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By Rebecca London & William Massey, June 22, 2020, The Conversation. Once children return to school for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic upended everything, they will most likely spend less time on school grounds . And as educational leaders decide how to schedule elementary school students’ days, they see catching students up on math, English and other academic subjects as a top priority. In our view, helping students heal from the stress and trauma of what they have been...

Dana Brown, California's ACEs Science Statewide Facilitator, and Tracie Travers , Jobs for Maine's Graduates, JAG Main State Trainer, discuss the importance of acknowledging fear, loss, and vulnerability during the COVID-19 pandemic. It includes: Tips to build resilience Self-care strategies Multiple resources with hyperlinks are provided in this video designed to support school partners and their employees as they support students and communities. Video Link: Collective Trauma Healing...

Thursday, June 25, 2020 Education Upended, NEW TIME- 11AM PST, Special Guest Roberto Rivera Please join us for the ongoing community discussion of "A Better Normal — Education Upended". This week special guest Roberto Rivera will join us to discuss raising up youth voice in education as we re-imagine the future of school. Roberto Rivera is a member of the Social and Emotional Learning Group at the University of Illinois at Chicago. As a doctoral student at UIC, he currently research...

By Antero Garcia and Nicole Mirra, EdSource, June 17, 2020 As school districts and county offices of education make plans for safely reopening schools in the fall and helping students cope with their trauma, it is urgent that they also recognize and make space for teachers to process and heal from their own feelings of loss and grief. Nearly every teacher we have ever worked with puts their emotional needs aside in order to address the emotional needs of their students when tragedy...

Thursday, June 18, 2020 Education Upended, Special Guest Ingrid Cockhren Please join us for the ongoing community discussion of "A Better Normal — Education Upended". This week special guest and ACEsConnection staff member Ingrid Cockhren will join us to discuss facilitating conversations about racism, equity, and racial trauma through a trauma-informed lens with staff and students. Weekly themes include: How do we create physical and psychological safety, especially in the face of so much...

Educators and parents don’t all support the move. The school board’s decision was unanimous. Jun. 11, 2020, 9:32 p.m. Denver’s public school system will part ways with in-school police officers who have monitored students and campuses for 22 years. After four hours of heated comment from the public Thursday evening, the Denver Public Schools Board of Education voted unanimously to order Denver Police Department officers out of school hallways and classrooms. The resolution , sponsored by...

By Kalyn Belsha, Chalkbeat, June 9, 2020 Last week, as widespread protests continued over the police killing of George Floyd, the Minneapolis school board voted unanimously to end its contract with the local police department. Since then, school officials elsewhere have moved in a similar direction. A majority of Denver school board members say they’ll support a measure to remove police from the district’s schools by the end of the year. And the superintendent of Portland’s public schools...

By Theresa Harrington and Ali Tadayon, EdSource, June 10, 2020 Amid calls to defund municipal police in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police, two Oakland Unified school board members are pushing to eliminate the district’s police force. This is an acceleration of a demand that dates back nine years, when activists began calling on the district to dissolve its police department after a black student was shot and killed by a district police sergeant. The proposal by board...

It started as a series of Instagram posts; then it became a downloadable workbook. Now, the “Me and White Supremacy” challenge is reaching the mainstream—and creator Layla F. Saad hopes all teachers with white privilege will find the courage to take it. ADRIENNE VAN DER VALK ISSUE 62, SUMMER 2019 The night of June 26, 2018, Layla Saad was unable to sleep. The previous year had been a taxing one for the writer, life and business coach, and spiritual advisor. The deadly Unite the Right rally...

By Desmond Ang, EducationNext, June 4, 2020 How will the death of George Floyd affect Minneapolis schoolchildren? New research I conducted on the effects of police violence indicates that it will significantly hurt their educational and emotional well-being. Examining detailed data on more than 700,000 public high school students and over 600 officer-involved killings in a large urban county, I found that police use of force has large, negative spillovers on educational achievement and...

Learn4Life quickly realized that in order to reach students’ heads, we needed to reach their hearts. So, we designed the Trauma-Resilient Educational Communities (TREC ) Model which is based on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) science and protocols. TREC is an active approach to understanding trauma. We do more than explain the effects of trauma and encourage understanding amongst our teachers, counselors and staff. All our employees are trained and receive credentials in the foundations...

COMMENTARY, JUNE 8, 2020, DEBRA DUARDO Nothing would come as a greater relief than to welcome back more than 2 million students to Los Angeles County schools in coming months. That’s where they belong. But when schools reopen, they will not look the same as they did before the pandemic-required shelter-in-place. Our country was a different place three months ago. Today: Protests over racial injustice have rocked the nation. Interaction with friends, neighbors and family has changed as the...