Brandon (he/him) is a high school student in White Plains. He is actively involved on campus and within his community. Notably at school, Brandon is involved with the Black Awareness Club, the S.E.E.D (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) Club, and the varsity tennis team. Outside of school, Brandon is involved on various leadership councils, including the Mayor’s Youth Council, Youth and Government White Plains, Clubmen Higher Aims, Senator Shelley Mayer Youth Advisory Council, and the Westchester Chapter of Jack and Jill of America, Inc. Brandon also participates in NYU’s High School Law Institute, which supports high school students in building foundational knowledge about the U.S. legal system.

Brandon joined the Student Lab because he wants to learn more about student enfranchisement, access to higher education, immigration and education, access to more diverse curriculum and mental health support for students.  He hopes to advocate for change in the educational environment, share his experiences with others, and work toward a better community.

Why is student voice important?

Student voice is important because it can bring much needed change. For example, a club at my school Seeking Equity in Educational Diversity (SEED) helped bring gender neutral bathrooms to my high school.

How can adults better meet your educational needs?

Adults can better meet my educational needs by having a more open mind.

What do you want the future to look like?

I want the future to be better for everyone and not just a specific group of people. Specifically, ending discrimination whether its racial, ethnic, class, religious, etc.

Amari is a high school student in Rochester and plans to graduate early. One of Amari’s strongest identifiers is that when he sets his mind to something he will work very hard to achieve it. 

Amari is a member of his school’s Black Student Union. However, due to persistent funding shortages, members are forced to pay out of pocket to organize events, highlighting the stark disparities in education funding that Amari is passionate about addressing. This issue has fueled his interest in advocating for policy change to ensure more equitable resources for students. Outside of school, Amari balances his academics and works at a restaurant after school or on the weekends. Through the Student Lab, he hopes to make change with his peers and see the result of the work he and other scholars accomplish. 

Why is student voice important?

Student voice is important because we are the future. The future starts with us students and we are able to advocate care for and help each other. Whether students realize it or not, we are the future and change starts with us!

How can adults better meet your educational needs?

Adults can help me meet my educational needs by being supportive mentors and providing support for me along my journey of high school. It would really help and motivate me to finish school and maintain better grades.

What do you want the future to look like?

I want the future to be better for scholars in high school who don’t have a guidance or mentor motivating them to succeed and progress in life. I would like for the future to hold programs to prepare the youth to be successful in life. I want to see the future offer more success.

Arianna is a high school student in Buffalo. Arianna believes in the transformative power of education and strives to bridge the racial achievement gap, aspiring to contribute to public health solutions for underserved communities and developing nations. Her passion for biomedical science and public health was sparked by one of her earliest experiences — sitting in cold, crowded clinic waiting rooms as a child. Those moments did not just teach her patience; they opened Arianna’s eyes to the deep inequities in healthcare and inspired her commitment to creating solutions that address these disparities.

Growing up, Arianna has also witnessed firsthand how disparities in education can limit opportunities, particularly in communities like hers. Despite challenges such as underfunded schools, she has remained committed to learning and helping others navigate these obstacles. One of the most pressing issues she has encountered is the growing emphasis on standardized testing, especially in the wake of the pandemic. During COVID-19, many colleges adopted test-optional policies as testing sites were closed, offering students a brief break from the pressure of high-stakes exams. However, the trend is shifting back toward standardized testing as a primary measure of success. This shift recalls the challenges introduced by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which emphasized testing as a core metric for school accountability. While NCLB aimed to improve academic outcomes, its focus on test scores disproportionately affected underfunded schools like Arianna’s, where resources are limited, and curriculum does not align with standardized exams. These tests often fail to reflect the potential of students from underrepresented communities, perpetuating educational inequities.

By joining the Student Lab, Arianna believes she will have the opportunity to collaborate with other high school students who face similar challenges, discussing and brainstorming solutions to educational inequalities. With the U.S. Department of Education undergoing potential changes that could shift responsibility for education funding and structure to state governments, the disparity in educational opportunities may grow even wider. This makes it more important than ever to engage with other fellow students within New York State, advocate for equitable practices that better address the diverse needs of all students, and work toward building a more just educational system.

Why is student voice important?

In a world where technology is rapidly evolving, students face new tools and challenges that are reshaping society, making it crucial to give them a platform to express their thoughts. Student voices represent perspectives, ideas, and concerns that should be considered in shaping educational policies and the future of our world.

How can adults better meet your educational needs?

Adults can better support students by listening to their needs and providing the tools to help them grow. Creating a supportive and understanding environment can make a huge difference in helping students thrive.

What do you want the future to look like?

I envision a future where innovation cures diseases, education empowers every child, and communities unite to tackle global challenges with compassion and creativity — a world where kindness, sustainability, and diversity lead us toward a brighter, more equitable tomorrow.

Brandon is a high school student on Long Island. Brandon, an avid proponent of social justice, has seen the disparities of education policy first-hand through his experiences throughout high school. Growing up in one of the most socioeconomically segregated communities in the country, he aims to advocate for equitable resource allocation and higher-learning opportunities. Brandon’s recognition of the necessity for equitable education was fueled through his work with his local March for Our Lives chapter, where his research revealed that the lack of anti-violence programs to help curb fatal behaviors in school was far from a priority. Brandon believes that education is more about than what is learned in the classroom – institutions should be safe havens that protect students. 

Additionally, as someone who has grown up in a highly competitive and polarized school district, Brandon recognizes the necessity for accessible mental health support and the promotion of good faith conversations. With such an intense pressure to feed into the standard of a credential-driven society, he has witnessed how this environment in highly sought out school districts silos student thinking Providing programs to destigmatize the hustle culture in his high school, as well as obtaining student input for improvements to student culture is a major passion. Moreover, he recognizes how pivotal obtaining information from diverse perspectives is, especially in curriculum building and respecting others’ cultures and beliefs. 

Brandon has also worked on the macroscale with educational policy. Working with grassroot climate organizations, Brandon is continuously pushing for the integration of climate education to ensure that future generations understand the implications of an existential crisis. Alongside literacy in media navigation, financial accountability, and American civics, he is attempting to provide a healthy basis of knowledge to all communities across New York – creating greater opportunities for educational success in the future. 

Joining the Student Lab is an opportunity for Brandon to channel his lived experiences into meaningful action. He hopes to learn how to bridge the gap between student experiences and policymaking, ensuring that diverse voices are represented in decisions that affect schools. Brandon is especially interested in ensuring underrepresented schools are recognized to have their voices amplified, creating mitigation programs to actively lessen school violence, and increasing major areas of literacy that create globally thinking citizens. 

Through this work, Brandon aims to empower other students who share similar backgrounds and experiences in New York, while contributing to broader systemic changes that create opportunity and equity for all.

Why is student voice important?

Student voice is the bridge between education’s intent and its reality, ensuring that decisions reflect the lived experiences of those most affected. It empowers students to be agents of change, transforming schools into dynamic spaces where their insights ignite progress and inspire equity.

How can adults better meet your educational needs?

Adults have the capacity to guide students toward their own metrics of success. To achieve this, they must recognize student input as a cornerstone of their teaching, amplifying student voices to inspire curiosity and ambition.

What do you want the future to look like?

I envision a future where people no longer act out of fear, but are led by hope and the drive for progress, creating a society that is safe, secure, and just for all. In this world, our decisions are shaped by a shared vision of a brighter tomorrow, where trust, unity, and innovation guide us forward.

Jasmina Salimova (she/her) is a high school graduate from New York City. As a first-generation student with ADHD and dyslexia, she has navigated adversity throughout her schooling, which has fueled her passion for advocating for systemic change in education.

Jasmina’s advocacy is directly tied to the challenges young people face in education, particularly issues regarding student well-being, disability accommodations, and access to inclusive curricula. As a youth activist with Girls for Gender Equity (GGE), she testified before the New York City Council, helping pass inclusive dress code policies. This victory ensured that students, particularly girls and gender-expansive youth of color, are no longer subject to discriminatory and restrictive clothing policies. She also lobbied and testified for comprehensive sexual education, pushing for inclusive, medically accurate, and culturally responsive curricula in public schools.

Beyond policy reform, Jasmina has worked directly in community-based advocacy. Through Project DOT with the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault, she has facilitated lessons on consent, healthy relationships, and sexual violence prevention. She has collaborated with postsecondary institutions and community-based organizations in underserved communities to ensure that young people, especially those who do not typically receive traditional sexual violence prevention education, have access to the resources they need to protect themselves and advocate for others.

Her experiences navigating educational and healthcare inequities reinforced her belief that education should empower students, not leave them without critical knowledge about their rights and safety. Due to a lack of proper accommodations and health resources, Jasmina was forced to postpone her educational journey and take a gap year to focus on her well-being. This experience deepened her commitment to increasing access to mental health resources and disability awareness for students and tackling disparities in higher education access across New York State.

With extensive experience in youth advocacy, Jasmina joined the Student Lab to help shape policies that directly impact students like her. She believes youth voices must be actively included in policy discussions to create meaningful and lasting change. Through this opportunity, she hopes to deepen her understanding of education policy, collaborate with and support like-minded peers, and contribute to systemic reforms that make education more equitable for all students.

Why is student voice important?

Student voice is critical because no one understands the failures of the education system better than the students experiencing them. Meaningful change cannot happen when decisions are made about us without including us.

How can adults better meet your educational needs?

Adults can better meet students’ educational needs by listening to us, not as an afterthought but as experts in our own experiences. They must actively confront and unlearn their implicit biases to create an education system where all students, regardless of background, have an equitable chance to succeed.

What do you want the future to look like?

I want a future where accommodations are unnecessary because we have built a society not rooted in exclusion. I want a future where education and policy are designed with every student in mind from the start, not as a fix for a broken system.