Make Powerful Allies

Small asksComfort under stressBuilding relationships

Schools make decisions. You find out weeks or months later. When you do know in advance, there's not much they can do without allies, who'll help you find out about decisions in advance, too.

Parents are OP

Every month, post in your city facebook group a short update on what's happening in the school. You'll have 100s of parents reading your posts and curious about what you think. When you need community support for policy change, they'll have your back. Example:

Hey everyone! I'm a student at [high school name] and want to update you on what's changed at school this month.

  • We won our first basketball game of the season thanks to Jason Derulo's 25 points and 6/8 shooting from three!

  • Freshman English is reading a Hamlet and a lot of students are... confused. They don't know how to get through the class without SparkNotes.

  • The agenda for the next school board meeting has a note about changing English curriculum for next year - could mean spending a lot of money on textbooks.

  • We've been having a lot of subs in math class because of the statewide teacher shortage, but some awesome people from the AP class are stepping up to tutor during free periods

Thanks so much for reading!

The librarian is every school's secret weapon

The library is always a place you can go when you're stressed, tired, or angry in a class. And making small talk with the librarian is different than building relationships with teachers because the librarian doesn't grade you. You can build real friendships and get real support.

Start the conversation with:

Do you have any book recommendations for me?

Have a question about how your school works? The librarian will answer.

Help an involved teacher

There’s a teacher at every school trying to do cool stuff. It might not impact you directly—they could be fighting for funding to help special needs students, or pushing other teachers to talk slower so ESL kids can keep up—but they are a valuable ally. Unlike most people who work in schools (who care, but not enough to stick their neck out), this person will fight for you. First, help them achieve what they’re working on, then they’ll be more than ready to help you.

Ask a teacher you’re close with who these people are at your school.

The custodian can get anything done

If you EVER need something fixed and admin won’t fund it (e.g. gross bathrooms), custodians will have your back and not say anything when a plumber comes to make basic repairs.

Say thank you to them once in a while. They deserve it. Apologize for the school being a mess, even if it's not your fault.

Gross bathrooms? No urinal dividers? We gotchu.

Make a friend in the district office

The district office is uniquely permanent. Unlike the superintendent, principal, or school board, they are not "elected." But they make a huge number of student-facing decisions without you knowing.

The can be your early warning system, helping you stop bad policy before it happens, from hiring the wrong principal to fixing awful policy.

Find the right staff by googling:

[Your School District Name] staff directory

Don't reach out to the head of the department right away. Start with a "deputy director." If you're interested in hiring, , if you're interested in fixing the school building, try the facilities director.

Typical Titles for What You want to change

Subject: Free to talk about how the central office can improve student outcomes?

Hi [Staffer's Name],

I've been anxious about sending this email: I've always felt a little trapped at my desk as a student, like my voice doesn't matter. I want to start speaking up, so thank you for reading.

When a new policy/budget/hiring decision makes its way down from the district office, students don't hear about it until the decision is set in stone. This is important! You can't make every decision by committee.

Not involving students can lead to decisions that really do hurt us, which in turn impacts attendance, discipline issues, and teacher wellbeing. For example, [give a simple example, eg. "you hired more teachers for non-academic subjects (awesome!) but the classes had low enrollment - asking students which subjects they wanted first could've helped"].

Would you be open to sharing monthly updates when there's a decision being made that might impact students? If there's anything I can do to support your work as well, I'd be more than happy to :)

With hope and gratitude,
[Your name]

Find out who really runs the school

Coming soon...