• IDRA Newsletter • September 2024 •
We are excited and honored to share this edition of the IDRA Newsletter featuring articles by students in our Youth Advisory Board, along with a poem by a student in our Valued Youth Partnership program. IDRA’s student programs demonstrate our core values that recognize the assets all students bring, listen to students, and engage with them both in their own learning and in their leadership to transform schools and communities. Below are highlights of our current student programs.
Valued Youth Partnership – An asset- and research-based dropout prevention and student leadership program that has kept 98% of its tutors in school. The program identifies secondary students in at-risk situations and enlists them as tutors for elementary school youngsters who are also struggling in school.
VisionCoders – Eighth-grade computer science course in Title I middle schools. Students who are in at-risk situations are becoming software designers, creating educational games for elementary students (their “buddies”).
…
Youth Advisory Board – High school students are providing IDRA their insights about equity in education and advocacy.
…
…
Youth Leadership Now – An in-school program where eighth-grade students considered high-need become tutors of elementary students. Teachers also mentor the tutors to help them prepare to transition into high school.
…
IDRA Youth TechXperts™ – A new program that will equip middle school students with cutting-edge STEM skills while also fostering leadership, inclusivity and real-world experience.
…
MAS for Our Schools – High school students lead youth participatory action research projects about access to Mexican American Studies.
…
IDRA Digital Ambassadors – A youth-led technology program where students engage in participatory action research to identify the most pressing technology needs within their community and then lead community training events.
…
Safety, Dignity and Belonging – High school students studying the school discipline experiences of Black girls by connecting research principles and frameworks to legal scholarship and advocacy, called legal youth participatory action research (LYPAR).
…
[© 2024, IDRA. This article originally appeared in the September edition of the IDRA Newsletter. Permission to reproduce this article is granted provided the article is reprinted in its entirety and proper credit is given to IDRA and the author.]
Recent Podcasts 