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I will take my oath of office today and have the honor of representing Silicon Valley in the U.S. House of Representatives. My political campaign succeeded because of the help of hundreds of students. Their ambition and drive will allow them to flourish, but I am concerned about their well-being. These students were volunteering because of a genuine passion for giving back to the community. But a few also told me that the campaign work was a release, or as one student put it “a respite from...

A new federal report recommends that schools emphasize building children’s “self-regulation” skills in order to increase opportunities for student success in a number of areas. The recommendation is one of several in the report, the fourth in a series on self-regulation research and practice from the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Researchers have zeroed in on the importance of self-regulation skills, which allow children...

Educators are typically very familiar with the research that describes the effectiveness of having strong relationships with students. As an elementary school staff, we have discussed the importance of building relationships and personal connections with our students. We have shared ideas as to how some teachers build these relationships. Our teachers greet our students at the door each morning and personally greet them as they load the buses to go home. However, we wondered if every student...

The toolkit is designed to aid faculty and teachers in a variety of disciplines, specifically social work, medicine, law, education, and counseling, to develop or integrate critical content on adverse childhood experiences and trauma informed care into new or existing curricula of graduate education programs. This toolkit provides an overview of colleges and universities that have courses in trauma-informed practice and ACEs science. Most of the toolkit comprises content for a course on...

Most of the third-graders in Anita Parameswaran’s class at Daniel Webster Elementary in San Francisco have had experiences so awful that their brains won’t let them easily forget. “Whether it be that they’ve been sexually molested, or they’ve seen domestic violence, or shootings, or they know somebody who’s passed away,” Parameswaran said, “I would say every single year about 75 percent, give or take, come in with a lot of trauma.” Now a national campaign is recognizing, backed by research...

A systems approach is needed to better align the health and education sectors in order to address the needs of the whole child. The Issue Students who are healthy, present, and engaged learn better. At the same time, those with more education tend to live longer, healthier, and more productive lives. In short, the relationship between health and education is reciprocal: higher education has been found to improve health, and better health supports learning. But despite these connections the...

David B. Cohen, a veteran English teacher at Palo Alto High and columnist for Education Week, spent a year crisscrossing California observing some of the state’s best teachers. The result was Capturing the Spark: Inspired Teachers, Thriving Schools, an insightful look at talented teachers, effective practices and promising schools, from Arcata to El Centro. Some interviewees were California Teachers of the Year or, like Cohen, have their national board certification, a distinguished...

Kevin Beiser acknowledged what brought hundreds of parents, teachers and students Wednesday evening to a dusty ball field in Old Town — the fear of “what it would be like in Nazi Germany.” But school board member Beiser promised the San Diego Unified School District would “push back” against enablers of hate. Trustee Richard Barrera noted a 950-word school board resolution approved last week “reaffirming values of peace, tolerance and respect for multiple perspectives.” (see attached)...

In California and across the country, suicide is the second leading cause of death among teens—a grim reminder that many high school students’ primary barrier to adulthood is themselves. More young people take their own lives than the number killed by cancer, heart disease, birth defects, stroke, flu, pneumonia and chronic lung disease combined. And under legislation set to take effect in January, school systems up and down the state will be forced to confront the taboo topic head-on.

The Somerset Independent School District posted a video of the gift-giving on Facebook, where it had been viewed more than 5 million times by Wednesday, and shared more than 90,000 times. The district is located in Somerset, Tex., which is about 20 miles from San Antonio. "When I watch that video, I feel a sense of pride," said Somerset Mayor Lydia Hernandez, who also works at the school. "Not only to be proud to work at the school district and know that our students are so amazing and so...

Three decades ago, a team of researchers at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Diego asked thousands of patients about traumatic events from their childhood. The responses were collected and analyzed against health records for a study known as the Adverse Childhood Experiences study or ACEs, a landmark study in the field of trauma research. The researchers found a strong correlation between the ten adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) - which include physical and sexual abuse, losing a...

PSAs designed to help grow awareness of the impacts of developmental or 'childhood' trauma. All the narratives are about real kids (with pseudonyms) who are trauma-impacted. These are not "combined" or imaginary narratives, nor caricatures.