As revolutionary as it is, schools in Arizona, as elsewhere, do have to work in compliance with the rules and regulations set by local or even national level authorities
Amid all the talk about empowering school children, there is an approach that could truly bring a radical change in all the efforts so far pursued. And it is something that can benefit not only the children but also the schools and the whole local communities in which learning institutions are embedded.
It is the School Participatory Budget (SPB), through which school children from elementary to high school levels can have a voice in deciding how some of the resources managed by the schools are spent. It is a methodology that really offers students with very tangible decision-making powers. The approach would not only revolutionise the ways schools are managed but would also offer fertile terrain to plow and nurture the seeds of democracy in children and adolescents.
As the practitioners of SPB say, this methodology is about "learning democracy by doing". The approach could be considered a spillover of the bottom-up democratic practices related to participatory budget that local governments in Brazil had experimented decades ago and now have become mainstreamed all over the world.
It happens that the state of Arizona in the USA is one of the trailblazers in practising and promoting SPB. The Participatory Governance Initiative (PGI), within the School of Public Affairs at the Arizona State University, has been spearheading SPB across the state. It worked in partnership with not-for-profits and civil society organisations and various educational districts authorities which have power over local schools.
To have a better sense of how the model works, I approached Madison Rock, a former Programme Manager at the Center for the Future of Arizona (CFA), who had worked very closely with Professor Daniel Schugurensky and Dr. Tara Bartlett at Arizona State University to pilot and then scale SPB.
Even though she is no more directly involved in promoting participatory budget practices, Rock agreed, on personal capacity, to share with me her own experience on the issue through an online interview.
First of all I asked Rock about the role played by teachers in practising SPB. "Differently from other context, what happened in Arizona was the fact that the whole work on SPB was truly bottom up," she shared. "Teachers," she continued "were the engine of the work, and the whole idea was, since the beginning, to start small, learn and then scale up.
"The initial attempts were really about proving it out and see how it can be adjusted and better suited to a local context in which the school system is extremely localised and fragmented with many School Districts exercising their authority.
"While there are challenges in such landscape in terms of scaling up, the SPB approach had no other option than spreading out sustainably," Rock explained.
But while, in principle, it can be intuitive to understand its basic tenants, I wanted to know more from someone who first hand played a role in promoting it.
"In the first phase," Rock, who is now the Deputy Executive Director for the not-for- profit Arizonans for a Clean Economy, told me, "students propose ideas. Then students transform the ideas in concrete proposals by doing research and by understanding what ideas can be really implementable."
To clarify, it is not that students decide the whole school's budget but they have a say on a part of it. "Third, there is a vote among all the students to decide which ideas are going to be implemented."
A steering committee composed of students under the guidance of a teacher or multiple of them is set up in order to lead the whole dynamics. Rock shared that it is paramount to have diverse membership in this body rather than turning it into a "popularity contest" that would, at the end, only involve and engage those students who are already on the spotlight, the so-called "school's celebrities".
Interestingly, I learned from the conversation that one school using SPB, Carson Jr. High School in the city of Mesa, was very successful at including students with disabilities in the steering committee.
Obviously SPB is not a panacea, and it has its own limitations. As revolutionary as it is, schools in Arizona, as elsewhere, do have to work in compliance with the rules and regulations set by local or even national level authorities.
"SPB practices cannot decide on a series of issues that are strictly regulated by the School Boards, the state authorities in Arizona," Rock said.
Yet, with guidance and mentorship, two functions that teachers have to play to develop and implement SPBs correctly, a lot of changes decided by students can happen and for real! "It can really occur that some ideas being proposed through SPB crash against into certain stumbling blocks set by the system," Rock added.
"It is the role of the teachers to enable students to understand and figure out what is possible to change in the places where they study."
And based on my discussion with Rock and based on the research material available online, the whole approach is not tokenistic at all. Changes that happened thanks to the SPB include "water filtration systems, water bottle refill stations, shade structures, additional seating, cafeteria and library upgrades, bathroom renovations, lab equipment, printers, community gardens, school spirit and beautification projects" according to "40 FAQs about SPB", available online.
And to be clear, you do not need to have a huge amount of money designated for SPB to start with. What counts is a willpower to truly put learners into a position to take decisions.
There are other aspects of the SPB to be discussed, like how to involve the highest number of students rather than just the few sitting on the steering boards, beyond the starting phase and the final vote.
"No matter the limitations, SPB is a tool that enhances students' problem solving abilities and skills because it allows students to understand the depth of issues they are trying to tackle, and in the process, their creativity is strengthened." Rock said.
