Blog

In a recent survey involving 1,000 primary teachers conducted by ed tech company ClassTag , 45 percent of respondents said more than a quarter of families were “hard to reach and engage,” with 21 percent saying that more than half of their families were hard to engage. However, according to the report, The State of Parent Engagement , parents tend to think that teachers do a good job of communicating. Some 39 percent rated teachers as having good communication, rating them at 9 to 10 points...

By John W. Bull, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, July 17, 2019 Texas was the last of two states—Wyoming being the other—that treated truancy as a crime. Students and their parents faced court fines, and if penalties went unpaid, teen truants could be cuffed by constables and sent to jail. None of this made any sense to me when 10 years ago, as San Antonio’s presiding municipal judge, I inadvertently began the process of changing the system across the state. I had heard from a friend who...

By Sally Ho, Associated Press, July 26, 2019 SEATTLE (AP) — Rachel Whalen remembers feeling gutted in high school when a former friend would mock her online postings, threaten to unfollow or unfriend her on social media and post inside jokes about her to others online. The cyberbullying was so distressing that Whalen said she contemplated suicide. Once she got help, she decided to limit her time on social media. It helps to take a break from it for perspective, said Whalen, now a 19-year-old...

By Manola Secaira, July 25, 2019, Crosscut While growing up undocumented, Verónica Guajardo didn't see a place for herself in STEM. Now, she's a researcher who's helping students like herself find their own paths. This interview has been edited for clarity. I was actually an undocumented student for many years. I came to the U.S. about two or three years after I was born, when I was fairly young, from Guadalajara, Jalisco, in Mexico. Then my parents moved to the Central Valley [of...

By Kelly Field, Pacific Standard, July 24, 2019 This story was produced in collaboration with the Hechinger Report. On a recent Thursday morning, when most of their peers were busy prepping for the day, a dozen teachers and staff at Delaware's Sussex Technical High School sat down to talk about race. The group was discussing Chapter 2 of scholar Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism . Lynne Banning, an administrative assistant to the...

By Derrick Bryson Taylor, The New York Times, July 24, 2019, Depression and anxiety. The state of the country. Climate change. Mass shootings. Today’s students are grappling with a variety of issues beyond the classroom. To that end, lawmakers in two states have recently recognized the importance of the mental health of their students by allowing them to take sick days just for that. The measures “empower” children to take care of their mental health, one expert said. On July 1, a law in...

Oregon's suicide rate has outpaced the national average for the past three decades. In an effort to combat stigma around mental illness, four local teen activists took matters into their own hands and championed a proposed state law. Oregon schools will now excuse student absences for mental or behavioral health reasons, as with regular sick days. In other words, if a student is feeling down, they can stay home from school without getting docked for missing classes. The law, signed by Gov.

Community Resilience Initiative is seeking an innovative and passionate individual to join our organization as an Associate Director (AD). The AD reports to the Executive Director and to the Board of Directors. Job Overview The role of the Associate Director is to sustain the resilience-based, trauma-responsive capacity building work at the local, regional, state and national stage for which CRI is recognized. Success in this position will be evidenced by recognition of its exceptional...

It's a start. Clearly many children do not grow up in households where this information is known and understood and healthy patterns hold. I believe we still have a way to go including ACEs and that emotional health is key. All children in England will be taught how to look after their mental wellbeing and recognise when classmates may be struggling, as the Government unveils new guidance for the introduction of compulsory health education. Bold new plans set out today (Monday 25 February)...

The little baby dinosaur was afraid to come out to play.....teaching empathy

In what’s been described as a landmark investment from the federal government in social-emotional learning, the House of Representatives approved a spending bill last month that included $260 million in funding for what it calls “whole child” initiatives within the Department of Education. The funding is divided into four areas : 1. $170 million through the Education Innovation and Research program to provide grants for evidence-based innovations that support students’ social, emotional and...

Fruits and vegetables and everything you need can be bought at the supermarket nowadays. Due to this convenience, kids hardly know where their food comes from, much less how to grow it. By teaching them how to grow their own vegetables, their interest in healthy food is sparked. It’s fun, they learn a lot and spend time in nature. Every week the kids from this middle school in the Netherlands go to the vegetable garden with their teacher and a volunteer parent. At the vegetable garden they...