Citizen voices are key to COVID response in education and beyond Add to Kentucky’s groundswell of education influencers some innovative, if earnest, laypeople. We are part of a citizen research team of school stakeholders. We call ourselves the “Intergen 9,” and we comprise three parents, three teachers, and three students representing eight districts across the Commonwealth, including five people of…
Tag: Student Voice
Our Schools, Our Boards, Our Elections: A Look Behind The Scenes
After a couple weeks of nonstop planning, hours on Zoom calls, hundreds of emails, a great deal of sorting through questions, numerous outreach efforts, and staying up way past what many consider to be a normal bed time, we, the members of the Prichard Committee Student Voice Team, concluded our series of virtual town halls with school board candidates and…
Kentucky Seniors Speak Out On COVID-19 Disruptions
Since March, we have seen our local schools and communities rally around the Class of 2020. We’ve all driven past the signs in the front yards to recognize the seniors. We’ve all posted our own senior pictures with big hair in the 80s to the unforgivable 90s style trends from many moons ago to show support for them. What we…
Trying to Build A Great Classroom Culture For All Students? Here Are 5 Things Anyone Can Do.
I just got back from an amazing professional learning session delivered by Kentucky State University’s Dr. Roger Cleveland. In the session, he had us do an equity activity that absolutely made my jaw drop. Here’s how it worked. We were each given five index cards and were instructed to write different labels that identify ourselves, like race, faith, sexual orientation,…
Student Voice Matters
This past January, Rachel Belin and representatives of the Prichard Committee’s Student Voice Team came to educate my students on student voice. In one of the activities that they did with my class, my students were all lined up in the front of the room. Rachel explained she would ask them a “yes” or “no” question and then they would…
Bring Student Voice Back To Kentucky
Although Kentucky has now dropped this practice, one informal factor of teacher evaluations used to come in the form of student voice surveys. The surveys were introduced back in 2013 as part of Kentucky’s new professional growth and evaluation system (PGES), designed to make sure that teachers are growing in their skills and being held to high standards. As the…
If We’re Going to Have a Real Conversation About Education, We’ll Need A Few More Seats at This Table
Often when I let my students work in groups, I remind them of a favorite proverb of mine: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” They usually roll their eyes when I say that, but it’s true. Working alone can be efficient at times, but if we really want to push…