Brooklyn Center YPAR Team presentation of                                                             Brooklyn Center YPAR Team visit to the                                        “Empowering Change at BC through Restorative Joy”                                                          Mahmoud El-Kati Ujima Library 

Activities and Accomplishments

During an onboarding retreat, youth researchers were hired as district staff and taken on an off-campus retreat to be fully immersed in the YPAR experience. This interrupted the routine of the school day, allowing for authentic community building and engaging learning. Funding gave us flexible options for compensation, including gift cards and meals for focus group participants. The team is now designing times for adults and youth to build kinship and learn about restorative justice practices, a need identified through their research.The Brooklyn Center YPAR team, additional students, and district staff attended the first MN YPAR Summit. The team was able to share knowledge and projects with a broader community of researchers. For the first time, a YPAR summer internship program will be offered in partnership with YoUthROC. Six new interns will be onboarded, examine past research projects, and work with YoUthROC to develop professional development and action plans for next school year. Through this summer partnership our team developed a professional development for BCS staff that focused on merging their past research projects. It was a super fun culmination of both groups’ past work. 

Brooklyn Center YPAR Team members at the YPAR Summit May 2023

Plans and Goals

A new team of researchers and Brooklyn Center adult supporters will continue to challenge other staff within the district to examine processes and modify systems designed for adults, such as the hiring process, so youth are fully supported and recognized as productive members of our district. A new youth research team will be onboarded, as many current members will graduate in June, again through the off-campus retreat. New members will support existing action projects from needs identified in school years ‘22 and ‘23, as well as conduct another full research cycle inspiring new action and professional development for staff in the district.

Activities and Accomplishments

YPAR team and facilitators worked closely with the Faribault Community School team and participants. The researchers connected with after-school participants focusing on the impact of cleanliness on learning outcomes and achievement gaps.

YPAR Site Council Presentation

YPAR student researchers presented to the Faribault Middle School site-level teacher leadership team with a collaborative discussion following. Teachers were interested in the “FMS Clean Up” and “Prayer Time” policy that the students put together. FMS Principal Stacy Fox tasked herself with looking into potential schedule changes that would accommodate longer prayer time. Students traveled to the Science Museum to take part in student-centered discussions around YoUthROC work and YPAR models/experiences. Students were able to observe and learn about other students’ cultures and community practices. Students presented their research to friends, family, and FMS staff members on May 30, 2023.

Plans and Goals

In Fall 2023, the YPAR group will finish their spring research and give a final presentation to district staff. In spring 2024, a new group of students, representative of the general student body, will learn the objectives and parameters of the YPAR model. They will attend an orientation led by previous YPAR researchers that will aid them in their study of the impact of cultural competency and knowledge among staff. They will strive to prove that this affects overall student wellbeing and learning. This research will be presented to district staff and absorbed by district professional development opportunities.

Faribault Middle School YPAR Team

Activities and Accomplishments

During the first year, we were able to organize a group of high school students to explore school environments and what helps them learn. We examined the following inquiry question: How do we build rich, affirming, learning environments in content-area classes? We started our work with the following questions: What would you hope students can experience? What are your hopes and dreams? What are ways to learn? From the youth answers, conversations, and sharing of their own experiences and their peers’, we developed questions to gather more data from peers and staff. We started the district’s process to get approval for our survey. We hope to be able to analyze the results over the course of Fall 2024 and to engage staff and students in a learning experience to address the issues of building rich, affirming, learning environments at the high school level. We are also planning to have youth co-lead professional development over the summer that addresses these topics through a course, “Race and Ethnic Studies.”

Rochester High School YPAR Team meeting

Plans and Goals

The goal for year two is to expand the work from year 1 to all four high schools: Century High School, John Marshall High School, Mayo High School, and Rochester Alternative Learning Center (ALC). We will identify staff at each site that would be willing to lead this work and work together to engage staff and students in the YPAR process and/or implementation of the work of students for year 1. Our goal is that this work will strengthen a sense of belonging and community, which is an area of growth based on district’s data at our secondary schools. Through this work, we also hope to build student and teacher capacity to have courageous conversations in classroom settings. This work will help support multidirectional learning by putting students at the helm of educators’ professional learning.

Activities and Accomplishments

The YPAR project work at St. Anthony Middle School happened through classes and clubs under the direction of teacher Alison Criss. Alison and two high school students facilitated a YPAR Summit planning meeting. Alison and the two students were part of the organizing team for May’s MN YPAR Summit.

Plans and Goals

Because the YPAR at St. Anthony was interrupted by adult leaves of absences (illnesses, maternity leave), the site will use carry-forward funds from Year 1 to continue building their capacity for YPAR during Year 2.

Activities and Accomplishments

We held a Youth Data Analyst (YDA) internship with five St. Louis Park High School students in the summer of 2023. The interns met periodically between June 21st and August 17th, 2023. During that time, interns reviewed literature, shared lived experiences, reviewed district data, developed research questions, collected and analyzed data and reported their findings along with recommendations to stakeholders. The internship culminated with an in-person presentation to over 100 staff of St. Louis Park Schools and was well received. District staff are currently working on developing their annual improvement plans, based on the interns’ recommendations. The main research question of this summers’ work was “How have teacher-student relationships affected student experience since 2020?”  Abby Rombalski (adult advisor for YoUthROC) and two YoUthROC alumni members led the internship as subcontractors. The YDA team also presented their work to several local academics and community members, including Dr. Anita Chikkatur, the grant PI. In addition, a group of 2022 interns presented their work at the LEAD conference at the University of Minnesota in August. Dr. Silvy Un Lafayette received an award from Cheryl Broadnax Award for Innovation and Result from StriveTogether for her work with the YDA program.

                        Summer 2023 Youth Data Analyst interns                                                            2023 Youth Data Analyst team presentation                                                         from St. Louis Park High School                                                 

Activities and Accomplishments

1. Reading: We read Bettina Love’s work about spirit murder and it informed our work.
2. Research Practice: We learned from each other’s leadership and facilitation skills, and developed our skills with the team’s support. As we progressed through our project, we honed in on our definitions and methods after each event, informing/improving the next event; we prepared a research methods workshop with revised and clarifying questions, examples from previous data, and reflection activities; we ensured that our research methods reflected the values of our topic, experiencing joy and not just talking about it.
3. Facilitation: We developed the Youthful Joy research methods workshop to connect and unite youth in the community, hear their reflection on youthful joy, and help other communities grow as much as they allowed our team to grow (BC Baddies, South High All Nations Program, our UROC northside workshop, and the YPAR summit). We held debriefs with a feeling of accomplishment after successfully facilitating events and workshops. We were able to attend the Minnesota YPAR Summit and share our information with an even larger audience and connect with youth across our state to get feedback and spread even more joy.
4. Summer work included a deep partnership between YoUthROC and the BC Baddies, using the conceptual frame of both groups to put together an invited educator Professional Development session that jump started a “Restorative Joy” cohort. (See photos above under Brooklyn Center’s YPAR team.)

Plans and Goals

We plan to pursue a new research topic that is meaningful, productive, adaptive, and reflective of past years’ work; to continue to cultivate a strong team community, friendship and kinship as a foundation; to create a safe and welcoming team for all members; to embed kinship and community engagement throughout the year; to build relationships with the community and researching with youth; to make our research project helpful and useful to the community, including in social action; and build theater into the team’s project (ex: theater of the Oppressed, Augusto Boal and dance with Averie Mitchell-Brown). Year 2 partnerships in formation include a continued partnership with Brooklyn Center’s YPAR team and possible partnerships with youth in Brooklyn Center’s ARISE program, South High’s All Nations program, and with Girls in Action based out of north Minneapolis. Ongoing product work includes the Youth in Social Movement website and the Restorative Joy handout for educators.