Blog

While a large amount of research has focused on how poverty affects students’ academic achievement, information about the effects of toxic stress and adverse childhood experiences on learning are just coming to the forefront. Some kids “come into a family that has the resources and the support to provide what they need, but, unfortunately, we know many kids don’t,” and spend much of their lives trying to catch up and overcome challenges, said Marcia Stanton, coordinator of the Adverse...

The Attachment & Trauma Network’s 2017 Educating Traumatized Children Summit will feature 18 audio interviews (available as mp3 recordings) exploring the Trauma-Sensitive Schools movement and the latest in understanding the impact of trauma on learning. Teachers, therapists, administrators and parents will all find this series helpful in working with children of trauma. Topics include:  Re-Thinking Children’s Behavior...the Seismic Shift 
  The Importance of Top Administrators’...

Pam Bunyon faced the 4th graders, some splayed in chairs but most arrayed on the rug before her. On the whiteboard, she showed them the outline of a human head. Next to it were some big words for the 9- and 10-year-olds: Cortex . Amygdala . Brain stem . Bunyon, the counselor at Powel Elementary School, was using science to help students understand their impulses and give them strategies to deal with them. “So we don’t flip out,” as she and the class put it. Bunyon took classes on anger,...

The Le Grand Union High School District is comprised of just over 500 students. Dissatisfied with the impact such traditional, punitive discipline was having on the school climate, educators and administrators decided to try a different approach and began to implement a “restorative” model of discipline. Rather than banishing the offending student from school, “restorative” strategies aim to help identify personal or family issues a student may be having that often are the root cause of the...

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...