Transcript: Youth Perspectives: The Importance of Caring Relationships at School & Closing

Rebeca Cerna: 

On behalf of the California Center for School Climate, I would like to welcome you to our session on Youth Perspectives:  The Importance of Caring Relationships at School. My name is Rebeca Cerna and I serve as the Director of the California Center for School Climate and I’m an Area Director at WestEd. I want to share a little bit about the California Center for School Climate. It’s an initiative of the California Department of Education and it’s led by WestEd. We provide free supports on school climate and data use to local education agencies in California. CCSC offers several types of supports, including data use webinars, peer learning exchanges, and other professional learning opportunities. Our website can be found on the Linktree being posted in the chat.  

As part of CCSC, we also have a Youth Advisory Team of six high school students representing different regions from California. We collaborate with them by getting input from them on topics related to school climate, and we also collaborate in co-developing resources with them. We meet with them regularly and over the past year we have been exploring the topic of positive adult relationships at school. Much of the topic for today’s virtual event, The Power of Relationships, is one that stemmed from our Youth Advisory Team. 

For those of you who joined us this morning for the keynote with Jaleel Howard, he noted the importance about connections, about relationships, on disrupting disengagement. In that session, hundreds of us present shared in the chat a teacher or an educator or a counselor’s name from our own school experience who made a difference and we still remember them. It’s the power of relationships. In this final session for today’s event, we will continue the conversation around the power of relationships from the perspective of youth. Our speakers will share their perspective on how positive relationships have impacted them, on how adults can support safe and supportive learning environments for them, and what we adults should know about being a student today. 

The chat is going to remain open for the webinar and we invite you to interact with other audience members. Towards the end of the session, we are going to have a panel discussion so that we are going to have an opportunity to have questions and answers for our young adults, for our Youth Advisory Team. We invite you to submit questions in the Q&A featured at the bottom of the toolbar for our youth and the slides and resources mentioned are going to be included in the Linktree that is being shared in the chat. 

We’re very excited about this session. I would like to first introduce our moderator, Lan Nguyen. Lan is a Program Associate at WestEd and a Technical Assistance Provider for the Center. As a former high school science teacher and experienced restorative practitioner, Lan is grounded in the daily realities of school and classroom life and has used that knowledge to guide her work with school and district leaders. With that, I’m going to pass it to you, Lan. 

Lan Nguyen: 

Great. Thank you so much, Rebeca. I’m really excited to be here with all of you today and with our Youth Advisory Team, of course, who I’m pleased to introduce and I’ve had the pleasure of working with them over the past year. With us today, we have Alexa Southall. Alexa is a sophomore in San Diego County. She’s interested in mental health advocacy and would like to study public policy in college. In her spare time, Alexa likes to  crochet, journal, watch TV, and play games with her family.  

We have with us today also Aisha Bilgrammi. Aisha is a sophomore at Irvine High School. She wants to continue helping people and study business. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, going to the gym, and spending time with loved ones. 

Next up we have Jubia Chavez. Jubia is a senior in Fresno County. She’ll be majoring in interior design and architecture once she graduates. Her passions include family, art, travel, music, and helping those around her.  

Of course, last but not least, we have Julian Berkowitz-Sklar with us today. Julian is a senior at Saratoga High School. He enjoys reading fantasy and fiction, playing sports, spending time outdoors, and hanging out with friends and family. He hopes to continue meeting amazing people while pursuing his passions and helping to better the world.  

I don’t know about you all, but that’s a great group we have with us today and so we really hope that this is an opportunity for you all to just really listen to the perspectives of our Youth Advisory Team. So we’ll go ahead and actually jump into the Q&A here. Of course, as was shared, please continue sharing your questions if you have them in the Q&A feature and/or in the chat. 

All right, here we are, and again, I’m really excited to moderate this discussion and so we have a question that we just want to start off with. This question is really just thinking about the experience of students in school today. Our Youth Advisory Team are currently in school. In fact, they missed class to be here, so much love to them for that. The first question, we’ll just get started, is that what school looks like today is very different than how adults may have experienced it when they were in your shoes. So the question is, “Can you all share with us what is it like to be a student in school today?” 

Julian: 

Yeah, I think I can take a crack at the first question. Thank you so much, Lan, for the introduction. Well, I think something that students today are very privileged to have is that accessibility and opportunity is a little bit more widespread. There’s still a lot of gaps, but for the most part, students have more opportunity to get involved in their student body and their local and national communities. But I also think with this increase in accessibility and having so many things to do, there has been a lot of pressure and a lot of stress specifically on this new generation of students to actually do all of these things that you are able and given to you, not to mention the increased pressure for college and the increased difficulty in applying to certain colleges and doing certain things. 

I think there’s a very difficult mentality for a lot of students, including myself, which is there are so many things available and having the feeling and the sentiment that we have to do everything and we have to do everything perfectly in that sense. I think there’s a flip-flop in terms of pros and cons from having that type of availability. 

Alexa: 

I would definitely echo that. I think this generation has a lot of accessibility to just what’s going on on such a massive scale and so I think there’s a lot of comparison not just within our own communities, but also having to take into account what’s happening in the world around us. I think the pressure and stress that comes along with that is something that’s often brought to school and kind of creates a very pressuring environment, like Julian said, for a lot of students. 

Jubia: 

Adding on to that, it is really difficult to be a student nowadays, but besides it being complicated, it is fun as well. I’m not going to just throw out the negative, but not only is there expectations from parents, teachers, and other students, but it’s also because of the pressures of everybody else surrounding you. So it is very complex in that sense. 

Aisha: 

I think to add on, social media and technology is also what really, I think, differentiates our generation and past generations because we are digital natives. So not only are we navigating all of these different opportunities, but we’re also navigating life with social media and other kinds of technology. 

Lan Nguyen: 

Great. I think what we’re hearing is, as I was listening to your responses, I was thinking about how in some ways you are all more global citizens in ways that maybe wasn’t true when I was in school because you’re just so connected to what’s happening in the world more largely. I think you sharing that that kind of enters the classroom space in the school space is really, I think, an interesting insight. So, thank you all for sharing that.  

We’ll go ahead and transition to another question. The theme of today’s event is all about the power of relationships and so really we want to know from your perspective, “How can adults at school better connect or build relationships with their students?” 

Julian: 

I think that’s a really good question. I think a lot of the times the focus on creating better relationships can be on big events and big activities and school-wide involved things, but I think especially from a student perspective — and I think the other participants can ditto — is that a lot of the time it’s the smaller things that allow me to feel more comfortable with the adults on campus and make me feel like I can reach out to them, really things that were just taught in everyday life. When a teacher stops me on the way to class and just says hi and checks up on me, “How are you doing?”, those type of simple things really give me a bigger comfort level. 

But, also, when adults on campus, whether it’d be admin or staff in general or teachers, when they show an interest in student activities, that’s what kind of, for me, takes down the “intimidation barrier” — them being less of a top down hierarchy and more like they are my mentors and they’re people who are here to help me, but they’re also here to support me. When they go to sports games or spirit rallies or band, that shows me that they’re someone I can relate to and someone I can actually talk to through one-on-one experiences. 

Aisha: 

I really agree with Julian, and I think to add on, it really starts with intention and adults having the intention to connect with their students and support them beyond just academics. I think that makes them feel more comfortable and supported and especially seen, and that’s where really beautiful relationships can begin. 

Alexa: 

I agree with all of that was said. I think it really comes down to approachability and just feeling like the teachers and staff on a school campus are open to being able to have conversations with students. And, also, when it comes to building those relationships, I think it’s also important to note that as an adult there’s things you can offer to students that other students can’t offer. And being able to provide resources or being able to provide support to students who may come to you with issues over what a student can provide is something that’s really valuable when we talk about relationships between students and adults. 

Jubia: 

I think my peers hit the dot on the question and the answer. Besides it being just asking about a student’s day, I think it’s genuinely having an interest on what they have to say, and how they’re feeling, and just genuine intention overall in what’s going on with the student’s life outside of school. 

Julian: 

I just want to add something onto that from what Jubia was saying. I also think when adults in general … I think that a really good way to help connect with students is for adults themselves to also be willing to be vulnerable. That doesn’t mean we have to share the nitty-gritty details, but I think students can feel more comfortable sharing what’s going on in their lives and any concerns or worries they have if they hear that the adults who are older, probably wiser or more experienced, are also sharing a lot of those same concerns and worries. It brings on that community feeling that they’re not just going through it alone. 

Lan Nguyen: 

Right. What I’m really appreciating too, what I’m hearing in your responses, is just this idea of, well, first intention, and I had to retype that in the chat just because it starts with intention as really important. But also, Julian, what you shared about it doesn’t always need to be these big grand gestures. It’s those small moments. I think in a lot of ways what you all shared was really about how do we humanize classroom spaces and school spaces. Because traditionally there’s this relationship of power between adults and students in a school and in that it can make it intimidating and make adults maybe feel not as approachable as they could be, and maybe they don’t even intend to be a bit unapproachable. That’s why it’s so important to hear from you all. That vulnerability, of course, selective vulnerability, showing that we’re human beings and we’re learning together. 

And there is, as you said Julian, there’s some lessons that can be passed down. But how do we do that in a way that’s connecting, that’s intentional, and that’s really in those small everyday practices? Folks are responding in the chat and really resonating with what’s being shared so far, so appreciate your responses to that. We’ve talked about so far this idea that the schooling experience is different. I think many folks … I think someone had just put in the chat that they agree with that, and I think most adults would probably agree schooling experience is really different than it was for them as young people. Then, of course, talking about how can adults really help build those connections with students like you. 

I think part of building relationships is also understanding the student experience and so we started talking about that, but we wanted to circle back around to a question about challenges. So the question is, “From your perspective, what do you think are unique challenges that students your age are facing in school?” 

Jubia: 

That’s a great question and a really, I guess, kind of a complicated question to answer because, as you said, times are changing and not only is there more challenges, but they’re different challenges than other people might have faced in the past. For example, beauty standards, they’re really big now, not only on social media (but) from other people as well that may say it to you. Also, fear of rejection I feel like is a big one. Not only from students or teachers, but as well as just other adults in general. I think bullying has also been a big part of that challenge. Bullying has now become also cyber bullying, which is more dangerous because it could be anonymous as well, which normally triggers depression or lack of motivation academically, physically, and emotionally. I think those challenges are really big nowadays. 

Aisha: 

I agree, and I think that academic pressures are something very unique to our generation. All the time I hear about from adults that Bs in honors and AP classes were not normal, so it’s so odd to them that taking AP classes and having all As is a big part of our culture. I think that’s kind of a really unique challenge that we deal with is the academic pressure. 

Julian: 

Just funny how, almost exactly what she said, I think that academic pressure also … I think it kind of resonates in different areas and different communities have probably their own different cultures, but also the intensity and pressure around college applications, especially for seniors, juniors, everyone in high school. It’s kind of this whole new system of revolving your high school life — not to say that this is brought on by the school itself or the administrators. Most likely it’s brought on by yourself or your family or just societal ideas — but the idea that high school life almost needs to revolve around building up a high school resume and how that’s going to then be submitted. And whatever college you get into is going to determine certain things in your life and if you don’t get into the college you want, it’s going to completely derail your whole 18 years or 17 years of work. So I think that mentality, that’s slowly just increasing as we go on. 

Alexa: 

I agree with everything that’s said, and I think we’ve touched on a lot of it. I also wanted to circle back to the whole social media and technology aspect. I think there’s a lot of need to feel like you’re good enough in comparison to such a wide amount of people and I also think just the introduction of social media has also caused things like cyber bullying and deterrence from academic rigor. I think just navigating what it means to be on social media and how it can affect your mental health is something that a lot of adults struggle to do as our generation is trying to figure that out too. 

Lan Nguyen: 

Great. I feel like the challenges are, as Jubia has said, complex. There’s the academic pressures, there’s the role that social media has played and the ways in which it has brought the world into the classroom and into the schooling experience. Jubia had mentioned beauty standards and bullying and how it’s just really morphed and is really complex. And so thank you, Alexa, for bringing us to the idea of social media and technology and its role.  

I’m just curious, and I’ll just want to add this question here, which is I feel like maybe folks are more aware of what are the maybe downsides of social media, right? I’m curious from you all, are there some positive points or things that you feel like with technology that you do like about being digital natives? Let me just reword the question as, “What do you think are the positive parts of the role of technology in social media in your experience, if at all?” 

Alexa: 

I think technology definitely provides support. I know Aisha was talking about APs and stuff, and having taken APs, I know without technology and having access to social media, it would’ve been much harder. Also, I think there is a benefit to having some sort of connection beyond your community and being able to have some exposure to a sense of diversity. Being able to be on virtual meetings and talk with people just across California is not something that a lot of people would’ve had access to do previously. So, I think it definitely allows you to have so many different perspectives at a young age, which I think in part is something that’s really important to being able to cultivate your own unique take on the things around you. 

Lan Nguyen: 

Thank you for that. Other thoughts? Anyone want to jump in on that question about what are some upsides of technology? 

Aisha: 

I agree with her, and I think that also technology allows students to access more information as well as connect with other people. We see that people have created communities and little spaces for themselves that they might not have in real life but now that they do have it through technology. 

Julian: 

I definitely ditto everything that’s been said. I think the only thing that I would want to add is somewhat of [inaudible], especially for students who maybe struggle socially in schools or maybe are having a difficult time finding their own social circles or making friends, especially if you’re a new student. Social media allows you to slowly gain confidence, slowly gain more social skills as you go on and make those friends, and then try to then transform it from that virtual world into the real world. I think it’s really good also to just develop those type of people skills first online and then try to transfer those over. 

Jubia: 

Adding on to what they said, Alexa touched a point, which is diverse. It is a very diverse platform and I think that also helps a lot of us, not only in the aspect of social media itself, but it also helps us understand each other. Since it is a diverse platform, it helps us come together as a community and help ourselves and help others as well on topics that might not be touched or talked about enough. So I think there is many upsides about social media and technology in general. There’s not just negatives. 

Lan Nguyen: 

I think it’s really important, I think, especially as adults who didn’t have access to the world’s knowledge in a phone and social media in the way that it exists today, that it’s important to understand from your perspective both the upsides and the downsides. Because I feel like it almost becomes this boogeyman, I think, with adults where it’s like, “Oh my gosh, social media is all bad. Technology’s all bad.” So, it’s really, I think, important for those of us that are out there that are in roles where we’re making policy around devices to understand fully how do students experience technology, what do they see as the roles? Alexis shared that it’s been a great support academically in some of her classes and so just having that well-rounded understanding of that and checking our own biases as adults and what we kind of think. So, we just kind of encourage folks in the audience to just ask the students in your community similar questions, “How are they experiencing technology?” 

Great. Okay. So, we kind of talked about the challenges. That was the question before about what are some challenges that you all experienced, and you all shared so honestly and authentically. Again, folks are resonating in the chat. So, the next question that we have for you all is, “Given the challenges, given what it’s like to be a student in school today, what kinds of supports do you think that students most need right now?” 

Jubia: 

I think that’s a great question after talking about the challenges. There is many students that do need help and do need more support, including personal support, emotional support, which I think is the most important one right now. There’s a lot of students that do urge for emotional support and constant reassurance from their teachers and adults and just peers in general. There are also many students that may need educational support, which I know there are many teachers that are willing to help, which is great, but I think it is very important to understand that students need emotional support as well. 

Julian: 

I think, right on track I think with what Jubia was saying in terms of needing emotional support, another important thing is having an outlet to voice what students define as emotional support and what they specifically need. So, I think one aspect that’s really important in terms of administrators or schools supporting students and their emotional health is places having student committees where students are able to directly voice their concerns or opinions directly to administrators or superintendents. So having these kind of smaller committees within the school and then larger ones within the district where certain students are chosen or certain students can speak out about these topics, I think it’s very important to help bridge that gap between admin specifically and students. 

Alexa: 

Just to echo what Julian was saying, I think it’s going to be different, the kind of supports that students need based on the student and their own experiences. I agree that it’s very important that whatever support the student needs, that there is some way that they can voice that support and that the staff or administrators of a school are able to receive it and really be able to consider what would work best to meet the students where they are and what they need done for them. 

Lan Nguyen: 

I think what’s so important about what you all share is just actually what support looks like. I think especially now in the larger field of education, we’re seeing a lot more investment in these kinds of ideas. We’re here today talking about the importance of relationships in school climate, and so I think that that’s a really important point that you all touched on is what that support looks like is not going to look the same and what systems for communication do we have set up in order to actually hear from students about how they’re experiencing those supports. I think all of that is really important. Also too, I think thinking critically about whose voices are most often heard at a school. Is it the ASB leaders? Is it those class presidents, those people who are comfortable actually speaking out? And thinking about who are we hearing from the most and how might that impact actually what we are able to hear, what we’re not able to hear. So great, thank you all for that.  

Transitioning to the next question here, we talk about what adults can do, what can students do, or what can adults do to build better relations with students, the importance of student voice. So the next question that we want to ask is what do you all think students can do? Students aren’t powerless agents in this. “What do you think the role of students are in terms of promoting a positive school climate?” 

Aisha: 

I think gossip is a large factor in a negative school climate and so refraining from gossip and gossip culture can really contribute to a much more positive and arguably safer school climate. I think we can do this by developing professionalism and more overt sensitivity towards other people to promote more positivity. 

Julian: 

I can also add … I mean, I think all of us student panelists, and I assume most people listening  to the webinar, students as a whole have a lot of power, and I personally think that students are a big factor in deciding our own positive school climate. And so I think it’s hard to come up with a solution as students if we students are part of the problem. In my opinion, the most important thing for students to do, including myself, is reflecting on our own behaviors. And it’s such a general, it’s a very general thing to say. Most people would want to reflect. But I think as students, especially as teens, there’s a whole stereotype like, “Oh, if my son is saying something he shouldn’t, he’s just being a teen. They’re going through that phase.” But I think it’s important for us to realize that this phase that a lot of us are going through, especially in high school, really impacts other people who are also going through the exact same thing. 

So I think it’s important for us students to put ourselves into a third perspective and understand that whatever is happening in our own lives is probably happening in someone else’s lives at even worse scale. Like Aisha was saying, when it comes to toxicity online, do you really have to comment something on Instagram that isn’t nice? Do you have to say something in person? Do you have to do certain digs? Do you have to mention a party when someone else isn’t invited? Those type of things I think it’s really important to reflect on because I think without first reflecting on the smaller details of what we as students are actively doing in our environment, then it’s really difficult for someone without that environment, admin and different adults, to try to change it. 

Alexa: 

I agree. I think there’s a lot of investment and a lot of people willing to help meet students where they need to be met, but it really takes the students to decide that they want that help or that they’re willing to accept the perspective from other adults. So I think, just in my own experience being in high school, what I’ve noticed is sometimes it’s really hard to pull yourself away from just believing what everybody else around you says. It’s very often you’ll hear students complaining about a situation at their school or something they don’t like, but really taking the step to recognize what they may be doing wrong, and if it’s not something that’s on their part, trying to recognize what they can do to fix it are steps that I know a lot of students aren’t necessarily willing to take and would rather just let it continue to happen as they continue to complain about it. I think it’s definitely something that students can work on is really working to be an advocate and a voice for themselves and really trying to set themselves apart from others who may not be doing that. 

Jubia: 

Adding on to what my peers said, I think it is very important to respect people’s privacy. That’s a big thing that I think we should all practice. And also working together and not avoiding the solution to the negativity that might be going around in school. Most importantly, to educate ourselves and do our own research and be aware of what’s going around us before we comment on it maybe. 

Aisha: 

I agree … 

Julian: 

Sorry, Aisha. Go ahead. 

Aisha: 

Go ahead, Julian. Thank you. I agree, and I wanted to circle back to Alexa. I think we have a lot of power and the more that we understand the power that we have on people, the more that we can begin to use it for better. But I think that boundaries is also a big factor in how we can promote a positive school climate in terms of gossip and how we interact with others. The more that we set boundaries, the better that we can do what’s right by ourselves and as a result right by other people. 

Julian: 

That’s a really good point. I didn’t think about boundaries. But as you were saying, I was like, “Yeah, I definitely 100% agree with that.” I also just want to add very quickly, I think students as a whole have a lot of power in terms of stigma and reaching out for help, specifically mental health. I think students taking it upon themselves to de-stigmatize certain things… it’s okay to go ask for help. It’s okay to see a therapist. It’s okay to not have the best day. I think it’s also equally as important for the adults on campus to help with that de-stigmatizing to, at this point in time, maybe teachers have conversations with their students about the stigma around certain topics and why it’s okay to not adhere to those. 

Lan Nguyen: 

Great reflections, and as I was listening to you all talk about, “Hey, as a student body, we have power, we have a role, and there is in that an accountability as well,” and so I’m really appreciating that because it’s just this willingness to say, “Hey, we can play a role in positive school climates.” So I think that’s really important. I was also thinking about … Aisha had talked about gossip and this need to reflect on — and Julian mentioned this — this need to reflect on our own selves and the ways in which we impact other people. What I was thinking about there is this idea of intention and actually having space to have these collective conversations because I think sometimes there’s this assumption that we all have an agreement about what something like respect means. What does it mean to respect someone’s privacy? 

So I think that these spaces also need to … we need to have time and space to actually just call these things forward, whether it’s gossip, whether it’s the ways in which social media comes into schools and how is that impacting us all. Having that collective conversation I think is a really important first step and, so while we can go off on our own and reflect if we don’t want our school climates to be incidental or by accident, if we want it to be intentional — and the only way it’s going to be positive is if we’re intentional about that — those spaces for conversations that we’re making, the ways in which we are listening to students or not, who we’re listening to, the assumptions that we’re all making. So just reflecting that back to you all because I’m just really appreciating that. And some folks in the chat have talked about they’re appreciating your awareness, your self-awareness and social awareness. But if we don’t want to leave it up to chance, we might want to think about how do we bring these conversations to our school communities more regularly and more intentionally.  

So great. All right. We’re going to transition to the next question, and we have questions coming in as well, but for now we’re going to talk about … I don’t think that I need to sit here and go, “There’s a lot going on in the world,” that school safety, for example, is something that is so much more at the forefront of the mind of current students in school today than I think in, I think it’s fair to say, than past generations of students. And so this question is … we want to talk about school safety, which can be emotional, physical, mental, so on. So the question is, “We know with all these things going on, we just want to know what would it mean to you all? What does it mean to feel safe at school?” 

Aisha: 

I think feeling safe at school physically and mentally are two very different things. Feeling safe mentally is really knowing that you have people you can not only trust, but who will advocate for you and support you, whether it be peers, but also adults. We see that really in healthy relationships with our peers and adults. And I think being protected physically is knowing that there’s appropriate and effective laws and regulations. Sexual assault, gun violence, police brutality injustices, and so many other things are what contribute to us not being safe, but when we see that we have laws and bills being passed that protect us from these things, we can go to school with a lot more peace of mind. 

Lan Nguyen: 

Other thoughts on school safety and what does safety mean? 

Alexa: 

I would just touch on what Aisha was saying that if as a student you raise an issue, whether it be a physical concern or emotional concern, knowing that it’s going to be addressed and that knowing that somebody is going to take it seriously and really try to understand your situation is something that I think is really important in making students feel secure. And also being able to go to school and feel like you’re allowed to be yourself and your own individual person without feeling like you’re being neglected by other teachers or staff or being ignored because you don’t fit a certain ideal of what they would like their students to look like. 

Lan Nguyen: 

Those two things are so deep, I think, about what safety means. I think that what you’re sharing is that it’s actually complex. It’s physical, it’s kind of this larger social political moment that we’re living in, and the ways in which that comes into our schools and into our classrooms. Then Alexa sharing about our assumptions about what do we expect of students and the need to interrogate that and think about that a lot more deeply as we’re doing the work to make space for these environments that we hope to create. One thing too that’s resonating with me that you shared, Alexa, is having an issue and knowing that something’s actually going to be done about it. I know I’ve talked to students over the course of my time in the classroom and I’ve heard that before, this idea that, “Well, you all say that we should come to you, but then when we come to you, what’s the result of that? What is a tangible action that’s going to actually support us in that?” So I’m just kind of calling that forward as an important factor in this question about safety. 

Cool. All right. Going back to this idea of supports and safety and all of that, I would be curious to hear from you about whether it’s kind of    and it can be any support really, these resources, supports, people, anything really. Share some supports that you’ve experienced or activities or anything that you’ve been part of that you feel like have contributed to the sense of safety and connectedness. I’ll just phrase the question as, “What supports and resources do you feel have helped you at school?” 

Alexa: 

I can start this one off. I think one thing that I always talk about when it comes to positive relationships in terms of my school is I know a lot of people are in a program we have here called peer mediation, and it basically is just like peer-to-peer, student-to-student conversations where students can come and be able to talk about things that they’re going through or things they might need advice with with other students. And it’s something I think is really powerful and they do a lot of cool work of just talking and starting different conversations on campus about what students are going through and how teachers can really meet those needs. 

I also really value our wellness center that we have designated in our counselor’s office as just a space to be able to go and breathe if you’re ever stressed out or having a difficult time. I think just acknowledging the fact that students may need time to take away or step away from the things that they’re dealing with at school is something that’s really important and really speaks to students about what their administration is willing to do to make sure that they’re doing well at school. 

Julian: 

Amen, Alexa, amen. I definitely agree with you. I also wanted to add that something my school did I think resonated with students, not only because it helped but because it felt as if the adults on campus were listening to students and making a genuine response to help students, was this 40-minute free block that we have during our day. I don’t know if that’s the same thing across different schools, but basically every single day we have 25 minutes one day, and then the next day we have a 40-minute free block, and that’s pretty much just time where we have to stay on campus and we can go to any teacher’s classroom, ask them questions about homework, do the homework if we haven’t done it. There was a big student body section that sent emails to the admin and filled out forms asking to bring it back, and so when that actually happened, it felt as if there were people listening to the student voices and listening to the concerns, and so that really went a long way. 

Aisha: 

That’s really cool. I think my school has something called Hope Squad, and that’s a student-based group, like a student-based organization or team, where students are directly talking to students who may need help and then they connect them with a trusted adult. That’s really powerful because students who feel like they cannot come to a trusted adult can go to one of these student representatives and get help and they can explore different options for them as well. 

Jubia: 

Personally, I’ve been online for the past, I believe, three years, but for me, since I’m not on campus, I can’t really give my insight about the activities in clubs at my school, but my counselors have helped me a lot online, regardless of the situation. Any day, any time I have reached out, I have gotten a response. So I think they have helped me so much in my independent studies. 

Julian: 

I also wanted to add that, at least in my personal experience, the support … like you guys were saying, there’s countless organizations and wellness center and so many different things where students can go to get help. But at least for me, in my everyday high school life, what has supported me the most for sure have been an understanding character that the adults on campus have. By that I mean not taking advantage of their kindness, but when you’re having a rough day, if you have so much going on in an individual week and feeling comfortable enough to go to a teacher and ask for a one-day extension or ask for extra help on this assignment and that adult on campus understanding that there’s a lot of different things going on in students’ lives. Even though I’m sure the teachers would rather the assignment be turned in at 5:00 PM on the dot, if the student has to turn it in at 5:45, but they can turn in a much better product and it doesn’t affect their mental health, I think that’s something that’s really helped me a lot because it makes me feel as if my teachers and the administrators genuinely care about my wellbeing. 

Lan Nguyen: 

I think what we’re hearing in all of your responses is just this idea of listening and at least being open to listening and to really being, I think, also connected with — we started off with a question of what’s it like to be a student in school today, to have that empathy of understanding that students are really juggling a lot of things, social, academic, and personal — so it’s kind of taking that into consideration, seeing you all as human beings with also multiple parts of your life and personality and interests. I think that that is what I’m really hearing with what you shared, Julian, and with what you all shared. I’m hearing there’s adult roles, but then there’s also student leadership that could be really powerful, as Aisha shared. Maybe you’re not comfortable going to an adult. Maybe a peer is easier, but setting up those spaces or the peer mediation program that Alexa mentioned, those can be really important supports. 

Those are typically the single classes or programs, but how can those support the school as a whole? I’m just hearing the diversity and what support means, and so I’m appreciating that. I want to transition to advice you all want to give. There’s a bunch of adults in this Zoom room right now who I would be willing to bet care a lot about ensuring that students have a positive experience, a supportive experience, in their schools. And so, what advice would you give to adults who want to make school a more positive place to be? 

Alexa: 

I think when considering positive school climates, it is important to consider that not one method is necessarily going to fit for every student and that it’s very important to be flexible in the approaches you’re taking and just really considering the student perspective at all times. I think that takes a lot of just understanding and caring for the wellbeing of students. I mean, all of us can attest to the fact that we’re students and we go to school to be educated, but before that, we’re teenagers trying to navigate this period between being a kid and being an adult. So, I think it’s important to really focus in on the wellness part of just being a person outside of maybe the academic standards that we’ve set for what school will look like. I think as we emphasize that part and really going to students with what they may need in the support, it will be much easier to really effectively help students build a good experience when it comes to positive climates at school. 

Lan Nguyen: 

Other final words of advice before we go to audience questions? 

Jubia: 

I believe that it is crucial to have zero judgment, especially when a student is actually opening up to you, and being understanding, just being patient with them, and being comprehensive about what’s going on and what they’re telling you. So, just have zero judgment into what they have to say and then I know students will greatly appreciate it if their boundaries are respected. 

Julian: 

I can also add one more thing, and that is that I think especially for adults on campus who are mostly dealing with juniors and seniors specifically, I think it’s really important to find the right balance between guidance and not being overbearing, if that makes sense. In the sense that for juniors and seniors, especially the next few years of their life are going to be after high school, whether that’s going off to a different state or country for college, going to community college, working. Either way, it’s a lot more independent than what students will be experiencing K through 12. So the advice that I would give is that, there’s a very general piece of advice, but I think it’s really important to understand that students 11th and 12th, all grades, but upperclassmen specifically, do need guidance and they do need people who are willing to understand and need people who they can reach out to and pretty much everything that we’ve been talking about through this whole webinar. But, I also think it’s important to recognize that these students are almost adults. I’m already 18 and so I think for these students who are trying to become adults and learn how to handle life, it’s important to understand when to give them a little bit of freedom and when to let them fail and help them get back up instead of trying to make sure they never fail. Because once we graduate high school, it’s going to be a lot dependent on us and the stakes are going to be differen. And so finding that balance between helping guide us forward and helping us improve on ourselves, but also giving us the chance to fail and learn from that and figure out our own mistakes and our own successes. 

Lan Nguyen: 

Yes, I think it’s so meaningful that you’re all sharing this as you’re experiencing it, which is like, “Hey, we’re navigating being teenagers and then transitioning into this scary adult world we’ve been told about for so long.” I think that that’s just so important to call out because there can be a tendency to be like, “This person is a student in my second period class, and that’s about all there is to them.” So I think it’s really just going back to this idea of viewing them as a whole person that’s trying to figure out life and figure out the world. A you said so eloquently, Julian, about this idea of allowing students opportunities to fail and to experiment and take risks and try things as students and not let adulthood be the first time that that happens. I think that that’s really resonating with me as well right now. 

We have seven minutes left in our Q&A so what we actually want to do is bring in some audience questions and we have them, there’s many great questions coming in, so we just want to do a few for the rest of our time together. So, here’s a question, going back to virtual learning and technology and all that good stuff. We have a question from Sabrina Garcia, and the question is “How has virtual learning — so virtual learning from the peak of the pandemic — impacted your social setting and relationship?” So really, how did that period of time of virtual learning, how did that impact you all as students? I’ll just open it up to anyone that wants to jump in. 

Aisha: 

I think it almost created knowledge gaps for a lot of students because during this time it was easy to cheat and it was easy to refer to our notes and things like that. So we weren’t getting as much hands-on practice and the opportunity to apply our knowledge without the help of something else. I think that’s created a lot of knowledge gaps and an experience with a lot of students, so coming back and adjusting academically has been very difficult as well. 

Jubia: 

I think it created a lot of confusion within us all because we were lost, we didn’t know what was happening. We were told one thing and then we just didn’t go back to school for a long period of time. I think, like Aisha said, academically it was really hard to go back in as they said, but I feel like a lot of us also lost our social skills, so it was really hard to reach out or even talk to a person, go out even. So I think it left a lot of us confused. 

Alexa: 

I would agree with that. I think that kind of social disconnect also really impacted even just the school relationships of … you didn’t really build relationships with your teachers, you didn’t really talk to your counselors. It was kind of just even relearning where to go for support or who you can really talk to. And how you should really navigate building those relationships I think is something that was really hard having to readjust to. 

Lan Nguyen: 

I’m also curious to hear, do you feel like those impacts are still lingering or do you feel like we’re good? Would just like to hear are you still feeling it now, those impacts? 

Alexa: 

Aisha had talked about the knowledge gap, and I think that is something I can definitely agree on. That was just trying to get back into studying and what that would look like is something that I definitely think has lingered still. 

Aisha: 

To add on, I think the social effects have continued to linger on the most because there’s sometimes lack of boundaries. Students turn in work late or not at all, and they’re used to getting a lot of leniency, but also in-person communication, especially with adults, is not the same as it used to be. There’s often a lack of professionalism and things like that and we’ve lost a lot of time to experience and learn how to interact with other people. 

Lan Nguyen: 

I think those things are important to note because there is this thing where in some ways, as a society, we’ve been through the peak of the pandemic, which is still happening. We’ve like figured out how to adapt and adjust, but we’ve come back and there’s this sense sometimes I think of moving on from that, but as if the impacts of the pandemic and virtual learning aren’t still resonating. So, I think what you’re all sharing about, how is it impacting us still as a student body, socially, academically and so on, because from this point on, every student for a while is going to have had been through that. So, we’re going to keep getting these waves of students who at different points in their educational journey probably had a virtual learning experience at least for the next 17 years or so. 

If we really think about it from that perspective, it makes me wonder as a former teacher, what might it be that I need to do to not take those things for granted, to not assume that students would feel comfortable even advocating for themselves. Some students are more outspoken and outgoing maybe, and that’s more natural, but there may be lots of students out there that are like, “I’m not sure …” whether it’s how to write an email in a way that’s going to help me advocate for myself. I think those back-to-basics is a theme that we’re just seeing, I think, across education systems right now more generally. 

We have a couple of minutes, and so I’m just going to ask one more question before we close our session today. This is, I think, just a more general question that the audience has. This is from Melissa Spadin — sorry if I didn’t say your name correctly. The question is, “What would you change, just generally anything, about your schooling experience to make it better?” So just dream big. What would that be? 

Aisha: 

I think if students had more control specifically in high school over their schedules, because a lot of students are in school seven to eight hours a day from eight in the morning to four or five. I think if we had more room for open periods or late starts or early days, I think giving students that control and that power will not only give them space to learn how to be independent and manage themselves, but also have a more healthy experience. Because it’s not easy going to school for this long of a time every single day. 

Julian: 

Alexis, do you want to go? 

Aisha: 

No, you can go. 

Julian: 

Okay. No, I definitely agree with you, Aisha, and I just wanted to say that in terms of if there was one big hypothetical I would change, I think it would be balance. Again, I know this is different across different districts, different schools, different cultures, but I think one thing that I’ve also definitely struggled with during my high school life is being able to balance how many things I commit to, how to prioritize my academics and sports and then your social life. I think for a lot of students, me included, I prioritized my social life at the bottom. 

So I think that if I could, I wouldn’t redo it, but if I would’ve been happy to go into high school, and I know a lot of my peers would feel the same, a little bit more open-minded in terms of having less of a culture feeling of needing to do certain grades, do certain courses, and being able to just be a kid and be able to just be a teenager. Maybe don’t have to hang out with friend every weekend or every day, but putting some time aside for yourself I think is really important. 

Alexa: 

Just to add on to that, I think if I could change anything, it would kind of be just the dynamic in my classroom. I know there’s one class I had where the class size was really small, and it ended up being one of my favorite classes because it just feels like such a tight-knit group. And being able to be so close and just having a class where it feels really flexible where you’re still learning in a sense, but it doesn’t necessarily feel like you’re just doing busy work or just doing worksheets for the sake of doing them, and it actually feels like you’re taking the time to talk about important topics and really be able to express yourself is something that I think was so valuable for me. I think that’s something that I would appreciate to have over the course of more of my classes and just feeling like a school environment is … maybe it’s big in size but just feels really small when you’re actually on campus. I think that connection is something that’s really important in a high school experience. 

Lan Nguyen: 

Awesome, awesome. So yes, agency. You’re talking about the ability to really have some say and then, as Julian shares, balance and also just the experience of feeling connected. Part of that might be class and group size. I think I’m just kind of coming from my perspective as a former classroom teacher that I always wish there was more time in the day to get to know each of my students more deeply and that felt challenging. I think all of what you shared in the chat … you all are getting so much love. Chris Ridge says, “You are all so impressive in the way you speak about the topic so eloquently, with such deep knowledge.” People are just expressing so much gratitude, so I hope you’ve been reading through those messages for the way that you’re speaking about these topics here. 

So that was our last question. We know we had so many great questions. We have them recorded, and so we’re going to spend some time marinating on the discussions that you all shared, so we appreciate you submitting those. As we transition, we just wanted to ask you all in the audience what is one takeaway, maybe you have multiple, but just share one, what’s one takeaway that you have from listening to our Youth Advisory Team today, whether that’s an aha, a reflection, something clicked, a wondering, a question. Go ahead and let’s see what you all have to think. What are you taking away from this? We’ll give about 15 to 20 seconds to share your thoughts. 

Folks are thanking you all for your wisdom. Ida says “Kids need to be heard.” Folks are saying thank you, they’re just continuing to thank you. Humanizing school sites. Students have a lot to say and feel. Student voice and adult vulnerability. How important it is to have peer-to-peer support, student leadership, and adult follow up. Yes, absolutely. Listen and respond individually. The constant reminder that only students can speak to what the school experience actually is. Absolutely. Relationships, listening. Okay. You’re sharing some amazing things and again, our advisory team is wonderful and just have lots of great reflections about their experience. It seems like many of us are walking away with some takeaways based off of listening to what they all have to share. 

Rebeca Cerna: 

Finally, I would just like to thank again our youth experts for sharing your collective wisdom. You are all just so inspiring. We heard so much about the perspectives of what you shared. You talked about self-care. I took down some notes. You talked about how peers can also be trusted supports, how it’s important to keep the perspective, the student perspective. at all times. And balance, and how flexibility is really important as we’re working to support you.  

So, we thank you all also for joining us, those of you still on the call for, being in community with our young people and with each other as we continue this commitment in creating and strengthening relationships as we listen and as we learn. The power of relationships is foundational and we need to engage and work alongside students and our colleagues. 

Lastly, I just want to thank all of our behind-the-scenes California Center for School Climate and WestEd team members for coordinating all of our efforts for the eight sessions that we held today. Again, we thank you for joining us for today’s session and thank you again, Aisha, Julian, Alexa, and Jubia.