Student-Led Advocacy

Candidate Name: Ali Bentley

Date of Submission: 11/12/19

Assessment D: Advocacy Action Plan

Due by the end of Week 5

Advocacy Action Plan #1:

After the advocacy lesson and class meeting the students identified the need for more

student voice within the school as the largest need. Student voice is referred to as “the values,

opinions, beliefs, perspectives and perspective of the people in a school” (Glossary of Education

Reform, 2014). Students felt as though the lack of motivation, decreased morale, and mindset

issues the school has been seeing this year were related to a lack of feeling heard by the school

administration. Each group developed their own plan for advocacy so there were many

subthemes that students were interested in. Some students wanted to focus on A/B classes for

the high school to support the new advanced placement program, others kept it more scientific

wanting to dive further into the recycling programs, or lack thereof, in the community. This plan

will focus on the larger topic of increasing student voice and student advocacy in the school.

The significance of this need lies in the history of Menifee county. The students engaged in this

conversation have experienced six principals in three years. The district has been under strict

reconstruction under state management. Throughout all these changes these students have

had to adapt and alter course based on the leadership at that time. These transitions have not

left a lot of room for the students to advocate for themselves or share their voice in a productive

way. The significance also outlines the importance for students. They are driven by a need to be

heard and to make positive change in a county that is often counted out before they can prove

themselves. There is a pattern of learned helplessness infecting the student body and using

strategies such as teaching social responsibility through profiles and invoices as outlined by

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British Columbia’s curriculum, can help to shift the mentality to changing the school community

for the better (BC's new curriculum, n.d.)

The data to support the issue of student voice is embedded within the classrooms, grade

levels, and school ecosystem. In the appendix there is data representing a recent class’ feelings

on being able to speak up and speak out in a class. Most students felt as though their teacher

did not want to hear what they had to say about classwork or ideas. This evidence drives the

need for the district to grow in their capacity to increase student voice in the school. The

students who heard the advocacy lesson are excited to find opportunities to correct these issues

from a student-centered viewpoint. Coming from a school with 70% free and reduced lunch with

a steady unemployment rate of 10-20%, there are a lot of environmental factors outside of

school that reduce students’ abilities to be engaged citizens. They are burdened with external

factors beyond their years and this is only compounded by the lack of opportunity in school.

According to Harvard Graduate School of Education “schools who find ways to welcome student

opinions into the learning and partner with students as stakeholders..equip students with tools

for lifelong success and develop programs that are more effective at reaching goals” (Shafer,

2016). This data demonstrates the need for a plan of action to increase student voice in the high

school.

The student’s solution to this problem is to first establish a student council. This will be an

open group comprised of students who are ready to make a difference using positive advocacy.

The second aspect of the plan is to have students develop a plan for engagement and active

listening with the administration. They would like to present their theory to the school leadership

team and increase student engagement through town meetings and student led activities. In

short, the student’s solution to the issue is increasing the positive interactions, and reactive

instances of student voice in the school.

The action steps and timeline are listed below:

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 - November 18th: Students will post in the school wide google classroom, hallways,
classrooms, and discuss in conversations, a survey for student interest in a student
council, town hall meetings, and student leadership committee.
- December 2nd: This week (day and time dependent on student schedules) students will
meet with those interested to develop structure for the student organization (will it be run
like a democracy with a president, vice president, etc) or will it be run more like a club
with multiple interests and projects, or some hybrid of the two. The goal from this
meeting is to come out with a concrete group of students interested in making a change,
with ideas of how to begin this conversation with stakeholders.
- December 9th: Student leaders will meet with the school administrative team to voice
their concerns and their solution to the largest issues seen throughout school from a
student perspective.
- December 16th: Students will hold their first town forum for students not in the
leadership group to voice their concerns and any possible solutions they may have.
- December 23rd- January 13th: Students will develop plans of action to solve the issues
brought forth by the town discussion. There should be two to three students per issue.
- January 20th: Propose solutions to issues to school administration and develop a roll out
plan together.
- January-March: Implement changes and plan and take continuous data points to
measure growth and progress towards achieving goals.

While the school administration is very supportive of student lead initiatives, there are

several roadblocks that might impede progress. First is the issue of policies/procedures/ and

laws. There are a lot of things that our school is required to do (such as diagnostic testing three

times a year) that cannot be changed. Students could view these issues as further evidence of

the lack of flexibility from administration. Time is another constraint that might cause the issue

resolutions to be waylaid. Finally, student follow through might be difficult to build and maintain

momentum through the entire movement. In an article by Mary Mazzoni, she explains to move

students progress towards their goals they must start with small short term goals to build

momentum (Mazzoni, 2012). By setting small achievable goals, these roadblocks should be

mitigated.

When integrating student choice and advocacy into a program, students can hold

multiple roles. According to Fletcher student roles have evolved to including youth as

“facilitators, researchers, planners, organizers, decision-makers, advocates, evaluators, and

Johns Hopkins University School of Education

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specialists” (Fletcher, 2015). These new roles will be divided among the students in the

leadership group to provide direction and encouragement for all students. Students will be

involved throughout the entire process. The students will be responsible for developing the

interest survey, communicating it out to the student body, scheduling and pursuing meetings

with the school leadership team to develop a plan, and for following through with the timeline

and action steps. The adults involved will simply assist with facilitation and logistics.

Success will be measured in three ways. First a pre and post survey will be done on

student voice and student opportunity for advocacy. This survey will provide the chance to

compare data before and after the plan has been implemented. Second, weekly reflections and

Likert scale surveys will be conducted within the student council group to determine the

effectiveness of meetings and to act as a source of self and group reflection. Finally, the student

body mindset, behavior, and academics will be tracked over the time of this plan to determine if

a correlation is present. This connects to the classroom’s big goals of students reaching an 80%

in the classroom and increasing ACT benchmark scores, by increasing student engagement.

The theory being that if students are engaged and changes are being made that align with

student interests, then their mindset and motivation will shift in a positive direction. If the school

culture and mindset shift, then the effects should be reflected in classroom data.

This action plan connects with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) through

the 8 scientific skills that students are measured against. One of the largest skills is developing

an experiment, which this is essentially a social experiment. Additionally, this will increase the

opportunities for students to communicate and argue with evidence. These skills are necessary

to master any science standard.

The resources from this session have impacted the classroom learning in that student

voice is now an integral aspect of the unit planning and learning experience. Using the cycle of

engagement along with class meetings and student reflections, an open dialogue between the

teacher and the students cultivate a community engaged and ready to adapt as needed.
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According to Fletcher and the cycle of engagement students need to be promoted to “listen,

validate, authorize through democracy, take action, and reflect” leading to a cycle of change

(Fletcher, 2018). By integrating this process into the planning and student reflection process,

students will have a larger stake in the learning, and this be more invested in reaching their

personal academic goals. Additionally, students are using communication and advocacy skills

to engage in arguments centered around content. An example of this can be seen in AP

environmental science. The students are conducing year long projects in which they must

include environmental issues and possible solutions to solve these problems. The students

must also conduct a reflection at the end of each unit. The resources have helped to develop

best practice in the classroom and encourage the students to speak up and advocate for

themselves in positive and productive ways. Using further resources such as Knutson’s guide

on building democracy in the classroom by “empowering students to take more responsibility for

their own learning” will thus result in increased community, collaboration, intrinsic motivation,

and skill development (Knutson, 2014). The development of these skills in the classroom will

prepare students to be positive productive global citizens.

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Teaching for Transformation I: Elementary and Secondary Content: Student-Led Advocacy
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 References

BC's new curriculum. (n.d.). Social Responsibility. Retrieved from

https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies/social-responsibility

Fletcher, A. (2015, December 11). New roles for young people throughout society

[Blog post]. Retrieved from http://treasure.over-blog.com/2015/12/new-roles-for-

young-people-throughout-society.html

Fletcher, A. (2018, January 7). Cycle of youth engagement: Youth voice. Retrieved from

https://freechild.org/cycle-of-youth-voice/

The Glossary of Education Reform. (2014, December 1). Voice. Retrieved

from https://www.edglossary.org/voice/

Mazzoni, M. (2012, August 4). Teaching kids to plan and take action toward their

personal goals [Blog post].  Retrieved from http://lifeafterieps.com/teaching-kids-

to-plan-take-action-toward-their-personal-goals/

Shafer, L. (2016, August 18). Giving Students a Voice. Retrieved from

https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/16/08/giving-students-voice.

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 Appendix:

This data highlights the feeling of students in a classroom that is considered high on student-
teacher relationships within the high school. This data demonstrates that even in the highest
learning environment students still do not feel as though their voice is important or heard. This
gives further urgency to the advocacy plan proposed by the students.

Johns Hopkins University School of Education

Teaching for Transformation I: Elementary and Secondary Content: Student-Led Advocacy
Revised July 2019 7