We hope you will join ther first annual Trauma Informed Schools Network Conference: Cultivating Connections coming to Nashville, TN in mid-July. Details to come soon. The RFP wil open this Friday.
When you’re the big fish, it’s not OK to pick on the little fish just because you can. That’s an important lesson for everyone. But some Houston first-graders got a particularly vivid demonstration in the form of a musical puppet show, which featured fish puppets and an underlying message about why it’s wrong to bully others. The show left an impression on the students at Codwell Elementary, according to their teacher Shelea Bennett. “You felt like you were in that story,” she said. “By the...
This is the latest article in The 74’s ongoing ‘ Big Picture ’ series, bringing American education into sharper focus through new research and data. Go Deeper: See our full series . If there’s one thing parents, real estate agents, and educators all understand implicitly, it’s this: High property values are built on top-notch school districts. Excellent schools are considered so precious, parents will risk huge fines and even jail sentences by enrolling their children under false pretenses.
While we know that the national school lunch program is an essential part of students functioning, wellbeing, and achievement, the reality is that many schools serve lunch before 11 and even as early as 9 am (shout out to the 2 local Junior Highs in my childhood neighborhood in Queens, NY). Why this is nuts is a no brainer but as one student puts it: “It is way too early. People that have lunch periods at that time get hungry later on in the day which decreases our focus in classes,” says...
The truth is children have and are experiencing adversity, parents have experienced and are experiencing adversity and teachers and staff have and are experiencing adversity.
I am writing you this post as a past president of the Michigan Association of School Psychologists and adoptive father of two foster children with special needs. My wife, Barbara, and I have written two books concerning educating and raising abused and abandoned children. Because these books will be helpful to both parents and teachers I am posting this letter to education and parenting pages. They are: Some Way Home – A Memoir in a Myth and Crossing Infinity – Healing Our Children Ourselves...
This story is part of a series about how schools, teachers and students are coping with the immigration crisis. PATCHOGUE, N.Y. — Wilda Rosario’s support groups for immigrant students at Patchogue-Medford High School usually start out with lots of laughter. That’s just how teenagers are, she says. But it doesn’t take too long for conversations to turn serious with this group of kids, most of them children seeking asylum from violence in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. During an...
This Oregon School Boards Association article details testimony from two trauma informed schools pilot projects in Oregon. Here is the article .
Please help to spread the word about this vital opening in our city's school district. https://ats4.searchsoft.net/ats/job_board_form?op=view&JOB_ID=4600169492&REPRESENTATIVE_COMPANY_ID=00002581&COMPANY_ID=00002581
A recently released report from the Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development provides a roadmap for putting relationships at the center of education. While the concept is widely accepted, the question is: Do we have the will to make a relationships-first approach real in every school across the country? This approach is important for every student, and it is especially urgent for students facing the most adversity and instability. Brain science on...
When you first hear about it, it sounds unlikely, fact that something that happened to someone in utero, at the age of two months, or four years, or any time in childhood, is what is killing them as an adult, or making them want to die, or making them want to hurt themselves or others. Yet the connection between childhood trauma and adult disease, mental illness, addiction, suicide, violence – most all of society’s ills – is as irrefutable as the myriad truths revealed about it in the...
Despite the pervasive effect of stressful experiences — from mass school shootings to the opioid epidemic — on student performance, only 11 states encourage or require staff training on the effects of trauma. Half of states have policies on suicide prevention. And just one state, Vermont, requires a school nurse to be available daily at every school campus. Those are among the key findings of a report released Thursday by the nonprofit Child Trends, which found that most states have failed...
Kalamazoo joins school districts nationwide who are recognizing that alternatives to expulsions keep kids in school.
Author, Leora Wolf-Prusan, EdD, School Mental Health lead for SAMHSA's Mental Health Technology Center Pacific Southwest http://mhttcnetwork.org/mhttc/mhttc-psw.html Creating compassionate policies is a cornerstone strategy of educational leadership. This guide provides a deep dive into developing, implementing, and evaluating trauma-informed and compassionate school policies. It highlights four "choice points" for education and mental health leadership: Choice Point 1: Names &...
ZAIDEE STAVELY JANUARY 30, 2019 José Sánchez crossed three borders on his own to get to Oakland, California when he was just 17. But once here, he found another barrier that proved even more difficult to overcome — graduating high school. Sánchez is one of more than 200,000 children and youth under 18 who since 2014 crossed the U.S. border without their parents. When a minor turns themselves in or is detained by immigration authorities, they are turned over to the Office of Refugee...