Our Agenda

Students deserve to have our voices heard. We are taught to value democracy and fair representation in school, now we are calling on our schools to uphold these values by empowering the voices of students to shape our education. Students—especially Black, Indigenous, and students of color—must be positioned as authentic partners in the decision-making process at every level of education.

• Voting Student Board Member: Every governing body in a district and schools must have student(s) representation with voting power. This representation should prioritize elevating BIPOC and marginalized students as leaders.
• Ongoing Feedback Cycle: Create and ensure there are multiple opportunities for students to directly share feedback and experiences beyond speaking at school board meetings.
• Accessible Board Meetings: Schedule board meetings that are easily accessible for students to engage and participate in.

Now is the time for students to reclaim and reimagine how schools teach us. Students deserve a holistic curriculum that dismantles white supremacy in public education. Our country must reconcile with the wrongs of our past and lead a new pathway forward. A just curriculum is truthful about our nation’s history, affirms the intersectional identities of all students, and empowers us to be critical leaders.

• Authentic Evaluation: School districts will conduct an internal audit to assess and evaluate where current standards, curriculum, and teaching methods derive from, and decolonize curriculum and textbooks in every subject area in all k-12 grade levels.
• Relevant Courses: Meet student demands by adding courses connected to anti-racist history, civic engagement, financial literacy, and comprehensive sex education.
• Strengthening Student/Teacher Partnerships: Integrate student surveys into evaluating teacher and instructional effectiveness.
• Shift Power Dynamics: Create classrooms where students and teachers are able to learn from one another, creating a positive learning environment. Having an understanding that one person does not hold all the knowledge, we must center the classroom culture on community cultural wealth.

Before we can expect students to engage in learning, we must prioritize and support their socio-emotional well-being. We should work to actively heal the generational trauma of years of systemic oppression. Our schools must play an active role in supporting students' basic needs.

• Team of Support: We need full time, culturally competent, qualified mental health professionals, counselors, and social workers who are reflective of the student population in which they support.
• Centering Our Experiences: Staff who are specifically trained to address the issues faced by the student body, including racial trauma, LGBTQ experiences, and poverty.

Students have the greatest understanding of what it takes to create a school culture that is safe and high achieving. We reject one-size-fits-all thinking; we are intersectional beings who deserve to thrive. We demand restorative, collaborative, and culturally competent practices to fulfill our potential.

• Protecting All Students: Nationwide legal protections for marginalized students (LGBTQ, BIPOC, undocumented, students with disabilities).
• Restorative Justice: Implement restorative, collaborative, and culturally competent practices because all students must be seen as full, complex human beings.
• Differentiated Pathways: Utilizing varying forms of instruction, learning, and collaboration to drive the greatest growth in every student.
• Access to Rigor: Increase diversity and support in advanced courses.

Nowhere is systematic racism more transparent than in the unethical underfunding of our Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities and schools. As young people, we are the leaders of the future, so it is our nation’s duty to invest in the untapped potential of all students. Every child, regardless of their zip code, race, nationality, immigration status, sexuality, or gender identity, should be valued and invested in as individuals and historically marginalized groups. We demand funding practices that meet the communicated needs and aspirations of our communities.

• Equitable Funding: Change formulas, budget cycles, and the process, to ensure accountability toward improved outcomes for Black, Indigenous, and students of color.
• Accountable to Feedback: Integrate authentic student and community input & audits directly into budget allocations, at the levels of schools, districts, and states.
• Open Doors: Allow undocumented students to be eligible for in-state tuition.
• College Promise: Free higher education for disenfranchised youth.