Over 100 students joined their adult advisors and state policymakers at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (MA DESE) on May 9th to share and celebrate their work to improve their schools through Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR). 

The youth were all members of their district’s YPAR teams, which had been awarded grants by DESE with the goal to “elevate student voice in order to strengthen safe, supportive and healthy learning environments.”

Over the course of the spring, UP for Learning supported five youth-adult teams from Methuen Public Schools as they built relationships, dove into district data, designed their own data collection plans, connected with their communities, and advocated for change based on what they found. 

At the DESE Showcase event on May 9th, our Methuen YPAR team members spoke about the importance of youth voice in the opening remarks, facilitated community building activities with the full room of attendees, and presented their work to students and staff from other schools and DESE staff members who were present. The attendees also included future grantees (including some schools and districts who are planning to work with UP on their own YPAR projects next year!). 

Alicia Sakelaris, a student member of Comprehensive Grammar School’s YPAR team, made opening remarks at the Showcase. She noted that “Youth voice matters because it builds up confidence and empowerment, so students can show up everyday knowing that they have a role to play in their schools.”

To that end, the Methuen teams’ presentations highlighted the wide range of issues and ideas they are showing up and working on in their schools. Each school was drawn to focus on areas of particular interest to their school community, which included:

  • Methuen High School focused on attendance, and looked at potential approaches in increasing student attendance in school. They reviewed research indicating that students who participate in afterschool activities have higher attendance rates than those that don’t. They explored who was actually able to participate in extracurricular activities at their school. Their plan moving forward is to increase access to extracurricular activities for all students, by building awareness and creating more diverse opportunities.
  • Tenney Grammar School chose to look at classroom behavior, and conducted observations of different classrooms at different times of the day to explore what behaviors were supporting and disrupting learning. Their next steps include sharing their findings with the student body.
  • Comprehensive Grammar School identified their school’s WIN block as an area where students and teachers had many suggestions for improvement. WIN, which stands for “What I Need”, is a flexible block in the daily schedule where students are able to get extra help and catch up on missing assignments. The team noted that the current approach to WIN block varies from teacher to teacher, and is not always well-suited to different learning styles.They conducted surveys, engaged in conversations with teachers, and have had ongoing discussions with administrators to develop a plan for more varied and responsive approaches to WIN block.
  • Marsh Grammar School saw a need for stronger student-teacher relationships in the data they reviewed and collected. Through surveys and classroom observations, they decided to focus on building school community and connections through several avenues next year, ranging from helping their school advisories create stronger identity (through team names and mascots) to supporting student-teacher engagement activities like informal tournaments and team-building activities.
  • Timony Grammar School focused on student behavior and bullying. They shared the concerning data they saw with administrators and discussed ways the team could help students stop bullying and respect each other. One first step they are taking is to invite former students back for a panel discussion, to share their experiences in high school, what it is like, and how it affected their life.

The team’s varied focus areas reflect their student-driven approach to the YPAR process. In addition to this tangible work to improve their schools, students also reflected on the power of working as a team and connecting with their peers from the other schools in the district. UP is looking forward to continuing our work with Methuen Public Schools through DESE’s continuation funding of the YPAR grant next year. Here are some of the comments Methuen team members wrote about the impact of working with UP for Learning this year: 

  • “I really loved this experience. Such great and fantastic bonds I have created with people I never expected to meet.”
  • “In general, the experiences I have made here will forever be stored in my heart and mind. Thank you to everyone who has been great to me!”
  • “I am incredibly honored to have been an advisor to a wonderful group of kids!”
  • “I loved being able to connect with all the schools.”
  • “I want to thank everyone for being great sports and good people in general.”
  • “I love how well my YPAR team worked together to achieve our goals and amazing things!!”
  • “I love how we got to connect with new people, even those who aren’t in my school.”
  • “The best moments in YPAR are playing games, meeting new people, and eating the food!”
  • “I loved the sense of community within this group and the different ideas from the people in the group.”
  • “This was very fun! Best experience ever!”
  • “Our team has come together to address an issue in our school through involving the whole school!”
  • “This was the first time I was changing the school while hanging out with my new best friends.”