Students of all ages raised their hands to speak to the crowd at Liberty Park. At first just a few, but as more and more children gathered the courage to raise their voices, more and more hands went up asking for the microphone. Others scribbled their ideas on sheets of paper at picnic tables, clutching free ice cream in the other hand.

Many people will say that student voice is important. But they are not often heard. And, thanks to the pandemic, they’ve had fewer opportunities to speak their minds to school leaders.

Recently in DeKalb, a community-organized event featuring school board members handed the microphone to students asking them what they think could improve the school.

Chance K. Calin helped organize the Youth Speak Out event with community groups like the Barb Food Mart. Calin is a student at DeKalb High School and the school board‘s first-ever student member.

“These events can happen to talk about some issues and bring change to those issues,” they said. “Even. as, the simplest or the most difficult, we can try to approach [and that’s] what we hope to do.”

Some of the ideas were small. There were requests for field trips to the zoo. Who doesn’t want to see more elephants? There were also questions about food waste during a breakfast program that could perhaps be resolved by simply offering students water instead of milk or juice.

But, as school board member Ariel Owens told students, just because a problem might seem small doesn’t mean it’s not worth talking about. And what looks like a big problem can have a quick fix once it comes to the attention of the right person.

Many brought difficult questions to the table. Younger students raised systemic issues like a lack of black teachers and an unfair dress code. Several spoke of endemic physical fights.

“I’ve only been in high school for a year and the fights are absolutely crazy. I see fights up to 10 times in a school week,” said Alex, a sophomore at DeKalb High School. “But my question is, why aren’t the advisers helping? Why don’t social workers help?

Alex also spoke about bullying and asked why counselors often took weeks to respond to him.

Cameron, a middle school student, spoke of a lack of basic supplies.

“There was this TikTok trend where people were stealing stuff from bathrooms,” he said. “And there was no soap in the bathrooms for over a month or maybe two months.”

These supply issues cited by students also extended to period products.

Cameron and classmate Cassidy Gerken mentioned the social-emotional lessons implemented by the district. Moore said that although it was presented with the best of intentions, in reality it wasn’t very helpful.

Gerken is entering 8th grade. She said her classmates often didn’t have enough time to go to class. She also echoed the idea that substitute teachers are often ill-prepared or that students lie to them. Gerken said that caused his classes to have the wrong homework.

“Because the second block lied to the teacher or because the teacher didn’t get enough information about what he was supposed to do,” she said. “And for me having a 504 plan, I had to go to my advisor multiple times to make sure my sub didn’t have it, because there would be times when I needed it and the sub wouldn’t have the plan or know what I needed.

By the end of the night, a dozen students had opened up about the problems they saw in their school.

The school board’s Ariel Owens and Chance Calin said it was just the first step. The next is to start solving the problems they have identified. Both said they hoped this was just the first of many events that spoke directly to students to get their input on how to improve their lives at school.