Participatory Budgeting in Schools Helps Build Student Voice and Civic Skills

CIRCLE’s research has consistently indicated that students gain civic knowledge and skills  from participating in actual democratic practices such as collective decision-making and allocating budget in response to community needs. We also find that young people feeling like they have a voice in their own classroom is associated with higher civic engagement. Yet, our data also suggests that relatively few young people have access to opportunities and spaces like political homes where they get support to develop their voices and practice civic skills. Given these findings, the CIRCLE-Illinois CIvic Hub Partnership was interested in centering youth as experts in their own school experiences and giving them an opportunity to co-create the school experience they wanted to see.

CIRCLE and Illinois Civics Hub piloted this participatory budgeting initiative in Alton High School, Spoon River Valley High School, and West Chicago Community High School. Teachers leading the projects made an explicit effort to elevate voices and capacity among those students who are often the least likely to be included in civic empowerment opportunities in schools, including ELL students and students with disabilities. The student led-teams received training to conduct focus groups and learn about building decision-making tools as they made their spending plans. In two of the schools, those same students then took what they learned and engaged additional younger students in their districts to gather and make recommendations at the middle school level. 

The stories and outcomes from each school described below, based on teachers’ reflections on the participatory budgeting work, underscore the value of these opportunities in supporting young people’s civic learning and development.

Student Projects Highlight Care and Concern for their Peers

Alton High School is a suburban school in the southwestern part of the state, just north of St. Louis, Missouri. Regina Birch, a Career and Technical education teacher at the school, initially led the PB project at the high school. They first formed a steering committee of students and appointed officers, and then worked to gather data from a survey and organize it into a list of ideas that were whittled down to concrete proposals.

The students ultimately decided to build a resource closet where students could find food, hygiene supplies, and clothing items to help ensure all students’ basic needs were met so they could focus on school, even when things were difficult. Students met with social workers, administrators, and experts in supporting unhoused students to help inform the project and get it set up and running at their school. They were also able to engage the local community to donate supplies.

In reflecting on the project, Regina said that she was amazed by how compassionate her students were about noticing and tending to the needs of others. “I used to think that kids maybe didn’t care that much, or that there wasn’t that great a need, but now I see how profound the need is, the amount of poverty that exists in the community, and that students perhaps understood that better than I did.”

Her students then facilitated the same process for middle school students in a separate building, where they also set up a resource closet to support students in need.

Spoon River is a small rural school community West of Peoria. The project at Spoon River was facilitated by secondary social studies teacher Jen Burdette, first with high school students and later with middle schoolers. At the high school, seniors in her current events classes acted as the steering committee, and in junior high the student council served that role.

The committees went out into the school to conduct research, gather information to generate ideas with feedback from the student body, then narrow them down into concrete proposals they decided were most worth pursuing. They explored the feasibility of projects and presented them to administrators, and learned a lot about the constraints and considerations administrators face. They were later able to capitalize on what they learned to support the younger students after the high school project was completed.

Reflecting on the process, Jen felt she was able to step back and let students take ownership and that it was really effective. They hope to get support from the school board to continue the project beyond the 2023-2024 school year, saying that originally she thought “this would be a one and done kind of thing, now I see that this is setting something long-term in motion.”

Mark Poulterer, a high school English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher at West Chicago Community High School facilitated the PB project with students in his Study Skills classes. It took time and effort to get the project going for these students, who are new to the school and to the country, and in many cases had never been asked to think about opportunities like these before.

The students were granted a space by the school administration and needed to decide what to do with it using the PB funding. They took time to explore the school and gather information about what was happening and about possible projects. Students were divided into three groups, developed ideas, share them with other ESL students, and then voted on which one they wanted to pursue. They chose to set up a “calming room,” designed by the students to be comfortable and safe. While the project took time and effort to come to fruition, Mark reflected on how meaningful the experience was for his students, saying: “Find the ones who are quiet, unengaged, and pull their gifts from them. Help them to realize that they have something to offer the school.”

Projects Taught Students to Feel Capable, Manage Diverse Perspectives

The pilot project provided valuable insights about the impact of PB on students’ efficacy, appreciation of diverse viewpoints, and ability to understand and navigate institutions. Participating students were asked to reflect on the PB experience and share their thoughts about what they had learned, about the process of participatory budgeting, and how their thinking had changed as a result of their participation. Although the three schools took different approaches to implementing PB and students ended up making different decisions about how to design and select their projects, some common outcomes and experiences emerged in their reflections across the schools:

Valuing and Working with Diverse Perspectives

One of the most common themes was how much diversity of opinion and perspective existed amongst students. Many were surprised about their peers’ ideas or approaches to answering questions, while others reflected more generally about learning to balance and make room for multiple perspectives in gathering information and building consensus. This is an important civic skill for students to develop, and participatory budgeting appears to have created an opportunity for students to explore their own opinions and those of their peers, and to figure out how to move forward using democratic decision-making.

Here's what some students had to say about that aspect of their growth:

• “This helped to work with some of my fellow students and learn how to compromise on certain things.”
• “I learned that there are many of my peers who want to see our community thrive.”
• “I learned how to work calmly with those who have other viewpoints or do not support the project we are working on.”

Understanding Institutions and Constraints

Second, many students reflected on how their understanding of the school administration had changed. They were able to see more clearly the constraints and challenges that administrators faced related to budgets, safety regulations, and other external factors that impacted the running of the school. In some cases they better understood how roadblocks or hearing “no” from administrators was rarely a result of not caring about or listening to students, but because of broader and more complicated dynamics within the system. This is a critical lesson for students as they learn and practice how to navigate institutions, and develop strategies and solutions that account for these limitations in order to make actionable change.

Several students also expressed how their understanding of institutions improved:

• “It helped me see things from our administration's point of view and gave some insight into what they have to go through when dealing with projects such as this one.”
• “The set up of the project went extremely well but we had troubles coordinating with administrators throughout the process.”
• “I learned how projects that involve many different administrative parties need to be planned well in advance because the process of implementation is very lengthy.”

Personal Growth and a Sense of Agency

Finally, the vast majority of students reported in their reflections that the participatory budgeting process helped develop their agency and efficacy, both personally and within the school community. Students were able to see themselves as capable of making a contribution to their schools and using their voice to represent their own and their peers’ interests. This kind of empowerment is important for long-term civic development and preparation to be active and engaged citizens—both in school and beyond.

Some additional student reflections:

• “I used to think great change should be left to the adults to handle, but now I see just how much teenagers can do.”
• “I am a visionary and can see possibilities. I am adaptable to challenges. I can accept criticism and turn it into growth opportunities.”
• “I used to think that a project like this could not be easily executed by a student-led group, but now I think that it is absolutely possible, and it only requires hard-working, dedicated students and a strong support system.”

Recommendations for Supporting Youth Voice and Participation

Drawing from the students’ reflections and teachers’ perspectives as project leaders we share, some recommendations and lessons for implementing PB as a civic learning activity:

•  Students have a lot of clarity about their community’s needs, compassion, and valuable insights. They took up the projects with excitement and passion! Be mindful of stepping back and letting students lead with their own ideas about what student experience and school improvement could look like.
• Adult facilitators should be attentive to variability in students’ pre-existing sense of agency and how much support they may need to see these kinds of projects as achievable. While it was extremely valuable to engage students who might not always be the first in line for these kinds of opportunities, that can also mean that they may need additional coaching, time and support to begin to engage meaningfully with a project. Planning time and providing resources to help get them started, and offering appropriate scaffolds along the way (without overriding student leadership and agency), is key to a successful PB experience.
• Students need support in learning to see and make sense of some of the tensions between different stakeholders at the school and understanding their different interests.  Teachers can play an important role in serving as a liaison between students and administrators, and offering guidance on how to navigate political challenges and overcome frustrations.