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At the start
Early on
Moving along
Well along
Students on stairs

From your perspective, your school is:

Moving along a student-powered improvement journey

Your school has practiced student-powered improvement in multiple ways and places.

There is so much possibility ahead.

Step 1

Reflect on your results

Reflect & Discuss
  1. What were my results? Is there anything surprising about my results?
  2. How did results vary across our team? Why?
  3. Examine the 10 assessment statements in the box below.
    1. Which statement is a strength?
    2. Which statement is a growth opportunity?
    3. Which statement were you most and least confident answering? Why?  
  4. What may have impacted the way you answered questions? Consider the role of your identity (role, race, gender, age, etc.), personal biases, and lived experiences.
Assessment Questions
  1. In the past year, students’ experiences or perspectives have been deeply and continuously listened to.
  2. In the past year, listening to students’ experiences and perspectives led to meaningful changes.
  3. In the past year, students were involved in identifying what things needed to be improved. 
  4. In the past year, students helped design changes to practices or policies.
  5. In the past year, students had power to help make decisions about practice and/or policy changes.
  6. Partnering with students happens in multiple ways and over time, rather than being a one-time event. 
  7. There is a belief that students should have a voice in how things work.
  8. Every student has an adult who they can trust. 
  9. Students who have been historically marginalized in education are the students most often invited to guide improvement efforts. Students have the capacity and wisdom to help make change.
Step 2

Explore resources

Classrooms

Care, truth, and hope

Learn, reflect, and try ways to create spaces of care, truth, and hope with this guide.
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New!

Student-powered math classroom

How students co-designed changes in their classroom after taking a survey about classroom learning conditions.
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Design Collaborative

Students and teachers developed lessons about racial identity through a collaborative on race and racism.
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This is the graphic that represents the six guiding principles. There are six hexagons connected to each other on one side to form a larger enclosed shape. Each hexagon has one of the guiding principles. In the middle of the enclosed shape is a final hexagon that represents mindsets - the foundation for the guiding principles.

Guiding Principles

Six guiding principles help ensure that student-powered improvement efforts are authentic and meaningful.
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Step 3

Take action

Classrooms
Reflect & Discuss
  1. What problem am I trying to solve? 
  2. Why do I need to involve students in the solution? 
  3. Will I empathize, involve, or share-decision making with students? Why?
  4. What resources and support do I need? 
  5. What’s my first step? When will I take it? 
  6. What will success look like? How will I know? 
  7. How can we further build care, student agency, and vulnerability in our classroom to support student voice? 
Schools & districts
Reflect & Discuss
  1. What is the problem we’re trying to solve with students? 
  2. Will we emphasize, involve, or share decision making with students? Why?
  3. Which group(s) of students will we prioritize? 
  4. How will we recruit students? 
  5. What resources do we need? 
  6. What’s our first step? When will we take it? 
  7. What will success look like? How will we know? 
  8. How will we attend to the guiding principles of student-powered improvement?
Need support or thought-partnership?

The team at Community Design Partners is excited to connect and support your student-powered improvement efforts.  Get in touch!

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I think that students designing solutions for the problems that they're most connected to is really important.
Student