Student Support Network next steps & call for participation

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I've been talking with Lisa Cooley and some others about next steps for a network / organization / service set up to actually help unhappy students transform their situations. The idea is get in dialogue with your parents and even teachers and school district and explore options.

Hansgrohe, Neue and I set up the Student Support Network web site and FB group a few months back, but we haven't done much more. Meanwhile, lots of students and parents are other there, stuck dealing with school-as-usual in an age when so many better options are available... and so many people see the problem with school.

So, let's do something about it!

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Here's some draft text Lisa wrote up as a mission statement:

Student Support Network is an outreach, advocacy and awareness network. Our primary mission is to mediate between discontented students, and the districts and families who must cope with them, and help find solutions. Many students feel stuck inside the factory model of schooling, and although they are disengaged, unhappy, or struggling, are still forced to attend whether they like it or not. Occasionally, they refuse to attend at all. We want to assist these students and provide them with as much help as possible.

We also raise awareness about the learning needs of youth, and promote greater respect and trust between all people in the education system, regardless of age. We educate the public about needed changes in the public education system.

The Student Support Network:

• Provides support and resources to students unhappy with their school experiences;
• Helps students and parents find common goals and work out better ways to deal with their unhappiness in school; works with students and parents to develop individual learning plans to present to schools;
• Along with parents, mediates between students and schools to help meet students’ learning needs;
• Advocates for students in the public/political arena, calling for widespread changes in public education;
• Promotes the creation of independent unions and clubs that nonetheless operate within the school, made up and lead by students. ("School Survival Clubs" page on SSN)
  

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So, thoughts?

Would any of you, and maybe your parents, be interested in participating in conversations about actually changing your school situations? This could take on many forms, including working with allies to ask your teachers and school to change how they do things, as well as figuring out how to learn beyond school. If your parents can learn to be at least partly supportive of questioning things, it could help a lot. One way for that to happen is for them to learn from and talk to other parents and educators who see the problems with the way school typically works.

Feel free to reply here, come into the chat, or PM me if you're interested in being involved in SSN in any way, including getting help talking to your parents.