Student representatives propose World Cafe to gather K–12 perspectives on safety, belonging and inclusion

Student representatives at the Oct. 21 Osseo school board meeting briefed members on changes to the student stakeholder survey and proposed a World Cafe-style engagement to collect student perspectives on safety, belonging and inclusion from grades 4–12.

Naomi Cooper Greer (Park Center), Alia Jiewa (Maple Grove Senior High), Christian Vargas (OALC) and Hikma Adam (Osseo Senior High) described work at an Oct. 7 work session to design survey questions and outreach approaches. “We kinda we talked about having a World Cafe, with students to talk about, like, 3 main things, which are safety, belonging, and inclusion,” Alia Jiewa said.

Representatives emphasized the need to avoid sampling bias and to reach students who are at the margins. “We might have to look at the students who are more on the margins or the students who are in the minority to figure out what we can really do to improve the schools’ inclusivity,” Alia said. Hikma Adam said the World Cafe uses varied activities—writing, drawing and open discussion—to surface different voices and that board members’ questions at the work session reflected “care and respect” for students’ input.

Christian Vargas said the exchanges with board members have been constructive so far and reinforced the need to design data collection to ensure broad representation. Student representatives told the board they plan to refine the World Cafe format to make it effective across elementary, middle and high school levels and to use outcomes to inform actionable next steps rather than only collecting feedback.

Board members thanked the student reps and said they looked forward to continued collaboration in work sessions and project planning.