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Gerson Garcia had been fighting. It happened during second-grade recess, and had to do with a ball on the playground. He was too angry to talk about it. One of his friends had seen him getting upset and alerted a teacher, who whisked him down the hallway at Enrico Fermi School 17, the skinny 8-year-old squirming in protest all the way. He ended up in the office of school sentry Miguel Rivera and — still not speaking — made a beeline for the trampoline. When Rivera started working in the...

There is nothing more motivating for teachers and school support staff than identifying ways they can reach students. That is happening statewide as the Illinois Education Association, with 135,000 union members, addresses the impact of trauma and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on the ability of students to learn. New brain research proves ACEs, recurring experiences that create such trauma that the brain literally changes, lead to behaviors such as fighting, fleeing or shutting down.

When bullied children stay home to avoid hurtful relationships, schools lose tens of millions of dollars each year, a new study says. And the numbers are significant: California schools alone lost $276 million in funding when students stayed home out of fear, the authors estimate. That's because those absences can lower average daily attendance rates, which are used by many states to allocate significant amounts of school funding, says the study, published this week in School Psychology...

The city of Springfield, Massachusetts, has had a serendipitous sequence of events supercharge its preschool-expansion efforts. Federal money came in just as local support for early-childhood education crested, and the closure of an early-childhood center created an opening for the school district to buy an existing facility. The federal money, offered to Springfield and four other Massachusetts communities through the Preschool Expansion Grant program, enabled 195 new seats to go to...

Districts and schools all over the country are working hard to make social-emotional learning ( SEL ) a part of the “DNA” of the educational process, meaning they’re going beyond just the adoption of an SEL curricula and are incorporating SEL into school climate, discipline policies, teacher professional development, and the like. But for educational leaders who are new to SEL or who are trying to figure out where to start, this process can seem overwhelming. [For more of this story, written...

Countless schools across the nation strive to make character a feature of education. Whether through classes on social-emotional learning , mindfulness exercises or reminders about the virtues of gratitude, thousands of students are exposed to messages that deplore cheating and bullying and celebrate kindness and consideration. In spite of the lecturing, however, 51 percent of high school kids owned up to cheating on exams, according to the Josephson Institute. Another 62 percent believe...

This brief examines the research on community schools, with two primary emphases. First, it explores whether the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) opens the possibility of investing in well-designed community schools to meet the educational needs of low-achieving students in high-poverty schools. And second, it provides support to school, district, and state leaders as they consider, propose, or implement a community school intervention in schools targeted for comprehensive support. [For...

Time is running out!! Register today for the Trauma-Informed Educator and Parent training in Bridgewater, NJ on July 13, 2017.

Over the past twenty years several studies have shown that ACEs are common and that there is a strong relationship of these experiences with various health factors. Although these studies have all been very important in helping to establish the frequency of adverse childhood experiences, very little has actually been asked of children themselves. In addition, never before has a direct link been made with what a large, representative group of children (N = 664) say they have experienced in...

If schools are to be guided by data, the data says that 2 of 3 children experience at least one adverse childhood experience (ACE): children of all incomes, all colors, all social levels, all educational levels. It is all of us. Is your school trauma-informed?

A white board with a giant illustration of the human brain sat in the middle of the room, a constant reminder, participants said, that any real attempts to treat juvenile offenders begins not with detention or tough love, but with science. Many of the teens who find themselves in the juvenile system or alternative school programs have grown up with trauma that directly impacts their cognitive functions, said Pender Makin, assistant superintendent of schools in Brunswick, Maine. Physical...

States across the U.S. are taking more seriously the importance of early childhood education and ramping up their offerings, but compared to the rest of the world, the U.S. has a long way to go. While enrollment rates for children under age three hover just below 30 percent – the middle of the pack compared to other countries – the U.S. falls significantly behind when it comes to enrollment rates of 3- and 4-year-olds, according to a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation...