After conducting a number of feedback sessions with primary and secondary students, a few significant themes emerged that informed the creation of this toolkit. These concepts are woven throughout this document and shared below to honor the voices of our students and to highlight their primary recommendations.

• Recognizing, naming, and honoring student experiences beyond the classroom is vital to students feeling seen and known. For example, when students share about responsibilities at home, mental health struggles, engagement in extracurricular activities, etc. taking note and honoring that these are student identified priorities that sit alongside the priorities educators identify on behalf of their students.

• Student experiences vary widely and as a result, supports, interventions, and resources must shift and adapt to meet their diverse needs. Most resources and expectations assume a particular kind of student. Finding ways to intentionally and explicitly name and respond to the diversity of needs is important.

• Students want to know the route to take and have relationships with those responsible for making decisions. To build trust and buy-in, students want to know who they should be contacting, how to find them, and what to expect when they want to share their opinions. Suggestions were made for simple changes like including a picture of staff with a name and email address for contact so they know who to look for, having designated suggestion boxes or email contacts, adults having open office hours and intentionally stopping by classrooms and clubs for interaction with students.

• Relationships are vital and messaging is important to ensure that students know what resources are available to them and how to access them.

• Students want to know and trust that adults are there to support them and listen deeply. They worry they will be judged or that their opinions won’t be taken seriously.

• Fair process matters - students want to know why decisions are made or why their opinions weren’t adopted. When information or decisions change, students want to be included in those updates.

• Some students have more access than others to school adults. Evaluate how you create avenues for all students to have their voices heard. Specifically, students named that when they are engaged in clubs or athletics they have more access to relationships with adults in the school. How do we support adult access for the rest of our students?

• Processes often feel drawn out or overly complicated to students. Consider building feedback processes with students so they understand how to share their ideas and why the process is the way it is. Consider where processes can be simplified and what small steps schools can take to take action on suggestions and keep things moving.

• When asked to share examples of effective and responsive adult partnerships students named feeling heard by those adults and supported to figure out what was possible. Students appreciated having a strong partner rather than someone who simply said yes or no to initial ideas and requests.

• Even simple opportunities to intentionally provide feedback were highlighted as very meaningful. For example, several students named experiences where they completed short surveys to get feedback on things like “what helps you learn best”, “how do you prepare for exams”, “what did you like most/least about this unit”, “how would you like to be addressed in school and how are you addressed at home”, etc.

• Students are particularly looking to experience safety and feel valued (safety around being honored for who I am!)