Generation YES and New Leaders Announce Joint Pilot Program in Oakland funded by the Cisco Foundation

OLYMPIA, Washington, June 9, 2016.

Generation YES and New Leaders have announced today that they will combine their expertise to pilot a new school leadership model in the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) in a program funded by the Cisco Foundation. Ten OUSD Elementary, Middle, and High schools have been selected to deliver a Student Technology Leaders program aimed toward helping school administrators more effectively integrate technology into their schools. Specially prepared student technology leaders will contribute basic technology infrastructure support and provide their teachers real-time professional development. School administrators will learn new ways to incorporate student voice and expertise into school transformation processes.

In a typical school, students comprise approximately 92% of the human capital while adults comprise the other 8%. The GenYES New Leaders model helps administrators tap the experience, voice, and opinions of today’s youth. Technology is an ideal area for students to contribute. Students often use emerging technology to a greater extent than teachers who are typically overwhelmed with incorporating digital tools while also ensuring students are meeting learning outcomes.

Every minute a teacher spends loading an application, turning on a device, troubleshooting hardware, or preparing students to use technology is time spent away from teaching subject-area content. This problem is compounded when teachers don’t have adequate professional development opportunities to learn emerging technologies or take advantage of applications familiar to their students. GenYES New Leaders creates a structured program where overburdened educators ally themselves with Student Technology Leaders to provide professional development, peer mentoring, and infrastructure support at the participating schools.

Generation YES and New Leaders will host a series of August 2016 camps in OUSD schools for students, teachers, and principals to lay the groundwork for the program starting in the 2016-17 school year. Throughout the year, administrators will continue to bring students into authentic technology leadership roles by having them participate on committees, lead technology workshops, and create peer mentoring opportunities. At the conclusion of the one-year pilot, a guidebook for administrators will be created to help other districts and schools who want to move in the direction of incorporating student voice and leadership into school reform efforts.

About Generation YES

Empowering underserved students and teachers to use technology to improve education in their own school is the mission of Generation YES. With its school-friendly online tools and innovative project-based curriculum, Generation YES builds a collaborative learning community that enables student leaders in grades 4-12 to work alongside their teachers as technology integration collaborators. Generation YES (www.genyes.org) is a nonprofit organization with 20 years of research experience and proven scientific results. Generation YES believes that when schools trust and collaborate with their students to integrate technology, academic success follows.

Generation YES and GenYES are trademarks or registered trademarks of Generation YES. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.

About New Leaders

Founded in 2000 by a team of social entrepreneurs, New Leaders is a national nonprofit that develops transformational school leaders and designs effective leadership policies and practices for school systems across the country.

Research shows – and experience confirms – that strong school leaders have a powerful multiplier effect, dramatically improving the quality of teaching and raising student achievement in a school. New Leaders has trained over 1,600 leaders nationwide and has impacted over 350,000 students. Students in New Leader schools consistently achieve at higher levels than their peers, have higher high school graduation rates and are making progress in closing the achievement gap.

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For more information:

Steven Hicks, Generation YES
(888) 941-4369
[email protected]
www.genyes.org

Generation YES site: https://genyes.org
Generation YES program information site: https://www.genyes.org/programs