The Power of Student Visibility and Voice: Communities of Care Travels to the Texas State Capitol
Lightning flashed across the predawn sky and Gulf-coast sized raindrops began to fall onto sleepy young people as they climbed onto a large charter bus, blankets and backpacks in hand. Three buses in different neighborhoods around Houston slowly filled with high school and college students being dropped off by parents and rideshares for the Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT) 2025 Advocacy Day.
As the buses traveled northwest toward the Texas State Capitol building in Austin, the sky began to clear. By the time the Austin skyline was visible, it was a bright, blue-skied, sunny day.
On a final prep call before the big day, one of our partners described Advocacy Day as a “light in a dark tunnel.” That the sun shone as hundreds of students filled the Capitol halls with their presence and power felt apropos.
Background – Communities of Care’s Policy Priorities
Prevention Institute has been convening the Communities of Care (CoC) Policy Peer Exchange twice a month since early 2024. It is a space to gather to learn about and strategize on making policy change and develop community leaders’ confidence, abilities, and vision around shared advocacy goals.
Our collective priority, decided through months of discussion, is Improving the Education System for Better Mental Health Outcomes. We’re focused on
- Access to appropriate mental health care in schools;
- Reducing exclusionary discipline and tech surveillance in schools; and
- Resisting curriculum censorship/whitewashing and book bans
Advocacy Day 2025
In October 2024, we began our partnership with SEAT to co-organize, mobilize students to attend, and be a sponsor for Advocacy Day. SEAT is a student-led movement that advocates for students’ seat at the table, striving to normalize their role in education policy making. The day-long event on Monday, April 21 was just that – a powerful demonstration of student visibility and voice. Participants spent the day learning about and advocating for students’ safety, well-being, educational opportunities, and rights.
About 80 of the 300 attendees were students (and some collaborative leaders and adult partners) from the Communities of Care collaboratives Asian Americans Attaining Awareness, East End Communities, Reaching Richmond Community Collaborative, and The Future is US - Galveston, and partners UTHealth Action Lab.
Danitzia Quezad, a 10th-grade student who attends Milby High School in the East End, reflected on the impact of the day,
“It was so exciting to be there at the Capitol – I got to meet students from all over Texas that were my same age, all there to learn and help make our communities safer and better. The day felt impactful to me because it was an environment that I’m not usually in and I was growing my knowledge about factors that affect my community. I advocate for my community to be a safer place not only for the [people] here right now but for the future generations to come.”
East End Communities collaborative students from Milby High School’s La Raza Student Alliance arrive at the Capitol Photos by Nora Dayton.
Getting to Know Each Other / A Student-led Press Conference
The first half of the day was action-packed. The roar of laughter and chatter filled the large auditorium we occupied in the morning. Students participated in fun activities to meet new people and get to know each other, created personalized bookmarks, and chose a banned book to take home with them.
Representative Donna Howard joined the SEAT leadership team for a press conference. Houston-area highschool sophomore and organizer Marshall Romero spoke about the harms of current proposed legislation to LGBTQ+ students and students of color:
“My teacher has a pride flag and a Black Lives Matter flag proudly hung in their classroom. What some would consider ‘indoctrinatory’, to me is a sign of hope and respect. A sign that people like me are welcome and acknowledged at school . . . You can’t legislate us out of existence.”
SEAT Advocacy Day featured the opportunity for students to listen to a captivating keynote speech by Rosie Stewart, senior manager for public policy at Penguin Random House (and co-founder of MOVE Texas) who spoke about the current attack on education (including book bans), and the necessity during these times of depending on each other.
Communities of Care Leaders Facilitate Breakouts
Students broke into groups to join student and advocacy professionals who co-facilitated a variety of issue-based conversations. From, “BANNED Freedom at the Schoolhouse Gates” to “Promises and Persecution: Education for Immigrants” to “The $1 Billion Problem: Funding Our Schools”, and many more, students were able to learn about topics they care about and current bills moving through the Texas state legislative process. CoC adult leaders co-facilitated two of the breakout groups.
Jonathan Warren (The Future is US - Galveston) and Shanice Blair (The Future is US - Galveston) co-lead a breakout group on School Safety: Discipline, Policing, and Surveillance. Students discussed the educational and mental health harms of policies, especially on Black and brown students, that expand exclusionary discipline (unlimited in-school suspensions, virtual alternative schooling), police in schools (armed police on every campus), and technology surveillance of young people (site blockers, vape detection in bathrooms).
Dr. Virginia Elizondo (East End Communities) and Uttam Gyawali (Asian American Attaining Awareness), alongside a SEAT student member, lead the Elevating Students’ Mental Health group. They printed copies of bills for students to review so they could get a feel for reading and interpreting bill language. Students left the discussion energized about advocating for two positive bills – one that would allow public school students excused absences to attend mental health care appointments, and one that would add ethnic studies to state curriculum standards.
Visiting Lawmaker Offices
A much anticipated moment of the day arrived – an afternoon of legislative visits! SEAT leaders called out group numbers, student names, and adult chaperones. The huge group turned into small groups of around six and spread throughout the building, pausing to check Texas Legislature Online for the status of bills of interest in the process, and strategize on what to say after knocking on elected decision makers’ doors. Ye Linn Htet Aung, a freshman at Houston Community College shared how the experience was meeting directly with an elected decision-maker,
“Meeting with Representative Rosenthal was a meaningful experience. Being able to share our perspectives and have a direct conversation with someone in a position of influence made the work we do feel even more impactful. [Throughout the day] being surrounded by others who are passionate about mental health advocacy created a sense of unity and purpose.”
While the bus ride to Austin in the morning was quiet, the drive back home to Houston that evening was anything but. A buzz of energy filled the vehicle as students excitedly debriefed their day while munching on sandwiches. Pearl Zhang, a college student with the collaborative Asian Americans Attaining Awareness, posed for a quick photo (below) as the bus pulled away from the Capitol, and shared how impactful the day was to her:
“It was incredibly inspiring to see so many students learning about the politics behind their education … especially at a time when there’s a lot of political tension and uncertainty around education and health, and when many of my peers are hesitant or afraid to talk about these changes. It was really encouraging to be surrounded by a large group of people dedicated to having those important conversations and working toward solutions.”
Students are not the leaders of tomorrow—they are leading RIGHT NOW, and deserve a prominent seat at the table.
