WATG Teen Conference

When youth are engaged in their communities, they bring radical imagination to help move their communities forward. WATG organized an interactive session for Wisconsin Youth through our annual teen conference.  Students from various middle and high schools in WI had a great opportunity to participate in this conference and learn how they can ensure their voices are heard on the issues that matter to them.
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Thanks to Oregon High School students for participating in this conference and sharing their action plan with WATG.  We wish them best of luck with their efforts.

ACTION PLAN by Oregon High School Students:

What is the problem?

Oregon High School does not offer enough classes that include only advanced learners (students with like minds to help each other learn) who want to go more in depth and at a faster pace than their peers in a non-stressful environment.

• Putting, for example, freshmen in an Algebra II class with normal juniors at their grade level is not helping the freshmen, because they need OTHER STUDENTS THEIR AGE that are advanced rather than just older students that are ‘normal’.
• It is not our responsibility to teach other students less advanced in the class

What does research say about this problem?

• West High School in Madison offers Honors Algebra, Honors US History, and Honors Biology, which are just like the other classes but with only accelerated, gifted students
• Oregon currently doesn’t include any of these classes

Possible Solutions?

Some possible solutions that we have come up with include:

• Offering one or two classes, especially in math, science, and social studies that only include accelerated learners
• Finding teachers that already teach the subject who are interested in teaching this type of class (instead of teaching a ‘normal’ class during the day)
• Have a motivated group of students willing to advocate for more honors classes

Steps you are going to take to solve this problem?

• Research and prepare a presentation of the problem and solutions to it
• Figure out what hours these classes would be, when, and who would teach them

• • (Confer with scheduling administrators)
• Present to School Board, superintendents, and other teachers about this problem
• Confer with them continuously to create these classes

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