I had a conversation with an elementary principal from Florida while I was in WA DC last week that has been haunting me. This amazing principal and her staff came together to become a trauma informed school. Why? Because they saw their students’ pain and wanted to create a nurturing, safe, and loving school culture.... Days before coming to the Trauma Sensitive School Conference, she and her staff were notified by the State of Florida Education Office that the entire staff was going to be fired at the end of this school year, and all of them would be relocated. Reason?? They serve one of the highest populations of poverty and violence in their city, and they were being fired over their students’ low test scores. A committed leader and compassionate staff are being punished for the deficits research shows students of poverty bring with them when they start school. My heart just sinks, and I feel for the children that are going to lose all their teachers. The research is very clear about the impact of poverty and the traumatic experience these children deal with daily. The worst thing you can do is to turn their world upside down and remove the caring adults from their lives. Florida’s school accountability law has ZERO research that would support such action. WE HAVE TO REMOVE POLITICIANS THAT HAVE NO EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE NOR ARE THEY LOOKING AT THE RESEARCH!! This is criminal and can have negative lifetime consequences on the students who will feel abandoned and not understand why their teachers just left them... it just makes me sick
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