The Power of Student Voice — Bidwell Junior High

LEXI:

Student School climate advisory is a group on our campus that we meet up once a month and we talk about what’s going on at school what we can fix and What needs and what can stay the same

DAVID MCKAY: 

We started the school climate advisory several years ago again as a school Improvement vehicle and you know we wanted to create a formal structure where we could identify you know recruit select students who represented as much as possible that cross section that I mentioned earlier about our school so that we’re hearing from everybody in the community not just the leadership students or the web leaders 

SAMANTHA:

It’s nice having a voice to I can speak for other people that don’t have a voice at to improve our school 

DAVID MCKAY:

Why do we tend to wait and let these problems pile up until all of a sudden we have this dumpster fire of a year.

LEXI:

There’s a lot of students who aren’t necessarily like all about being a super like social butterfly and they don’t really talk about the issues that’s happening on campus and I like to give the students a chance so I usually go around and I ask like some of my friends or some of their friends if they have any like concerns about the school and then I go to school program and advisory so that month and I talk about those issues so we can jump on things like right away and the kids know.

DAVID MCKAY:

They have a way to communicate with us so they feel her they feel seen they feel like we’re being they’re being paid attention to and we can also interrupt these negative Trends and so the kids that are kind of prone to do some of these things realize it’s going to go easier for them if they don’t and you start stacking up those class periods stacking up those days they turn into weeks they turn into months pretty soon you got a lot of really positive momentum going

JORDAN:

I like that most people are very honest about stuff and usually know what they’re talking about.

LEXI:

When I talk to teachers or our vice principal or Mr McKay it’s usually like I usually feel like I am being listened to because I’m not issue is spoken up about either on the loudspeaker in the morning announcements or it’ll be talked to for those like students that we are talking about who are causing the issues and they usually get talked to and then it like resolves itself 

JORDAN:

I got involved becaused I wanted to get to school better make myself better since I had to talk past my stuff so helps me and help sellers 

LEXI:

I originally joined because my friend joined and that’s just like that’s that’s the truth and then I found like a love and passion for helping out around the school campus and it then my friend stop doing it and I just kept going with it because I enjoy being able to help out around the campus especially when there’s new sixth graders every year and they don’t have to worry about the problems that we had to worry about when we were in sixth grade

SAMANTHA:

What I like about it is that we make change and it’s not trouble doesn’t stay at our school and it helps improve it 

DAVID MCKAY:

The more you can have like that check in with parents are going to get a really good 360 perspective of what’s going on in your school. You’re going to get more people feeling like they have a voice more people feeling like to have a stake in in your school’s success.