Youth–Adult Partnerships: A Transformative Approach to Education

At the Center for Leadership and Educational Equity (CLEE) Fall Meeting on November 13–14, 2025, educators from across the country met in Rhode Island to deepen their understanding of student-centered leadership. Among the featured presenters was the Eagle Rock Professional Development Center, joined by students who contributed virtually through video, exemplifying the power of authentic youth–adult partnerships.

Empowering Youth Voice

Based in Estes Park, Colorado, the Eagle Rock Professional Development Center collaborates closely with educators and students to cultivate the next generation of leaders. Their work centers on equity, youth voice, and meaningful leadership opportunities, an approach designed to make education more inclusive and empowering for all learners.

A foundational element of Eagle Rock’s presentation drew on Roger Hart’s Ladder of Participation, a key feature of Eagle Rock’s Changemaker Cohort and a framework that illustrates the continuum from tokenism to true shared decision-making. By applying Hart’s model, Eagle Rock helped educators analyze their current practices, identify gaps in youth engagement, and develop strategies that elevate student agency and foster collaborative school cultures.

A Model for Collaborative Leadership

Eagle Rock’s contributions at the CLEE Fall Meeting highlighted the transformative impact of genuine youth–adult collaboration. Through sharing experiences, tools, and practical strategies, including real examples of using Hart’s Ladder on Eagle Rock’s campus and through Changemaker schools coast to coast, they encouraged participants to explore adopting practices that amplify student voice and create more responsive, dynamic learning environments.

Home Learning Groups: Bringing Real Work to the Table

A defining feature of the CLEE Fall Meeting is the use of home learning groups, small, recurring teams of educators who bring authentic challenges from their schools and use CLEE protocols to analyze dilemmas and generate possible solutions. During this year’s gathering, these groups engaged deeply with live problems of practice, including two from Eagle Rock:

• Advancing Eagle Rock’s competency-based implementation
   
• Designing an alumni network to support members of Eagle Rock’s Changemaker cohort

This hands-on, collaborative structure allowed participants to connect conference learning directly to ongoing work in their communities.

Looking Ahead

As the educational landscape continues to evolve, the insights shared by Eagle Rock at the CLEE Fall Meeting contribute to a growing understanding of how youth–adult partnerships grounded in Hart’s principles and supported by structured collaborative learning can drive meaningful and lasting change in schools and across communities.  The Professional Development team will be presenting Amplifying Adult/Student Partnership in Improvement Science for the National Summit on Improvement in Education in San Diego this coming March.