How Students Can Help Shape School Climate Policy and Practice
Danny Torres and Grace Westermann in Conversation with Rebeca Cerna and Julian Berkowitz-Sklar.
Julian Berkowitz-Sklar:
School climate, more specifically, in mental health, safety, inclusivity, and support, and there really are so many other factors. They really don’t have boundaries. Meaning, they affect every school in every country in the world, regardless of race, class, or gender. And so growing up in different communities and different academic settings in Costa Rica and Saratoga, I’ve witnessed how school climate has really affected my closest friends and my closest classmates. And so, we can’t expect adults to read our minds. So I think it’s important for us youth to really help guide the directions that our leaders or educators take with decision-making.
Danny Torres:
Welcome to Leading Voices, a podcast brought to you by WestEd, a national nonprofit, nonpartisan research development and service agency. This podcast highlights WestEd’s leading voices shaping innovations and applying rigorous research in ways that help reduce opportunity gaps and build communities where all can thrive. My name is Danny Torres.
Grace Westermann:
And I’m Grace Westerman.
Danny Torres:
We’ll be your hosts. Today, we’re here with Rebecca Cerna, director of the California Center for School Climate [“Center”], the California Department of Education initiative led by WestEd. At WestEd, Rebecca works to improve educational and health outcomes for educators and students. She’s an expert in many areas, including health and wellness; school culture and climate; data use; and cross-sector collaboration.
Grace Westermann:
We’re also here with special guest Julian Berkowitz-Sklar. Julian is a graduating senior at Saratoga High School in California. He enjoys reading fantasy fiction; playing sports; spending time outdoors; and hanging out with friends and family. He hopes to continue meeting amazing people while pursuing his passions in helping to better the world.
Danny Torres:
Rebecca and Julian, it’s great to have you with us.
Rebeca Cerna:
Thank you for having us, Grace and Danny.
Julian Berkowitz-Sklar:
Yeah, thank you so much for having us. I’m really excited to be here.
Danny Torres:
So Grace, in this episode we’re diving into the topic of school climate and its impact on students’ academic achievement and well-being. It’s a subject that’s getting a lot of attention lately.
Grace Westermann:
Absolutely, Danny, I’m really excited to learn more about it. And research is showing that a positive school climate doesn’t just improve academic achievement, but it also contributes to the social and emotional well-being of students. This evidence has caught the attention of educators, policymakers, and parents who are increasingly recognizing that student voices are essential for improving policies and practices that shape their environment and school culture.
Danny Torres:
Yeah, and as I understand it, schools and districts that prioritize strengthening school climate practices are witnessing increased engagement from parents, caregivers, and other community members. Strengthening school climate practices really benefits everyone involved. So without further ado, let’s dive into today’s topics, starting with our first guest, Rebecca Cerna. Rebecca, what is school climate and what supports are essential when building a positive school climate that helps improve outcomes for students?
Rebeca Cerna:
That’s a great question. The way we view a positive school climate is one that fosters healthy interactions and relationships and promotes equitable well-being for staff, students, family members, and other educational partners that are part of their school community. Positive school climates blossom when schools prioritize a shared purpose, a shared vision of supportive relationships; students and staff wellness; participatory opportunities to engage with their educational partners; and their equitable and inclusive practices.
Danny Torres:
Now, can you tell us about the California Center for School Climate? What is its mission? What does it do?
Rebeca Cerna:
The California Center for School Climate—we also refer to it as CCSC—is funded by the California Department of Education. The Center was launched in January 2022. Our goals for the California Center for School Climate are to provide relevant school-climate coaching supports to districts and schools and to support them with best practices in collecting, in using, and monitoring school climate data.
Danny Torres:
Rebecca, how does the Center support districts around school climate data?
Rebeca Cerna:
We help them with existing data that they might already be collecting, which is their local school climate surveys—like the California Healthy Kids Survey, like Youth Truth, or Panorama survey—or we help them with other existing data that they have, and we also work with them to try and figure out what additional data they might need to dig deeper.
Danny Torres:
So in this work with the Center, how do you center student voices? What is the Youth Advisory Team and why was it created?
Rebeca Cerna:
The Center takes a participatory approach to the work that we do. So over the past year and a half, we’ve collaborated with a group of current high school students, including Julian, who serve on the Center’s Youth Advisory Team. So for example, they reviewed a brief that we created on calming spaces in schools and classrooms, and they provided feedback and we made adjustments based on their input.
We meet with the youth to engage and understand their lived experiences as current students, and as part of our partnership with them, we held discussions on various topics with them related to school climate, such as mental health and well-being; identity; bullying; school safety; and equity and inclusion. They also had opportunities during our sessions to engage on their own with each other, with the other youth members.
Danny Torres:
I want to learn a little bit more about the Youth Advisory Team and how it helps the Center better understand students’ experiences and perspectives in relation to the school climate issues. Can you tell our listeners more about this?
Rebeca Cerna:
Collaborating with youth has allowed us to center their wisdom and to elevate their strengths because to create change, we need to attend to those we are serving. It’s about building knowledge capacity for us, so that we can better support the field and make informed decisions based on their experiences as youth and young adults. It has allowed us to work towards building collective capacity to collaborate and to make shared decisions.
Danny Torres:
What are some of the most significant contributions the Youth Advisory Team has made and how can schools integrate these contributions to their school climate efforts?
Rebeca Cerna:
One key way is by them providing and sharing their lived experience as current secondary students. Earlier I mentioned how we’ve cowritten content, and one example is that we coauthored a toolkit called “Cultivating Caring Relationships” that has examples of activities that staff can use to foster relationships with students. The youth decided it was important to focus on developing content for a resource on developing relationships at school, especially given the absence of in-person connections over the past couple years due to the pandemic. And so we collaborated with the Youth Advisory Team members on activities that could support building relationships and connections at school.
We recently released two audiocasts for the Center that highlight the perspectives of the youth. One is on how to meaningfully engage with youth on school climate practices, and the other one is on their perspectives on school safety. The youth collaborated in preparation for these. The youth collaborated on identifying topics, coming up with the questions, and preparing their responses. What is so compelling is to hear their voices, or if you read the transcript, then you absorb their direct words. It’s not finessed in any way, and there’s something always refreshing and enlightening when we create from their wisdom.
Danny Torres:
Well, you could find all the Center resources developed in partnership with the Youth Advisory Team in the podcast show notes. And we’ll hear from a student who worked on those resources. But before we move to Julian, I want to ask if students were involved in other aspects of the Center work.
Rebeca Cerna:
Yes, in our coaching work and professional learning supports that we provide to districts. So in the past month, for example, we have engaged with several districts and schools that are part of the Center’s School Climate Collaborative, and we facilitated student listening circles. So it’s a process for the schools to go beyond their quantitative data and really explore the stories behind the data. And it’s not only about listening to students, but it’s also about engaging in a process where they actively collaborate and partner with them to improve their practice and where they develop action plans together.
Danny Torres:
Well, it’s important to mention the types of stories school climate data can tell us. From academic achievement and school safety to mental health and well-being, these data can give system leaders a comprehensive understanding of the challenges students face and the areas where improvements can be made. It’s also essential for creating a supportive and nurturing environment.
Grace Westermann:
That’s right. And it’s impressive to see how CCSC is helping schools dive deeper into understanding their students’ experiences. But as Rebecca mentioned, it’s not only about listening to students, it’s also about actively partnering with them to develop action plans to improve school climate. Julian Berkowitz-Sklar is an inspiring example of how students can become catalysts for change within their school communities. We’re thrilled to have him here today to share his wisdom and insights as a student on CCSC’s Youth Advisory Team. Julian, what inspired you to join the Youth Advisory Team and why is school climate important to you?
Julian Berkowitz-Sklar:
Yeah, thanks again for having me today. School climate, more specifically in mental health, safety, inclusivity, and support, and it really is so many other factors. They really don’t have boundaries. Meaning, they affect every school in every country in the world regardless of race, class, or gender. And so growing up in different communities and different academic settings in Costa Rica and Saratoga, I’ve witnessed how school climate has really affected my closest friends and my closest classmates. And so, we can’t expect adults to read our minds. So I think it’s important for us youth to really help guide the directions that our leaders or educators take with decision-making. Personally, I just hope to try my best to accurately represent some of the struggles my peers face and what we can do about that.
Grace Westermann:
What are some of the struggles that your classmates are facing?
Julian Berkowitz-Sklar:
Yeah, that’s a really important question. There are so many struggles that vary different lengths. There’s the emotional struggle and then there’s the physical struggle. I’ve been fortunate enough not to experience nor have many of my friends experienced physical kind of struggles in school, but I know that it is very prevalent in a lot of communities. For me, specifically, mental health has been something that’s been a really big topic in the communities that I’ve lived in, especially California and the Bay Area, where we tend to be very competitive and driven and focused on college and grades.
And so specifically to my area, not just my school—but I’m sure this applies to many high schools across the nation—is the idea that students are getting overwhelmed very easily. And there’s a lot of this need to pile on as many things as you can. And when you pile on as many things as you can and then you end up not being able to do each of those perfectly—because, of course, that’s not humanly possible—we then take this mentality that it’s something that we’re doing or it’s something that I did wrong or I’m not living up to my parents’ expectations or other expectations. And so that type of climate is really what I think causes a lot of mental health issues and I guess negative climates amongst not just schools but students themselves.
Grace Westermann:
Can you tell us about a particular challenge or issue related to school climate that you’ve worked on and what you learned from that experience?
Julian Berkowitz-Sklar:
Yeah, I think specifically with this committee that I was working on with Miss Cerna is that they’ve done a really good job at providing us Youth Advisory Team members with countless opportunities across a really wide range of topics. And so from participating in an audiocast about the importance of school relationships and school safety to collaborating with peers on developing contents for this “Cultivating Caring Relationships” toolkit to again, reviewing products and attending meetings about equity and school safety, I personally feel as though we’ve covered many issues, but I think that one that sticks out to me in particular is the annual event student panel that I recently participated in this last February.
This panel was somewhat of a summary of everything we learned and everything we worked on in the past year. And with close to 200 school staff, parents, and a lot of educators tuned in, it was really encouraging to see how many adults would take the time to listen to what us students have to say. And so for about an hour, myself and three other young panelists, we were asked questions about school climate themes. And some of them I mentioned previously, “What can adults do to create a supportive environment?” We were also asked, “What struggles do youth face today that are unique to us? What is some advice you would give to adults in this room?” I think we realized how many adults were genuinely interested, especially after work hours, to listen and empathize with students.
Grace Westermann:
You mentioned collaborating with your peers on content to reviewing products and attending meetings about equity and school safety. What was your favorite part about working with your peers on school climate?
Julian Berkowitz-Sklar:
I think the more you collaborate with peers, especially from different areas, the more you really start to understand a lot of similarities that you have, but also a lot of differences that you have. And so that work for me was the most interesting part because although we could very easily relate to each other with struggles or positive experiences we’ve had as seniors or as juniors, it was even more interesting to learn about each of my peers and their backgrounds, where they grew up, what was unique to their specific community that maybe wasn’t really relevant to my community, but was very interesting to see how different schools and different climates were affected in different ways.
It also showed us that even though we students need the encouragement, need the support, need the help to create a positive school climate, to speak up and create action, adults need just as much encouragement, just as much support to know that we actually care about the school climate and that they are not just doing things just to do them, but they’re actually committing to actions that students will benefit from.
Grace Westermann:
And how has participating in the Youth Advisory Team impacted your understanding of school climate issues? Did it change how you experienced school?
Julian Berkowitz-Sklar:
A really cool part about this advisory team was talking with different students from many different areas and many different backgrounds. And so just that alone helps broaden your perspective and understanding school climate and all its issues. It’s really easy to localize our problems and experiences. I think this team has really taught me that you need one general kind of method to influence schools, but it’s also important for that method to be able to take different shapes to be able to accommodate all of the different cultures.
Another thing that I took away from the Youth Advisory Team, which at first glance seems minimal, but during my daily life just going about school, I realized how much more of an impact it had than I’d realized at first. A lot of our conversations revolved around details and small things that adults could do to support students. And so walking around during school days and just having all of my teachers say, “Hi, Julian, how are you doing?” Or having the administrators ask, “How was your weekend?” Or getting to a conversation with Archie, our janitor, about the basketball team and how we’re doing this year. It’s those really small details that the advisory team made me realize how much they actually impact and help support our positive school climate.
Grace Westermann:
And Julian, what recommendations do you have for school leaders on collaborating with students to improve school climate?
Julian Berkowitz-Sklar:
That’s a very good question. I think, for school climate specifically, it’s definitely a two-way street. You can’t expect students to care about school climate if the adults aren’t actively listening and engaging with the students. But students also can’t expect to have a positive school climate if they’re not speaking out in the first place and letting adults know what their concerns are. And so I think, it’s really important to build a relationship between adults and students first before collaborating on a school climate. And so I think my two recommendations: My first one would be that it’s really important for students to feel comfortable speaking up in any environment. And in my opinion, a really important way to create that comfortable environment is by adults, teachers, administrators, custodial staff humanizing themselves.
A lot of the time, students see these adults on campus as people who are able to make decisions, people who might give punishments, people who might give rewards. But I think it’s really important for students to also see those adults as people and people who have their own life experiences, people who have their own struggles, their own ups and downs. And so I think when adults are willing to be vulnerable, obviously to the extent that they feel comfortable, but vulnerable in the sense of letting their students know that they’re also going through things.
Another thought that comes to mind that I think is really important for school in general is the idea that students in high school, especially, need to be guided but not necessarily pushed. And I think that means it’s really important for adults to be there for students who need help, who need guiding. Maybe they don’t know what classes to take, sometimes things start happening at home, sometimes the personal life issue. So I think it is really important when adults are able to ask students how they’re doing, especially during high school, for students to learn and understand the importance of adapting and not everything going our way and not always succeeding, not always getting A’s, not always getting awards.
Because once we graduate high school, we go into college, gap years, jobs, very different paths. And in that world, there isn’t going to be a teacher or an adult making everything easier for us or helping to guide us in every little thing. And so I think it’s really important to find that balance between guiding students in the right direction, but not necessarily pushing them and not necessarily giving us a safety cushion to fall on.
Grace Westermann:
I like that you highlighted guiding and not pushing because I think it’s really our job as adults to guide youth by inviting them into conversations that help them identify the path they need to thrive. And it sounds like you found your path, or at least the start of one, and I’m excited to see where your journey to bettering the world takes you.
Danny Torres:
Yeah. Thank you, Julian. It reminds me of the proverb, “Give a person a fish, you feed them for a day; teach a person to fish and you feed them for a lifetime.” Are there any last thoughts you’d like to share with our audience today?
Julian Berkowitz-Sklar:
I think across a lot of schools and areas in general, there are a lot of people who are really inspired and really encouraged to make a difference and to make a change. And I think this can be seen in parents and students, in high school staff members, and then in educators outside of high school. I think something that’s really important that I think affects every level of that kind of making-a-difference movement is backing up our talk and not just talking about it but actually doing it.
And so I think this podcast, in specific, and the Youth Advisory Team are really important examples in my opinion of acting and backing up all of our talk. It’s really important, especially, in schools when students and administrators and teachers come together to talk about school climate. It’s really important to not just talk about it, get it out in the open, but then to really execute and implement solutions that can help the school climate in the long run. Understanding that it’s so good to talk things out and for all parties involved to understand each other’s perspectives, but it’s even more so important to then take that perspective and do something with it.
Danny Torres:
So Rebecca, any last thoughts from you?
Rebeca Cerna:
So I mean, even here listening to Julian, it’s so powerful, and we hear time and time again when we work with schools and districts, when we’re able to create these spaces, when we have these opportunities to authentically engage youth and seeing them as equal partners like Julian was mentioning, that’s so critical. We learn so much through these conversations, and we need to do more of this and create more opportunities for youth to be able to collaborate as equal partners.
Danny Torres:
Rebecca and Julian, thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk with us today. And thank you for your leadership in this work.
Rebeca Cerna:
Thank you, Danny and Grace, for this opportunity to share more about how we have been partnering with youth and how we hope to continue partnering with youth to support the field in strengthening school climate practices.
Julian Berkowitz-Sklar:
Ditto to that. Thank you so much, Danny and Grace, really appreciate taking the time to talk with us about all the work. And of course, thank you, you, Rebecca, for having me on the Youth Advisory Team. It’s very much appreciated.
Rebeca Cerna:
Thank you, Julian. I mean, really.
Grace Westermann:
And thanks to our listeners for joining us. All the resources mentioned in this episode will be available online at WestEd.org/leadingvoicespodcast or in the show notes on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify. For more resources, tools, and guidance to support your efforts in creating a thriving and inclusive school environment, visit the California Center for School Climate’s website at ccsc.wested.org.
Danny Torres:
This podcast is brought to you by WestEd, a national nonprofit, nonpartisan research development and service agency. At WestEd, we believe that learning changes lives. Every day, we partner with schools and communities across the country to improve outcomes for youth and adults of all ages. Today’s episode focused on one really important facet of the work that we do at WestEd, and I encourage you to visit us at www.wested.org to learn more. And special thanks to Grace Westerman, content manager and cohost for this episode, and to Sanjay Pardanani, our audio producer. Thank you for joining us, until next time.