High school student researchers from the First Ring Student Leadership Institute represented Cleveland State University’s Center for Urban Education at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association in Los Angeles as part of AERA’s Research Engagement and Development with Youth program.

The READY program brings competitively selected teams of high school researchers to the AERA Annual Meeting to present their work, engage with education scholars, and strengthen their research communication skills. This year, only six youth research teams were selected from an international pool of applicants, with students representing California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and South Korea.

The First Ring Student Leadership Institute team was led by Dr. Adam Voight, Director of the Center for Urban Education at Cleveland State University. Youth researchers Cora Barcelona, Ryan Hilcu, Breanna Kern, Abigail Peck, and Maya Trempe presented their project, “Who Will Teach Us Next? Ohio High School Students’ Perceptions of Teaching as a Career.” Their study explored how high school students think about the teaching profession at a time when Ohio and the nation are facing serious concerns about the future educator workforce.

At the Annual Meeting, the students participated in a READY workshop, shared their project through an “Ed-Talk,” joined a scholar roundtable with researchers whose expertise aligned with their topic, and took part in a Presidential Session titled “Nothing About Us Without Us: Attending to Youth Desires for Their Educational Futures.” They also presented their work in a poster session attended by education researchers from across the country and around the world.

The team’s participation reflects CUE’s ongoing commitment to youth participatory research and to creating opportunities for students to contribute directly to conversations about education policy and practice. For the Center, the READY program was not simply an opportunity for students to attend a major academic conference. It was a chance for young people to be recognized as knowledge producers whose experiences, questions, and analyses can strengthen education research.

The First Ring Student Leadership Institute is a regional student voice and leadership program operated in partnership with the Educational Service Center of Northeast Ohio. Through the program, high school students investigate issues affecting their schools and communities, gather and analyze data, and develop recommendations for educators and decision-makers. The READY experience offered a powerful national platform for that work and highlighted the value of bringing student perspectives into the field’s most important professional spaces.