Feature Facts: April 2024

RAISING STUDENT VOICE AND PARTICIPATION

Following the tragic death of a student in a pedestrian-motor vehicle crash, Burlington City High School in Burlington, NJ, started a 25 Saves Lives Campaign to bring awareness to the dangerous school zone where the crash occurred. The campaign led to a new state law, which reduced the speed on the road to 25 miles per hour. Former Principal James Flynn says the campaign “opened my eyes to the power and passion of student voice, leadership, agency, youth-adult partnership, and citizenship. Students truly can change the world.” One tool Flynn used to help make that happen was NASSP’s Raising Student Voice & Participation (RSVP) program, which helps schools embrace student voice and youth-adult partnerships. RSVP also helps encourage the voices of students who are not elected to positions of leadership or heard in school on a consistent basis.

CELEBRATE NATIONAL STUDENT LEADERSHIP WEEK

April 22–26 is National Student Leadership Week (NSLW), a tradition started by NASSP more than 50 years ago to celebrate student leadership in all its varied ways. “A lot of times, the hardest working kids on campus are those clubs’ members and officers and presidents,” says Miraya Julian, the adviser for the National Honor Society chapter and student council at Southeast Career and Technical Academy in Las Vegas, NV. “They are just grinding every day, and they don’t always get recognized.” There are many ways to celebrate NSLW, but here are just a few:

•  Share student leader stories.
•  Host an NSLW assembly.
•  Organize a service project.
•  Invite community leaders for a meet-and-greet.
•  Visit studentleadershipweek.org.

ENGAGING STUDENTS AS EQUAL PARTNERS IN PROMOTING EQUITY

It has taken a few years of hard work, but New York City’s High School of Fashion Industries (HSFI) has made big progress in focusing on belonging and equity for all students. Principal Daryl Blank and education consultant Lee Teitel explain what makes HFSI different is that the school is “doing this work with their students, not to them.” Blank and Teitel say students involved in the effort found that when their ideas were listened to and acted upon, they were more able to hear administrators’ perspectives on equity-related issues. They saw they shared common goals with administrators and watched their student peers develop the courage to speak up. “I’m most excited about connecting the two parts of my job—the reactive part of leading 2,000 people in a building and having stuff happen and the proactive planning and learning piece that comes from investing in student leadership and equal partnerships,” Blank says.

FIVE STRATEGIES FOR TEACHER RETENTION

To retain high-performing teachers, school leaders must create a positive school culture, according to Marck Abraham, the president of MEA Consulting Services. “Staff must know that your school is thriving, and they must feel supported to find joy in the work,” he says. He offers five strategies to help promote that positive culture:

•  Build relationships with academic achievement in mind.
•  Create clear systems, from bell schedules to discipline procedures.
•  Support teacher voice.
•  Create a culture of celebration and recognition.
•  Invest in continuous learning.