UP for Learning recently returned to Delaware to facilitate retreats with two, long-standing partners: the Brandywine School District Student Voice Advisories (in Wilmington) and the Bryan Allen Stevenson School of Excellence (in Georgetown). 

Brandywine School District Student Voice Advisories

The Brandywine School District’s Student Voice Advisories are dedicated to amplifying and empowering student voices within Brandywine schools. Over our four years of partnership, the Brandywine SVAs have made an incredible impact on their school communities. For instance, the Mount Pleasant High School SVA successfully created a Zen Den at Mount Pleasant High School, a mental health space in the school staffed with a social worker. 

This year, we’ve reached a significant milestone: in addition to the three high school SVAs, teams from each of the three Brandywine middle schools have officially joined in on the action, lending their wisdom, joyful energy, and passion to the larger portrait of Brandywine Student Voice Advisories.

During this February’s Student Voice Advisory retreat, students and staff from all six middle and high school teams gathered for a day focused on positive, data-driven change-making. The event began with a warm welcome and an agenda overview from the incredible youth facilitator team, highlighting the day’s focus on building community, uplifting youth voice.

The heart of the retreat revolved around data analysis. Teams were presented with their district and school-based Panorama data, and they engaged in thoughtful discussions to identify strengths and opportunities for growth. With the support and guidance of their youth facilitators, teams wrote down their observations, discussed common themes, and began formulating action plans to engage their communities around the data’s findings.

A highlight of the retreat was the “Newspaper Fashion Show Design Challenge,” where teams were tasked with creating articles of clothing from newspaper and tape, representing student voice. This fun, team-building exercise sparked creativity and reinforced the theme of student voice along the runway.

Overall, the retreat was a resounding success, leaving teams energized to drive meaningful change in their communities on issues such as cultural awareness, teacher-student relationships, and mental health support. We continue to be so proud of the Brandywine Student Voice Advisories.

Watch this video to learn more about these inspiring teams and their efforts to transform and reimagine their schools through student voice:

Back to BASSE

After wrapping up in Wilmington with the Brandywine SVAs, we were thrilled to pay a visit to our friends in southeastern Delaware at the Bryan Allen Stevenson School of Excellence (BASSE). UP has partnered with BASSE since the school’s formative phases, supporting key visioning efforts like the Youth Leadership Lab and Family Visioning Night. Now that the school has officially opened its doors to its inaugural group of middle school students, they are poised to launch their first-ever Student Voice Advisory.

Seventeen seventh and eighth grade students stepped up to join the Student Voice Advisory this February. When asked why student voice mattered to them, they shared insights like: 

“Student voice is important to me so that students don’t become misunderstood by adults and also so adults can understand where students are coming from and help accordingly.

“The students make the school possible and give it a purpose. Us students need to make our voices heard and our ideas and feelings seen.”

After an engaging and heartfelt morning of learning, leadership development, and team-building, twelve members of the Student Voice Advisory led over 100 students at BASSE through a circle and Chalk Talk to gather data about the strengths, opportunities, and positive changes students would like to see at school. With this data in tow, this group of deep-thinking and dedicated youth is eager to lift up youth voice at their school. We are so excited to partner with them to make that happen!