Youth News Team

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The Youth News Team

Contact Youth News Team representative Rachel Belin

Top row, left to right: Michelle Schnack, Chauncey Morton, Debra Morton, Dennis Pearce, Susan Warren, Emily Warren. Bottom row, left to right: Tony Rawlings, Amy Nickell, Kim Rawlings, Jenny Hafley, Tiffany Duncan, Casandra Woodall and Rachel Belin.

Rachel Belin
Director

Tiffany Duncan
P.L. Dunbar High School student

Jenny Hafley
Sayre High School student

Debra Morton
Henry Clay High School parent

Chauncey Morton
Henry Clay High School student

Hilary Morton
Lafayette High School student

Amy Nickell
Bryan Station High School parent

Dennis Pearce
Tates Creek High School parent

Kim Rawlings
Lafayette High School parent

Tony Rawlings
Lafayette High School parent

Michelle Schnack
University of Kentucky intern

William (Bill) Steinman
Lafayette High School parent

Emily Warren
Lafayette High School student

Susan Warren
Lafayette High School parent

Casandra Woodall
Henry Clay High School student

Background of the Youth News Team

Who We Are

The Youth News Team consists of an intergenerational group of Central Kentuckians aiming to amplify the voices of young people in education policy discussions. Parents and high school students from the leadership programs of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence and the Kentucky Conference for Community and Justice (KCCJ) joined forces on the 2005 Youth News Team to investigate the relationship of parents to high school student achievement.

Who Our Collaborating Agencies Are

Though they have different areas of emphasis, both KCCJ and the Prichard Committee are non-profit, non-partisan, Kentucky-based organizations dedicated to supporting active citizen engagement to enrich our communities.

KCCJ dedicates itself to eliminating bias, bigotry and racism and promoting understanding for all people in Kentucky. KCCJ’s student leadership program, the Lexington Youth Leadership Academy (LYLA), trains high school students to develop and exercise their voices in social justice issues. The Youth News Team serves as the LYLA ambassadors’ “change agent” project; it is an opportunity for students to apply what they have learned after several years of leadership training.

The Prichard Committee focuses its effort on improving Kentucky schools. Its parent leadership program, the Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership (CIPL), trains and supports parents as advocates for all children in the public schools.

What We Did

During the 2005 school year, we examined the relationship of parents to high school students’ academic achievement using a variety of methods. We gathered qualitative and quantitative data by:

Reviewing existing studies on the topic

Developing research-based surveys that were distributed to students in Fayette County’s public high schools and to a representative sample of Fayette County public high school parents.

Interviewing parents, teachers, administrators and local and national policy experts and

Facilitating focus groups with high school students across the academic spectrum.

Why We Did It

As students and parents, we have the most at stake in the outcome of education policies, but we are rarely consulted on them. We wrote this report in part to demonstrate our profound potential to contribute to school improvement.