Bring them to the Table: Enfranchising and Trusting Students in Strategic Dialogue

It was stuffy in the conference room where I was about to meet them. May was at last completing its run up the coast from my home in Atlanta, north through the mid-Atlantic and into New England, and no matter how far I opened the squeaky windows, I had no luck cooling the room before their arrival. Each of the eight students (three seniors, four juniors, and one sophomore) arrived promptly after their last class but one, who apparently was finishing up a Calculus test down the hall. They arrived prepared… a couple had notes; one had written them on 3-by-5 cards.

They were courteous and polished, but not so much that they were reluctant to tell me directly and unambiguously what they thought. They freely shared praise for the school and, unsurprisingly, raised serious concerns and doubts about the school's commitment to addressing them. They presented anecdotal evidence and arguments. Notably, although their comments were grounded in their own experiences, they shared their thoughts not for themselves alone but for all who would follow them. The earnestness ran deeper than the hints of cynicism. And there was ample truth woven into what they offered through the lenses only teens have access to.

It fascinates me that schools, places that are in the sacred business of transforming the lives of young people, spend so little time listening deeply to those same students when discerning strategic paths. Schools advertise experiential learning. They tell students they have agency and critical thinking to apply to the world around them, yet they seldom make student voices relevant in the dialogue regarding the very institution designed to serve them above all else. Strangely, schools often exclude the very people who are the intended focus of all strategic efforts (i.e, strategic planning or evergreen strategy creation/refinement).

Ten Reasons why enfranchising student voices in strategic work is important:

1. We sell students short at our peril. Given the complexity of the challenges around each next corner for independent schools, failing to listen deeply to each constituency (in particular, the most immediate consumers of schools… students!) and to be open to the resultant learning is a critical error.

2. Students can teach school leaders things from a vantage point adults cannot have. I have found that asking students to respond to provocative questions rather than merely asking about their specific experiences is most helpful. For instance, after handing out a copy of the school’s mission and values, ask,

   1. Where do you see this mission alive in the school? Provide specific examples.
   2. What might the school do that would strengthen its service to the mission?
   3. If the school wanted to redouble its efforts to live out its named values, what should it do?
   4. What about the school should never change?
   5. What is more important for this school now than it used to be?
   6. How should it respond?

1. Students challenge assumptions and lend credibility to assumptions that a school may already have. Students provide a credibility mirror for the assumptions that may underpin the dialogue between the head of school, the strategic committee, and the board.

2. Students express ideas differently, even when their ideas align with those of school leadership. Inevitably, conversations with students surface alignment between what students express as important and what adult leadership expresses. However, what can be particularly helpful is that the way students voice an idea provides an authentic vocabulary for expressing it back to the community as a whole. I have heard heads quote an individual student’s way of saying something as a means of increasing the currency of the ideas in dialogue about emerging strategy.

3. Students reinforce priorities and can help refine leaders’ understanding of what it will take to find success in addressing those priorities. The work ahead for a school is rarely a surprise to the community as a whole. A good strategy is rarely, if ever, shocking to a school’s constituents. That said, students inevitably have a unique perspective on what will be operationally necessary to advance the priority in the school's actual work.

4. Students represent the design center of the strategic process. In short, a schools need their voices as they are the beginning and end of the school’s purpose. Educators believe in human potential and the ability to participate in human transformation toward that potential. Failing to include students in a task centred on students is flawed and reinforces the common error of designing around adults rather than students.

5. We teach students to be issue-identifiers and problem-solvers. So let them do their work! This allows a school to use the strategic process as part of the education it provides to students. Let them learn from the same process from which the school seeks to learn. Bringing students into strategic discussions allows them to demonstrate the learning and skills schools seek to impart.

6. The varied strengths and weaknesses of students, as differentiated by school, reveal implications for strategy. While every student group I have met with has been helpful, they are certainly not all alike. Indeed, they vary significantly. There are many reasons for this, and it would be a mistake to draw significant conclusions from it. However, the ways in which students participate in listening sessions vary in intriguing ways. Some groups of older students, for instance, demonstrate greater sophistication in disagreeing and challenging assumptions than other older students in other schools.

7. Being included in the important processes a school undertakes invigorates the student community. When student voice is unambiguously part of the processes that lead to a school’s steps forward, students are more likely to buy into and help create success.

8. Trust between adults and students in a school must be reciprocal. By demonstrating trust in students and valuing their input, adults help students learn to trust the community of adults more. Including students in strategy development and other important processes builds trust and fosters cultural health.

The group I described at the beginning of this piece was one of many groups I met with at that school and with whom I meet around the world as schools discern strategy. Take this to the bank: no student group has ever disappointed me. They have never failed to provide insight, to engage with complexity, or to imagine what better might look like in education or in their school specifically.

For myriad reasons, education as it currently exists is under challenge in ways we might not have imagined twenty-five years ago. To face the daunting/exciting/terrifying/mind-boggling/preconceived notion-defying/breakneck accelerating world forever arriving in our hallways, classrooms, stages, and athletic fields, we have to learn to hear student voices within the conversations that will chart schools’ strategic wayfinding, determine their sustainability, and deepen their understanding of how to serve young people. If schools are to serve students to the absolute best of their ability, we need our students' help.