants from Denver discuss next steps
We are so thankful to the NoVo Foundation for their support of this youth-led conference. We all benefit from their vision of creating classrooms where students and teachers can constructively relate and communicate with one another. This convening is just the beginning of folks coming together to positively change their classroom experiences -- there is so much from one another.
Here is just a taste of what we heard:
- Students are leading the change to make teacher evaluation and teacher feedback more constructive and supportive for teachers and students
- Relationships in the classroom (and at every level of our work) are fundamental to this project - Social Emotional Learning runs through all of this
- We need to ally with various groups such as American Federation of Teachers, the Coalition for Teacher Quality, and others to broaden our base of support
- Organizers need to build buy-in at all levels to make this work a success
- Constructive feedback and evaluation is about developing teachers -- not about penalizing them.
Participants from New York and California share stories
If you are interested in learning more about what we we learned or would like to become involved in this movement, please contact rachel@youthonboard.org.
California organizers plan for future work
Thank you to all who participated and we look forward to updating everyone on next steps of the campaign!
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