Coalition Meeting Explores Student Voice in Milwaukee

This year, Milwaukee Succeeds partnered with MPS around their Youth Leadership Summit and Student Discipline Committees to better understand and address the challenges youth are facing. The resulting Student Voice Project revealed students’ perceptions on school culture, relationships and discipline.

The Youth Forward MKE Coalition explored the project, its results and its limitations during their summer quarterly meeting on June 28.

One of the main themes that emerged from the research is that relationships with teachers and staff matter – yet they’re currently not living up to students’ expectations.

“Students are naming that currently the relationships that they have with adults are in crisis,” said Clintel Hasan, strategic initiatives manager at Milwaukee Succeeds. “It is important for them to build positive relationships with their teachers.”

The extensive time students spend on laptops and the high number of substitute teachers further impede the creation of those relationships. Then, without a solid foundation of trust and respect between both parties, issues arise in terms of discipline and punishment, where students report extensive inequity. These issues also feed into students’ concerns around mental health, where youth are demanding additional supports.

While the Student Voice Project provided invaluable feedback on what students need, there are still concerns about the process. Amaya Bauldwin, a Youth Forward MKE Ambassador who served on the Citywide Code of Conduct Committee, shared her experience.

“We were heard,” she said. “They listened to us, but I'm not sure that they acted on what we said.”

Youth Forward MKE aims to be different. For the Coalition, such information not only informs the work but drives it, actively affecting their plans and partnerships.

Separately, in response to recent events and youth calls for greater mental health supports, the Greater Milwaukee Foundation has awarded $100,000 to the Coalition to invest in youth-identified violence prevention programming. The goal is to increase access to mental health supports and create more equitable and inclusive school environments, with the youth ambassadors providing feedback and insight on approved grants.