Youth Engagement Partners (YEPs)

Youth Engagement Partners (YEPs) are youth from Portland’s three public high schools who organize within their schools and district-wide to co-construct the future of high school education in Portland. YEPs are emerging leaders who represent many different backgrounds and experiences with education. 

Click here for the YEP application!

YEPs identify and advocate for changes that will help Portland’s schools become more student-centered. Portland Empowered supports YEPs in gaining critical leadership skills, realizing their own power as change makers, and planning for their own futures.

The Youth Engagement Partners have designed and facilitated youth-led trainings for teachers and staff in Portland in order to support schools in identifying ways to deepen student-staff relationships and to help schools understand what it is like to be a student today.

YEPs were finalists in 2016 for the Nellie Mae Education Foundation Youth Organizing award. Youth Engagement Partners continue to work to ensure that student government structures across Portland are accessible, accountable, representative of the demographics of the schools, and weighing in on meaningful decisions related to education.

YEPs meet on a weekly basis, both in-person and virtually. Please apply with the link below!