Voices that Soar

Voices that Soar is a project that empowers upper-grade elementary and middle school students to co-create a student council, supported by the Capturing Kids’ Hearts (CKH) Process Champion Team that our school implements. The council involves students, parents, educators, and community members in school decision-making and elects a student council president. The project helps build social-emotional skills, positive peer leadership, and addresses concerns like bullying, excessive detentions, and the need for alternative discipline approaches through authentic engagement of student voices. The idea began in my classroom and then spilled over into the school in the form of a student-led student council. I begin with some background information about our school and then detail the process I followed alongside my students to establish a structure that elevated the role students play in school-based decisions.

At Higher Learning Academy, our K–8 school community includes students, families, teachers, classified staff, local leaders, and culturally rooted organizations. Community to me means the relationships, values, and shared responsibility that support student growth. The assets our students and families bring include the multitude of languages spoken including Igbo, Hmong, Spanish, Arabic, Ukrainian, Russian, and more. We have families with strong cultural identities who participate in multi-ethnic events sharing their rich cultures and traditions like Diwali, Dia de los Muertos, Ramadan, and Juneteenth. Our students bring diverse cultural backgrounds, speak multiple languages, and express strong leadership potential. Our population is 39% Hispanic, 20% Black and 19% Asian. A majority of our 521 students are low income.

Surveys and student circles revealed needs for more respectful peer interactions, safe spaces for expression, and leadership opportunities. Discipline data showed high detention rates among students who are ethnically black. Input from the CKH team highlighted gaps in student ownership and relationship repair practices. Many students experienced challenges with emotional regulation, trauma, bullying, and punitive discipline practices; some of these challenges were exacerbated by the pandemic and continue to diminish the student experience. We are implementing Positive Behavioral Interventions and supportive approaches like CKH to build a relational culture and reduce exclusionary discipline practices. Over the last few years our school team has been focusing on equity and restorative practices. Our team realized that traditional disciplinary approaches limited student involvement in decision-making and curtailed opportunities for culturally representative leadership. The Student Council project positioned students as partners in reimagining school culture and promoting restorative discipline. Our project centered on students’ strengths, creating opportunities for them to take leadership in shaping and driving school transformation efforts. Student voice served as a catalyst for meaningful and sustainable change. Having a space to reflect and build resources for our project was pivotal in expanding the role of the student council at our school. The Community School Teacher Fellowship, sponsored by the State-Transformational Assistance Center for the CCSPP, provided me with the opportunity to scale a classroom-based practice into a schoolwide student Council.

For a long time, I had been cultivating student agency inside my own classroom using CKH to build relational trust, co-create social contracts, and gradually release responsibility until I had a self-managing classroom. Learning how to leverage that program made a significant impact on my own classroom practices. After several years of doing this in my classroom, I was convinced that when students are given the chance to lead, they don’t just rise to expectations, they exceed them.

One day during a student circle, a sixth grader—let’s call him Marcus—spoke up and said, “I don’t want to keep getting kicked out of class. I just want teachers to give me a chance to fix things when I mess up.” The room got quiet, and I thought, “Oh no, here we go.” But you know what happened? His classmates nodded. They got it. They started brainstorming ways to help each other before problems got bigger. That conversation literally changed how we handle discipline in our school. I was able to advocate for student representation in school discipline conversations. On another occasion during recess some of our newly trained peacekeepers, students who serve as conflict mediators on the yard, jumped in to help with a soccer dispute. Instead of kids ending up in the office (again), they worked out the problem right on the field. I began to understand how fostering student-to-student collaboration and problem-solving skills can effectively address conflicts inside and outside the classroom.

As a CKH Process Champion at my school, I gained valuable insight into leadership programs and the foundational knowledge needed to launch them. I saw an opportunity to apply what I had learned through my own classroom and recess observations to develop a broader, school-wide initiative. After facilitating the first few circles and collecting student feedback, we discovered that students were eager to address real challenges—bullying, frequent detentions, and improving conflict resolution. The process wasn’t perfect, but as with most first projects, it laid the groundwork for meaningful growth and change.

As a teacher and advisor to the student council, I recognize the importance of anchoring student learning in essential questions that foster critical thinking and collaboration. For this project, we focused on four guiding questions:

1. How can student leaders shape the culture of our school community?
2. What makes a school feel safe, welcoming, and inclusive for everyone?
3. How can student voices lead to real change in our school environment?
4. What are the strengths and needs of our school community?

These questions encouraged students—and me—to explore tangible ways student voice and leadership can inform and strengthen our school’s restorative and inclusive practices.

Since our school prioritizes relationship-centered practices I was able to integrate this project into Advisory and SEL blocks which tied directly to the creation of a student council and the election of a student body president, ensuring student voice is represented in leadership spaces that shape school improvement efforts.

In the year 2024-25 I had the opportunity to participate in the state’s inaugural cohort of the Community School (CS) Teacher Fellowship. Learning alongside other community school teachers was a game-changer for me. Before this learning opportunity, the idea of having a schoolwide student leadership space was just a dream in my head and my classroom. The CS Teacher Fellowship provided me the space to reflect on my practice, connect with other educators taking up their own community-based learning (CBL) projects, and brainstorm ways to expand my project. My goal was to create clear, structured documentation of my classroom and Student Council initiatives so others could confidently implement and build upon them. By the end of the Fellowship I had lesson plans that build leadership right into our SEL time, templates for surveys and circles, and clear job descriptions for different grade levels. My hope is to help develop something that can outlast me. 

What I learned about community-based learning helped me take years of ideas about student voice and choice and channel them into a project that can be used again and again. That’s how Voices that Soar came about. I collaborated with our counselor and Student Services Advisor to reimagine the Student Council’s purpose—transforming it from an event-planning group into a forum where students could address real challenges within our school community and drive meaningful change.

This initiative builds student leadership capacity through real-world civic engagement and encourages community-connected learning, problem-solving, and cultural responsiveness. Using the CBL Planning guide that was shared during the Fellowship I identified specific elements of CBL within my project:

• Relationship-Centered: The project cultivated strong bonds between students and adults through leadership, CKH processes, and restorative dialogue. The project also fostered safe, connected learning environments.
• Civic Engagement and Civic Mindedness: Students made real contributions to school culture and safety planning through council votes, brainstorming ideas to create a safer school community, anti-bullying campaigns, and classroom incentives.
• Individual and Collective Agency: Students saw how their actions influenced school rules and culture. They led assemblies and council decisions were implemented by administration, validating student power.

We plan to expand the Voices that Soar student leadership initiative by introducing it at the start of the school year through Student Council representatives, rather than as a mid-year adjustment. In collaboration with the Student Support Advisor, who oversees Student Council, we will ensure students actively engage in classrooms to survey their peers and gather data on the issues that matter most to them. We will co-edit our surveys using the surveys I designed last year including TK-2 Visual Survey, a 3-5 Survey and the 6-8 Survey. We differentiate the surveys based on grade level needs. Lessons will be integrated into Social Emotional Learning–including Capturing Kids’ Hearts leadership skills, and Restorative Practices. The goal is to equip students with tools for conflict management, peer resolution, and self-regulation in a way that centers their ideas and experiences. With ongoing collaboration alongside the school counselor and advisor, we will scaffold leadership roles across grade levels—peacekeepers in upper elementary and conflict managers in middle school. Future lessons will address recess safety, school belonging, and cultural celebrations. The Discussion Forum format I helped design will support the ongoing leadership development strand.

For other educators hoping to center community-based learning in their classrooms, I recommend starting small by building strong relationships with students. Leverage existing structures such as student council or leadership groups, or create new opportunities for student involvement. Connect lessons to the cultural assets within the school community, and use flexible tools like social contracts, affirmations, restorative circles, and surveys that elevate student voices. Collaborating with families and colleagues further strengthens these efforts, ensuring that the community reflects and acts upon the ideas and contributions of students themselves.

Here are some more recommendations:

• Prioritize emotional regulation and SEL routines before launching leadership work.
• Use tools like social contracts, affirmations, and leadership curriculum as a foundation. 
• Learn and practice restorative justice approaches.
• Scaffold leadership for younger grades with roles like “class rep” or “peacekeeper.”
• Collaborate with families and community groups who reflect your students’ cultures.
• Align council decisions with existing school improvement goals for discipline or climate; this helps with sustainability.

This initiative is designed to promote student agency and help students see themselves as active leaders in their school community. It strengthens emotional regulation, public speaking, collaboration, and civic engagement—skills that resonate particularly well in International Baccalaureate (IB) schools. My goal is for students to recognize that their voices can drive meaningful change in school culture and policies, while also fostering trust and empathy across diverse groups. Ultimately, I want students and adults to co-create a more inclusive, equitable, and restorative environment where every student feels represented, valued, and safe.

For me, centering the classroom means keeping our students and their voices at the heart of everything we do. When we focus on the classroom, we’re not just delivering lessons—we’re building communities where students feel seen, heard, and valued. It’s in this space that they learn how to collaborate, take risks, and connect their learning to real issues in their lives and communities. By elevating both teacher and student voices, we create a shared ownership of learning that makes school more meaningful. Centering the classroom reminds me that the most powerful change starts with the relationships and experiences we create together, every day, in our own learning spaces.

Michaela’s work has inspired us to support teachers in continuing and deepening their community-based learning practices, reminding us of the transformative power of centering the classroom. As Michaela reflected above: “For me, centering the classroom means keeping our students and their voices at the heart of everything we do. When we focus on the classroom, we’re not just delivering lessons—we’re building communities where students feel seen, heard, and valued. It’s in this space that they learn how to collaborate, take risks, and connect their learning to real issues in their lives and communities.” By elevating both teacher and student voices, we foster shared ownership of learning that makes school more meaningful. Michaela’s insight reinforces the idea that the most powerful change begins in the relationships and experiences we create together, every day, within our classrooms. This vision guides our work as we support teachers in cultivating classrooms that are not only places of learning, but also thriving communities at the heart of school transformation.