At Cherokee Point Elementary, kids don't conform to school; school conforms to kids

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What does ANY of the following POSSIBLY have to do with school discipline?

• Every day at 7:40 a.m., all of the school's 570 children start their day by eating a free breakfast. In their classrooms. With their classmates.
• Every other week, the San Diego Food Bank drops off 4,000 pounds of fruits or vegetables for families of students, and another 12,000 pounds every month for the community. Nothing goes to waste.
• Once a year, all 570 children have their eyes tested, their teeth checked and a physical. Eyeglasses are free. They and their families have access to free counseling services.
• Every Friday, 100 backpacks loaded with healthy snacks go home with 100 kids (with their parents’ permission). Teachers select the kids who always seem hungry, who ask for seconds at breakfast and lunch.
• Parents are everywhere. Joking with the school office staff. Assisting teachers in classrooms. Monitoring kids on the playground. Chatting with each other in the parents’ room. Attending English classes. Computer classes. Parenting skills classes. Health and safety classes. Zumba classes.
• In the auditorium after school, fourth- and fifth-graders work with students from nearby high schools and the university; student teachers; parents; and local community members on a leadership training exercise. The program is so popular that the kids who participated last year refuse to stay away.

So what DOES any of this have to do with school discipline?

At Cherokee Point Elementary School in the City Heights district of San Diego….everything.

There are those who cling to the notion that suspensions and expulsions work. They think that no good can come of a compassionate school because in it, kids run wild, cuss at teachers, and pay no attention. Some children just need harsh discipline.

This story about Cherokee Point isn’t really about a school that’s doing away with suspensions and expulsions. It’s a story about people in this school and this community who are creating an environment where suspensions and expulsions are. Just. Not. Necessary.

This story is part of a series about trauma-informed schools. The kind of trauma we’re talking about is the kind people usually don’t like to mention -- physical, verbal and sexual abuse; physical and emotional neglect; a parent who’s an alcoholic, addicted to drugs or diagnosed mentally ill; a family member in jail; a mother who’s battered; loss of a parent through divorce or abandonment.

The CDC’s groundbreaking epidemiological research, the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study and subsequent other studies found that those 10 types of severe and chronic childhood trauma up the risk – by 100 to more than 1,000 percent, depending on the number of ACEs or types of trauma -- of the adult onset of major chronic diseases…diabetes, heart disease, cancer. It also increases the chances of being violent, a victim of violence and becoming chronically depressed. Brain research revealed one of the

reasons: the toxic stress of this trauma damages the structure and function of a child’s brain. Kids get anxious and can’t sit still; get depressed and withdraw; get angry and fight; can’t focus and stop learning. They cope with anxiety, depression, anger by drinking, smoking, doing other drugs, fighting, stealing, overeating, having inappropriate sex, and/or becoming overachievers on their way to becoming workaholics.

In the white middle class, ACEs are as common as salt. In areas of high poverty, they’re as ubiquitous as water. The scientific term for “common as salt” and “ubiquitous as water” is “epidemic”.

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Trauma-informed schools implement practices that prevent childhood trauma and that stop further traumatizing already traumatized children or adults. One result is drastically reduced suspensions and expulsions, but that’s only part of the impact.

A question: Based on the CDC’s ACE Study and on the research on the effects of toxic stress on children’s developing brains, would you expect all schools to incorporate trauma-informed practices?

I’ll ask that another way: Based on the research on the effects of earthquakes on structures, would you expect all construction engineers to incorporate seismic engineering practices when building bridges in California?

Let’s get this out of the way: Suspensions and expulsions don’t work

The research is irrefutable: Suspensions and expulsions don’t work. They’re just ugly symptoms of school systems lurching down the zero-tolerance road to nowhere, of adults clinging to a broken educational system that emphasizes test results above making sure every child has the opportunity to learn, and of racism embedded into our systems like dog hair into a fabric couch.

[To read more, please go to the story on ACEsTooHigh.com]