Think of the future, a future where you can control your own education. Do you see it? With the Barnstable Visioning team, students can make this future a reality, and get paid for the work they do along the way.
The Barnstable Visioning Team is a group of students and faculty who work together to create an idea for the future of Barnstable students. According to Youth Development and Dropout Prevention Coordinator Lee “Doc” Docherty, the team involves the students’ opinions in the way education is taught at Barnstable. The group wishes to incorporate the dreams of the students on how BHS could grow, and how they could positively change the community.
Jen Perry, director of teaching and learning grades 6-12, said the group wants to know the experiences of students, educators and community members. Superintendent Sara Ahern said, one long term goal the team has is to move the school environment towards what the students and facility hope for.
“This is to give us a target on who we want to be for all people. A code to live by in the high school,” Associate Principal Pam Regan said.
According to Freshman Kristen Robinson, a student a part of the visioning team, the team already has three students who meet at least once a month after school. The original information on the poster about the program said that five students were wanted but the form is already closed.
The members must collect data during the month and attend visits to other schools to learn about how they structure their high school.. Vision team members talk about their observations during their meetings and review student surveys. According to the visioning team form, students get $50 gift cards after each meeting if they complete both the pre and post work. Robinson has also said that the visioning team has met twice as of Nov.1.
According to BHS Principal Elizabeth Freedman, this is a continuation of the Visioning team work that started last year. There was a group of both students and faculty working together to create a vision. During the summer, the group created a draft for a new vision of Barnstable. At the beginning of this year, this vision was shown to the school as the new core values and vision of a graduate. This team was not funded last year, all people were working voluntarily. This year, the team is funded by the BARR organization.
There are also adults following students from class to class on different days as a part of the visioning team, according to Freedman. They are collecting information about students’ day-to -day school life. This isn’t the only thing they will do, They also have surveys and focus groups. Students can participate in this process by taking the surveys they send out via the weekly email from Freedman.
The reason this group was created was because of a grant from the BARR organization, known as the “Meeting The Moment” grant. The BARR organization is a national school improvement network located in Boston improving 170 schools across the United States. To see more about the BARR Organization, you can go to https://barrcenter.org/ or to see information about the grant.
“Education is for the future of the students, not the education of the past,” Docherty said.
