Student Voice Forum
Teach your leadership students to run a Student Voice Forum. Integrate student voice data into your LCAP and action plans, and let that data drive your activity calendar. No class period is required.
What is a Student Voice Forum
A Student Voice Forum is a two hour activity your leadership students lead on campus. They invite a cross-section of the student body, guide them through a series of activities and small group discussions, and record what students say about life at your school.
The Forum answers three questions in students' own words. What are the issues? How do they impact students on our campus? What can we do about them?
- No class period is required
- Students lead the Forum with their peers
- Direction surveys show what students are experiencing
- Results are matched to activities your campus needs
- Results can be used in your LCAP, school safety plan and grant applications
What your school gets
California's Senate Bill 997 requires districts that serve middle or high school students to include students in the Local Control and Accountability Plan process.
A Student Voice Forum gives your school dated, counted student input from a cross-section of the campus, in students' own words and in percentages, ready to integrate into your action plans and accountability plans.
The same results serve the other plans your school is accountable for.
Districts report on school safety and student connectedness as a state priority. The Forum and Direction add campus level information on both.
Every school reviews and updates its Comprehensive School Safety Plan each year, including an assessment of what is happening on campus. Forum results show the issues students name and where they happen.
The School Plan for Student Achievement starts with a needs assessment built on state and local data. Forum results are local data your school site council can use.
Most grants ask for a needs assessment with input from the people served. The Forum report gives you student input with dates and counts.
Your PBIS or MTSS team gets student identified needs to aim supports at, between screenings.
The requirements described here are for California schools. Schools in other states use Forum results in the same kinds of plans.
What your students learn
Facilitating a room of peers is a skill most students have never been taught. In the team training your student leaders take part in each Forum activity first and then practice leading it, because students learn an activity by experiencing it before they run it. They finish able to keep a discussion safe and on topic and to bring back what they heard. Those skills carry into every meeting, rally and event your program runs.
Students lead activities that bring students from different groups together.
Students guide discussions on the issues students face on campus and record what is said.
Students report survey results to a room of their peers.
Students tally the results the same day and choose activities that answer what students said.
How it works
Most of the work happens before Forum day. The Advisor is trained, the student team rehearses each activity, and staff recommend students so the room reflects the whole campus and not one group. On Forum day the students lead and the Advisor observes. The results are counted the same day, while the conversation is still fresh, and shared with the staff at your school who can act on them.
Your Advisor attends the one-day Student Voice Forum Training, or a trainer comes to your campus.
The Advisor prepares a team of 12 to 24 student leaders in class or club meetings of about 50 minutes each. The manual has every lesson and script.
The team invites 30 to 50 students who represent the whole campus. Students take a survey in Direction at sign-in, then the team leads the Forum. A high school Forum takes about two hours. A middle school Forum takes about one hour and forty minutes.
The same day, the team counts what students said and sets it next to the survey results. Your program chooses activities that answer what students said and shares the report with your administrator.
Each Forum invites a new group of students, so over the year the whole campus is heard.
What comes with it
A Forum is a process your school repeats, so the materials are built to be used again. The manual carries the full preparation timeline and every script. Direction keeps your survey questions from one Forum to the next, which lets your school see whether the numbers move. The activity resource database is where your program goes once the results are in, to find activities that fit what students reported.
The Forum Training and Implementation manual, with the preparation timeline, the team training sessions, every Forum activity with its script, and the forms you print.
A full year of Direction with one manager account. Students take surveys on a phone or laptop at sign-in, and results are ready during the Forum.
An activity-based curriculum housed in Direction, with activities your students can lead on bullying, cyberbullying, harassment, mental health and more.
Step by step instructions for building a survey and reading the results.
Two ways to get started
A Forum opens real conversations about what students experience at school, so every school completes training before holding its first one. In the training your Advisor takes part in a Forum the way students do and practices each step with a trainer. You choose whether that happens at a regional training day or on your own campus with your student leaders in the room. After the first year, the subscription renews at $995.
Includes a one year subscription to Direction and the activity resource database, and one seat at the one-day Student Voice Forum Training. Trainings are held regionally. A second Advisor may attend for $995.
$995 annual subscription to Direction and the activity resource database, plus a $3,500 trainer fee. A trainer comes to your campus for one day and trains your Advisor and up to 24 student leaders. Travel expenses are billed separately. The subscription is $995 each year after.
Renews your annual subscription to Direction and the activity resource database, one year at a time.
Powered by PLUS
The Student Voice Forum is the Forum from the PLUS Program, offered on its own. PLUS is an evidence-based program studied by university researchers, and the Forum carries the PLUS mindset of community, connection, care and information to action.
Schools that want to hold Forums every month as part of a year-long leadership class can move up to the full PLUS Program. A school that moves to the PLUS Program attends the 2-Day training and pays the PLUS Program first year price.
Start with your Forum
Register your Advisor for the one-day training. Questions: pce@pcesolutions.org or 866.403.9484