According to California Healthy Kids Survey school climate data, fewer than one third of California secondary students report feeling that they have opportunities for meaningful participation at school, including having a say in how things work and helping decide school activities or rules. When adults miss out on hearing directly from students—especially students of color—it can deepen racial inequities in school systems. 

Making opportunities available to these students for leadership and for co-creating school systems can be a key component of efforts to achieve racial equity in education. This brief produced by the Equity Accelerator initiative suggests that successfully transforming education systems to be more student centered involves addressing four key elements:

  • Individual Mindsets
  • Interpersonal Relationships
  • Community Culture
  • Structural and Systemic Supports

In addition to offering ideas for effectively implementing student voice initiatives generally, this brief specifically includes ideas for advancing racial equity and elevating the perspectives of the students whom the Equity Accelerator aimed to better serve through its efforts.

About the Equity Accelerator Project 

Funded by the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation as part of the COVID Education Equity Response Collaborative, the Equity Accelerator project provided statewide professional learning sessions in California and a fellowship program for staff from select county offices of education (COEs) from January through November 2021. The project supported California’s COEs to improve how their whole-child and whole-school efforts align with each other and cohere with a vision of cultivating fundamental and sustainable change toward more equitable education systems.