2025 NAIS Student Civic Leadership Summit in Washington, DC

In February, four of our students attended the 2025 NAIS Student Civic Leadership Summit in Washington, DC. They joined high school students from across the country to explore civic engagement and leadership. Our four students were selected to attend the conference because they show exemplary student leadership on campus. Two of them are elected co-leaders of the Equity Roundtable, which is composed of the leaders of our Affinity- and Identity-based student clubs. These student leaders facilitate Equity Roundtable meetings and advocate for the needs and concerns of affinity leaders on our student council. The other two students are co-leads of our school’s Coalition for Coexistence, a joint group of members from our Muslim Student Alliance and our Jewish Student Union dedicated to telling stories to build understanding of our community’s relationship with Israel and Palestine. The Student Civic Leadership Summit was an energizing opportunity for our students to continue to build their leadership skills.

Hosted in partnership with the Close Up Foundation, the summit challenged students to analyze pressing national issues—such as climate change, poverty, and mental health—through expert discussions and collaborative problem-solving. Our students chose to participate in workshops on poverty, deliberating on the barriers to change, and working in groups to develop action plans to bring back to our school community to address this challenge. When they returned to Oakland, the four students presented their ideas to our faculty and shared strategies for making a meaningful impact at College Prep and the broader Oakland community. The experience deepened their understanding of civic responsibility and equipped them with tools to bring their insights back to our school community.

The students shared that, “We feel inspired by the work and felt a rush of hope and determination overcome us. We truly felt that we can create our own change, giving us a belief for a better future regardless of what's currently happening. We came back from the conference and got straight to work.”