Café Conversations
In 2010, we hosted our first summit led by students to write our Bill of Rights. Six to eight representatives from every elementary and middle school in the district attended and were led by high school students. The model was so successful, we used the model in our high school development of our touchstone and again in 2011 to decide collectively, as a district, the area of service that our district would commit. We use a family group model, mixing students up from their usual group setting, led with prompts by high school students to discuss the topic on which we are focusing. We take what the students discuss in those small groups and list it on Powerpoint to discuss as a whole group. Students lead that discussion. Depending on the topic, the students use clickers to choose the most important topics for those prompts so that all students, not just leaders chosen, have a voice in whatever decision is being made. This process was used to write our Bill of Rights, our touchstone, and our service learning focus for 2011. We are planning to use the same process this spring with high school students in planning for next year's movement to the next level of excellence.