In November, the Southern Coast R-TAC hosted their second session of the year-long webinar series. Webinar #2, titled Catalyzing Change by Centering the Voices of Youth and Community, was facilitated by team members at CSLX, OCDE, and SDCOE.
After grounding attendees in the virtual meeting space, they had the opportunity to engage with fellow grantees through a community and relationship building activity, known as a Conocimiento. To root attendees in the strength of their own communities and to harness the power of storytelling and listening to the voice of students, families and communities, attendees were asked to share how they define the community they come from or are connected to.
Attendees were grounded in the Essentials for Community School Transformation, which situates student voice as an integral part in community school(CS) development. Authentic, meaningful student voice is at the heart of CS development (see key practices and who drives this work). When thinking about student voice, it’s important to think not just about having students involved or included in decision making, but also about how students are involved, which students are involved , and how existing structures, norms, and power dynamics shape the ways that we think about their involvement. Attendees had the opportunity to develop a conceptual understanding of listening to the voices that are often left unheard in our communities and unpack the community/youth voice continuum and reflect on whose voices are centered in their own context.
Most traditional opportunities for student voice are left to “safe” activities like planning homecoming, prom, or fundraising events instead of decisions around curricula, climate, and funding. Moving from typical to transformational requires LEAs to reflect on the structures and power dynamics within their school communities:
- Where are the existing opportunities for students to be involved in decision-making?
- What types of policies or practices include opportunities for student voice?
- Who has access to participate in student voice opportunities?
- Which voices are centered and represented in student voice opportunities and why?
- What roles do students typically play in decision-making processes and why?
In the second part of the webinar, attendees listened and learned from a community schools panel composed of staff from Heber Elementary School District, Santa Ana Unified School District, and San Diego Unified School District. The panelist participated in year-long SC R-TAC Street Data CoP, which was co-facilitated by Jessica Wei Huang and Shane Safir. The panelist shared the strategies they used to collect student voice; the tools and strategies they used to analyze student voice; and the impact this process had on personal mindset, beliefs, or students.
If you are interested in learning more about the event, or accessing the shared resources, please select the following SC R-TAC Webinar No. 2 links: Homebase Doc and Slide Deck. To join upcoming SC R-TAC Community Schools webinars and connect with fellow community schools grantees throughout our region, register on the SC R-TAC website.