The conversation began quite simply at Gunderson High School in South San José. A student requested additional practical work experience. Another idea was that more counselors were needed at the school. A third brought up the topic of more comfortable desks, which was so unremarkable it nearly felt awkward to bring up in a formal research setting. Nevertheless, those modest, sincere requests served as the basis for something that could genuinely alter how California schools listen—or, more accurately, whether they listen at all.
The study, named Roses Talk, was created by the Law and Policy Lab at Stanford Law School in collaboration with the Graduate School of Education and the Stanford Center for Racial Justice. San José Unified, the biggest school district in Silicon Valley, was one of its clients. On paper, the objective seems simple: gather the viewpoints of students who are typically excluded from discussions about education policy. In actuality, it proved to be much more intricate and illuminating than anyone had anticipated.
Advisory panel invitations were not usually extended to the students at the core of this work. 16 “at-promise” students—a deliberate reinterpretation of the previous “at-risk” label, which carries its own silent judgment—were interviewed in-depth by researchers. These included special education students, students with inconsistent attendance records, students with lower GPAs, and students who had previously been suspended. Researchers employed a methodology from education scholarship that creates composite characters from interview themes in order to protect their identities. Alejandro, Tati, Renzo, and Jasmine were the four anonymized but incredibly human characters that emerged. Their tales weren’t made up. They were put together based on statements made by actual students.
The consistency of what came out of the interviews was remarkable. Hoang Pham, director of education and opportunity at the Center for Racial Justice and a former teacher, explained how students kept coming back to the same desire: to be seen. Not supervised, not disciplined, not tutored. observed. A teacher saw it. A therapist inquired about their day. An administrator who could recall their name. It sounds almost too gentle to have any bearing on policy, but there it was, repeated by sixteen different voices.
For years, Ralph Richard Banks, a professor of law at Stanford and the faculty director of the Center for Racial Justice, has witnessed the creation of education policy without the people most impacted by it present. When stated out loud, his opinion—that student insight should be regarded as crucial evidence rather than a nice-to-have—feels almost radical. The Graduate School of Education’s Professor Subini Annamma put it more succinctly: too many policies penalize rather than assist, and students pay the price every day.
Stanford Law student Rebecca Han, who participated in the project, said she was taken aback by how insightful the students‘ descriptions were. The recommendations weren’t theoretical. Promote a ninth-grade program rather than a tenth-grade one. Include water fountains. Employ more therapists. Little, manageable issues that no one had bothered to inquire about.
The principal of Gunderson has already begun making adjustments, such as redesigning the advisory period to give students more options for college and careers. The district’s associate superintendent of instruction, Jodi Lax, is discussing expanding whatever works to all of the district’s high schools. It’s still unclear if that goal will endure budget cycles and changing priorities.
Tupac Shakur’s poem about a rose growing out of concrete served as the inspiration for the project’s name. Pham used that metaphor in a way that didn’t seem forced because it wasn’t. Despite all the obstacles in their way, these students had been improving. At last, someone decided to take a look.
