Feasible, healthy changes we foster

Voice. Trust. Growth.

Voice

• We implement programs that make students feel heard

  • Bringing students to the bargaining table
  • Participatory budgeting
  • Teaching students to build open source code for their school

• We create spaces where students feel safe voicing simple ideas

  • We conduct classroom observations, focus groups, and interventions to identify ideas like...
  • New basketballs in the gym
  • Salad bar in the cafeteria

• We build online peer communities where can students catch up and amplify their voices

  • Showing students a driving why
  • Social media content about school stress
  • Partnerships with content creators to address their viewers' unmet needs

Trust

• We run programs that strengthen student-teacher relationships

  • Our trust-building classroom intervention
  • Our Doorstops on why and how to build student-teacher relationships
  • Student-created behavior contracts, small promises that make them feel cared for

• We design experiences that help students empathize with peers and educators

  • Teaching about education systems and what makes them under-resourced
  • Teaching data collection and analysis to students so they better understand and adapt to challenges
  • Training students to run classroom interventions

• We create support systems for those who need it most

  • Our summer camp for at-risk students
  • Teaching kids to find mentors outside of school
  • Our 2-minute parent involvement intervention students can bring home
  • Agency-building initiatives for young adults with chronic and severe illnesses

• We advocate for small, simple paths to brighter school communities

  • PD for support staff
  • The Approachability Factor
  • Age-appropriate awareness, teaching trust like algebra

Growth

• Programs that resolve toxic cultural norms

  • Distilling the intervention research on social referrents into actionable strategies
  • Context-specific Doorstops we design in partnership with one school
  • Leveraging machine learning analysis of electronic healthcare records to predict student substance abuse

• Student-driven action with social-emotional strategies

  • Teaching student leaders about Doorstops, and how to understand and advocate for peers
  • School lunch entrepreneurship to address food insecurity
  • Planned, respectful protests in partnership with students and schools nationwide

• Meeting individual student needs

  • Doorstops
  • Online communities

• We fight for change in college admissions practices

  • Empowering students to confront innappropriate and abusive educators without fear of being graded down
  • Allowing ESL students to submit additional writing in their first language