Chloe’s 2024 Statement
Hello, My name is Chloe. And I will be speaking to you about my experiences when it comes to resistance to the school staff as well as how I engaged with my peers.
My own experiences with my other classmates have been mixed. There have been times when I have had some positive relationships with other students when it comes to helping out one another with issues regarding their disabilities. What was helpful was that there were other students who have the same issues as me when it comes to their identities and have also felt disconnected from the school community.
Chloe’s 2023 Statement
My name is Chloe and I graduated from high school in 2021. Today I want to talk about how schools don’t listen to student voices enough.
As a member of the LGBTQIA community and a student with Autism, I didn’t feel like my voice was listened to when I raised concerns related to those communities to my school. Too often, schools are concerned about what parents, teachers, or the community are thinking, but they don’t care that much about what students are thinking. Schools don’t usually care about what students with Autism want. They treat autism like it is something bad that must be dealt with.
Chloe’s 2022 Statement
My name is Chloe, and I’m a recent high school graduate who would like to discuss the importance of gender, sexual orientation, and learning disability equality in schools.
My high school experience wasn’t the best for a number of reasons, but the main issue that I had with it was its treatment of those who are different from what has for too long been the norm in society. And by that I mean straight white non disabled cisgender men and women. Basically, I was not comfortable because the teachers and staff didn’t appear to be open minded to those of us who are LGBT+ as well as those who think differently than others.
This website is dedicated to the valuable lessons we can learn from students’ own experiences about how to create better schools. Decisions about schooling are often made without listening deeply to students themselves. But students are in the best position to understand what they need in order to do well in school.
A collaboration of the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI), Harvard Law School and Massachusetts Advocates for Children (MAC). LEARN MORE