Keyla Gonzalez, a member of Young Voices, presents the group’s findings to a gathering of political and educational leaders yesterday.

The Providence Journal Ruben W. Perez

PROVIDENCE — For the first time, the young people of Providence stood before the city’s leaders and told them exactly what they want from their schools, their police department and their elected officials.

They want a curriculum that is more demanding and hands-on. They want to increase the number of caring, effective teachers in the classroom. They want schools to have a more positive atmosphere. And they want to make sure that schools are adequately financed.

Not only did the youth speak, but the adults listened. Yesterday’s forum, sponsored by a youth group called Young Voices, drew Mayor David N. Cicilline, Supt. Donnie Evans, Police Chief Dean Esserman, state education Commissioner Peter McWalters and a host of civic and community leaders.

As Esserman said, “I’m here with my senior command staff to respect you, hear your voices and tell you that we will listen and work with you.”

Wearing their signature purple polo shirts, members of Young Voices, a student group committed to research and advocacy, presented their findings in the rotunda of the Civic Center before about 200 people. Their recommendations are based on interviews with more than 900 students from high schools across the city, focus groups with teenagers and meetings with members of the mayor’s staff, the school administration and the police department.

Perhaps the most striking finding is that 93 percent of the students surveyed expressed a desire to attend college. When asked if their high school prepared them for college, however, 50 percent said “a little” and 15 percent answered “not at all.”

According to Young Voices, students want a more challenging curriculum that includes advanced placement classes, more college visits and the teaching of leadership skills. They want teachers to hold them to high expectations. They want more job-related internships in the real world.

But the group’s recommendations didn’t stop there. Young Voices suggested that schools hold student-teacher conferences so teens can have a structured opportunity to get feedback from their teachers.

And it asked that the legislature adopt a more equitable funding formula so all students, not only suburban ones, have access to the same resources, the same high-quality teaching and the same after-school opportunities.

“This is the first time that you are hearing from us in a data-driven way,” said Keyla Gonzalez, one of the Young Voices presenters. “We believe that data, advocacy and leadership can be catalysts for social change.”

Young Voices partnered with Rhode Island Kids Count to develop the paper survey, analyze the data and develop a series of policy recommendations. Last night, Elizabeth Burke Bryant, the executive director of Kids Count, a child advocacy group, praised the youth group for giving voice to the issues and concerns of the city’s teenagers.

“Congratulations,” she told an assemblage of student organizations, including Youth in Action, AS220, Year Up, Youth Build and Youth Pride. “We know what it takes to be a voice for change. You need to tell your story and let people know what you need.”

Young Voices also shared how teenagers feel about the police. The survey found that youth who had positive experiences with the student resource officers, who are located in high schools, were twice as likely to have positive opinions about the police in general.

According to the data, 47 percent of the students surveyed said the police are often or sometimes respectful, 41 percent said they were neither rude nor respectful and 12 percent said they were often or sometimes rude.

In a survey of students interviewed in their neighborhoods, 60 percent said they didn’t know the police at all, 21 percent had a positive experience with them and 19 percent said they had a negative or very negative view of the police.

Young Voices recommended training police officers on how to work with youth; holding all officers accountable for their behavior and improving the student resource officers’ relationships with youth.

McWalters said the Rhode Island Department of Education is already making headway on some of these issues. His office is abolishing high school courses that do not prepare students to do college-level work and developing standards to measure teacher quality. And he promised to once again advocate for a fair state funding formula when the legislature convenes later this winter.

“Continue to be loud and clear and both patient and impatient,” McWalters said. “We rely on you to make the case” for more school resources.

At the end of the event, Chace Baptista, the co-director of Young Voices, described how certain adults in the audience had made a huge difference in his life.

“If you had asked anyone four years ago where I’d be today, the answer would be, ‘not wearing a suit and jacket,’ ” he said. “Some of my friends are dead. Some are in jail. I’m on the right track because of you. My friends need to be up here. We need to create change for all of the youth in our city.”

lborg@projo.com