Student Programs
IDRA’s student programs demonstrate our core values that recognize the assets all students bring and that listen to students and engage them both in their own learning and in their leadership to transform schools and communities.
Valued Youth Partnership
The IDRA Valued Youth Partnership is a research-based, internationally-recognized dropout prevention program that has kept 98% of its tutors in school. Created by IDRA, it is an internationally-recognized, cross-age tutoring program with an unusual twist. This dropout prevention program works by identifying junior high and high school students in at-risk situations and enlisting them as tutors for elementary school youngsters who are also struggling in school. Given this role of personal and academic responsibility, the Valued Youth tutors learn self-discipline and develop self-esteem. Schools shift to the philosophy and practices of valuing students considered at-risk. Results show that tutors stay in school, have increased academic performance, improved school attendance and advanced to higher education. VYP also transforms students’ socio-emotional learning and relationships with school.
VisionCoders
VisionCoders is a new eighth-grade computer science course being developed by IDRA in partnership with Texas A&M University–San Antonio and 12 schools in seven Bexar County school districts. In this course, middle school students who are in at-risk situations will become software designers who create educational games for prekindergarten, kindergarten and first-grade students. This field-initiated, research-based program is funded by the U.S. Department of Education.
Youth Advisory Board
Ten high school students from across Texas are providing their insights about equity in education and advocacy. Since our founding 50 years ago, IDRA has remained committed to prioritizing students in our decision-making. We selected 10 student leaders who formed IDRA’s inaugural 2022 Youth Advisory Board.
Youth Leadership Now
IDRA’s Youth Leadership Now is an in-school program where eighth-grade students considered high-need will tutor K-1st grade students. The middle schools also will be mentored by teachers who will help them prepare to transition into high school. IDRA is partnering with Texas Education Service Center (ESC), Region 19 for this project that integrates IDRA’s intergenerational family leadership model, Education CAFE, to engage families and YLN tutors in action equity projects. This field-initiated, research-based program is funded by the U.S. Department of Education and will begin its pilot year in 2023-24.
MAS for Our Schools
Through our MAS for Our Schools youth participatory action research projects, our first student cohort investigated the status of Mexican American Studies their school district, targeting teachers and students currently participating in MAS. Their report was released in March 2024. The second cohort is working in the summer and fall of 2024.
Digital Ambassadors
IDRA’s Digital Ambassadors program aims to empower Texas Rio Grande Valley communities through youth-led technology training. The students are engaged in comprehensive participatory action research to identify the most pressing technology needs within their community. The needs assessment was grounded in direct community engagement, ensuring that the training developed would be both relevant and impactful.
More Student Research & Activism
IDRA works with student advocates to inform our work and to elevate their voices as they call for safe and welcoming schools that prepare them for college and a strong future.
For example, we are supporting a team of high school students studying the state of Mexican American Studies in their area schools (see MAS for Our Schools).
Through our Equal Justice Works Fellowship Project, we recruited in the summer of 2024 students to study the school discipline experiences of Black girls in Atlanta. This project connects these research principles and frameworks to legal scholarship and advocacy, called legal youth participatory action research (LYPAR).
IDRA’s Youth Advisory Board student research team led a mixed-methods YPAR research project to examine the intersections of culturally responsive education and school discipline in Texas public schools.
