District highlights youth voice, mental-health training and partnership criteria

At the March 16 Robbinsdale Public School District board meeting, Executive Director Williams and presenter Boris Ritson Estala detailed work under Strategic Theme C2 to expand equitable inclusion and student, family and community influence.

"This is just again part of the board's oversight of monitoring our strategic plan and system of continuous improvement," the presenter said at the outset, then walked directors through youth-engagement structures: an intensified second-semester Youth Council model that will produce multiple presentations (community, district leadership and board levels), student safety squads in secondary buildings meant to elevate student-identified safety concerns, and a superintendent-student advisory council launched in January with high-school representation.

Some concrete outcomes followed earlier Youth Council recommendations: the district has trained more than 100 staff in Youth Mental Health First Aid (with seven staff trained as facilitators) and held community trainings in ACES (adverse childhood experiences), where 11 parents completed full Youth Mental Health First Aid training and several parents trained as ACES facilitators. Mr. Estala described the Youth Voice and Action website as a tracking and transparency tool that will publish the list of student opportunities and show how student input leads to district actions; the page was ready but not yet published at the time of the meeting.

Directors pressed for a consolidated table of all youth groups and asked how the board itself could more routinely hear from student advisory bodies. They also asked how the district will improve outreach so students and parents actually use the new web page. In response, Mr. Estala said the page is intended to "tell the story" of student voice and that outreach strategies must be student- and parent-driven rather than one-size-fits-all.

On partnerships, administrators shared draft anchor-partner criteria (mission alignment, resources/expertise, long-term commitment) and said a standardized contracting template addressing background checks, liability insurance and data privacy will govern partner relationships. Directors asked for examples of what an anchor-partner contract would look like and how vetting would protect students.

The presentation closed with a request for board questions and follow-ups; directors asked staff to supply a written inventory of youth groups and additional details about training and implementation metrics.