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Students stressed out over impending college acceptance and rejection letters drop by a teacher’s class to spend time brushing the therapy dog in her class just to calm their nerves. At another campus, a first grader practices reading aloud while absentmindedly playing with the ears of a therapy dog that visits his class once a week. Man’s best friend is playing an increasingly important role in maintaining student mental health as more becomes required of students to succeed academically.

This report and accompanying policy brief show that there is good reason to pursue the measurement of social-emotional learning (SEL) and school culture/climate (CC) as a way to better understand student and school performance. Using data from California's CORE districts, we show that SEL and CC measures demonstrate reliability and validity, distinguish between schools, are related to other academic and non-academic measures, and also illuminate dimensions of student achievement that go...

We are trying to scoop water out of a boat which has gaping trauma-holes in the bottom.

Social emotional learning (SEL) programs can promote academic achievement and positive social behavior, and reduce conduct problems, substance abuse, and emotional distress. The Issue There is widespread evidence of successful, universal SEL programs and practices that can support social and emotional development in students during the elementary school years. Based on decades of research and evaluation in rigorous field trials, these approaches are now widely available to schools, along...

In an effort to prevent thousands of pounds of leftover school meals from being thrown away, the San Diego Unified School District is set to officially launch a new “food recovery program.” Dubbed the “Love Food Not Waste Program,” the goal is to divert leftover school meals into local organizations facing food shortages, according to a SDUSD news release. The Love Food Not Waste Program is a partnership between SDUSD and Feeding San Diego . Feeding San Diego coordinates with additional...

In any given week, Kelly Payton’s fifth grade students might read newspaper articles about immigration or Syrian refugees or climate change. Sometimes she assigns them the same stories, other times they’re instructed to go online and like the rest of the news-consuming world, click on the headlines that most appeal to them. By consuming current stories about the concerns and plights of others, Payton, a teacher at a public school in Union City, Calif., has noticed her students developing...

April 12, noon-1:30: Trauma-Informed Approaches in Minnesota Schools Dr. Mark Sander, Hennepin County; Stacy Bender-Fayette and Sharleen Zeman-Sperle, Peacemaker Resources Many Minnesota schools are trying innovative approaches to promote social emotional learning and to make the classroom a safe learning environment for children who have experienced trauma. This webinar is a chance to hear from three such innovators: Dr. Mark Sander, a psychologist working in the Minneapolis Public Schools...

Small rocks from the beaches of eastern Massachusetts began appearing at Lexington High School last fall. They were painted in pastels and inscribed with pithy advice: Be happy.… Mistakes are O.K.… Don’t worry, it will be over soon. They had appeared almost by magic, boosting spirits and spreading calm at a public high school known for its sleep-deprived student body. The rocks, it turns out, were the work of a small group of students worried about rising anxiety and depression among their...

lThanks everyone for the high level of interest in this blog post. I thought I would send a follow up. Public Counsel a law firm filed a class action lawsuit alleging that Compton Unified subjected trauma impacted students to punitive and counter productive measures that pushed these students out of school and into the criminal justice system. Read the details on their website. http://www.publiccounsel.org/stories?id=0172 The plaintiffs were requesting that compton unified provide training...

It's been a labor of love more than a year in the making, and it is exciting to see the curriculum come together and head out to those that will give this first version a "test drive" this spring and (hopefully) give me some great feedback so I can make improvements over the summer and make the curriculum better! It is called "Bruised Reeds and Smoldering Wicks: a six week study of trauma-informed ministry and compassionate care for children from hard places and situations." The study is...

In 2009, the United States’ college-dropout rate exceeded that of high school. In 2013, there were 29.1 million college dropouts vs. 24.5 million from high school. We must make sure students not only graduate from high school, but also have the tools and the support to succeed once they do. Programs that provide students with trusted adult relationships should consider extending virtual-mentoring support during the college transition. According to a 2014 study by the nonprofit MENTOR: The...

On March 2nd PESI recorded a full day presentation on Trauma Informed Education. It is available at https://www.pesi.com/store/detail/19910/trauma-informed-education It is a convenient way to learn more about trauma informed education and to gain ceu's for recertification. I hope you like it Bob and Crew