Project VOYCE: Student's Leadership Creates Change

Rose Community Foundation Newsletter • Fall 2008

Six people are gathered around the projected image of a project management spreadsheet. They are strategizing about future projects – prioritizing what they will take on next and who will manage each project. The group’s facilitator is collecting and recording notes from the group. But these aren’t typical project managers. These are the youth leaders of Project VOYCE, who spend their summer days researching and planning for the next school year while earning a small stipend. VOYCE is an acronym for Voices of Youth
Changing Education.

After Manual High School was closed by Denver Public Schools in 2006 due to poor student academic performance, a group of community leaders gathered to discuss how to redesign the school and what to do with the students who were displaced. The idea of including a “student voice,” or allowing the students the opportunity to inform decisions, was brought up by youth and adult leaders.

After the meeting, several youth and adults began brainstorming a new organization that trains students to work with other students and school staff to reform schools. Project VOYCE was formed and Brian Barhaugh, who has a background in inner city youth development, became the executive director. Rose Community Foundation has granted the organization a total of $38,500.

Rather than working solely with school administrators to effect school reform, Project VOYCE collaborates with students, teachers and school staff to research issues and develop strategies to improve the school experience for all involved, including improving student achievement. When the youth organizers of Project VOYCE work directly with the students of a particular school, they often identify issues that are news to school administrators. At Henry Middle School, youth organizers discovered that students felt disrespected by their teachers. This contributed to poor grades and lack of class participation. To resolve this issue, Project VOYCE created a toolkit with activities that
teachers can use to build positive relationships between teachers and students.

When asked what interested him about Project VOYCE, West High School sophomore Carlos Sanchez explains, “I’m doing this work because I don’t want my younger siblings to have to try to solve the problems with schools that I’m trying to solve now.”

Project VOYCE is doing more than allowing youth to be involved in their schools now. It is also providing an opportunity to be involved in the community and stay involved after graduation. Lorenzo Sanchez will be a freshman at the University of Denver this fall. He is pleased that Project VOYCE gives him the opportunity to trade in his dishwashing job to work to improve the school he attended, Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts.

Esmeralda Aguilar, a junior at Bruce Randolph School, believes that Project VOYCE is also a model. “Other communities can see it and copy it, so it helps more than this community,” she says. “It’s like dominoes.”

The youth of Project VOYCE genuinely believe in the power that youth have when they use their voices to be involved in schools and the community. So, while some youth spent the summer relaxing, the teens of Project VOYCE have been researching and strategizing for what’s to come – a busy year working with schools, principals and hundreds of teachers and students.

Learn more about Project VOYCE at projectvoyce.org.