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What if the we could stifle the School to Prison Pipeline by simply creating a culture of belonging and inclusion in elementary school? The need for caring classrooms that promote a sense of connectedness and belonging is essential and must begin the day a child begins their educational experience. In many, not all, underserved communities, minority students are being taught by less experienced teachers who have emanated from culturally and economically incongruent backgrounds. Furthermore,...

I’m delighted to share that my new book Building Trauma-Sensitive Schools: Your Guide to Creating Safe, Supportive Learning Environments for All Students will be released in early 2019 and is now available for pre-order from Brookes Publishing. This book is really about one word — hope. It’s about cultivating hope for all students, including the many who have been affected by childhood trauma. And, it’s also about kindling hope for educators who want to make a positive difference but may...

Newly elected governor Gavin Newsom’s big campaign promises on education could cost billions of dollars if fully realized. The governor-elect has pledged to establish a cradle-to-career system of education in California and made it a central tenet of his education platform. To improve educational outcomes, the former San Francisco mayor argues that the state needs to begin offering services in early childhood with interventions continuing throughout school and college. [For more on this...

To join this webinar, register here . Trauma-informed schools: a conversation with Jim Sporleder, former principal of Lincoln High School, featured in the documentary Paper Tigers Date: Monday, November 19, 2018 Time: 3:00-4:00 pm PDT /6:00-7:00 pm EDT Jim will answer some prepared questions followed by an open question and answer period with participants. Topics that Jim will discuss include: How do you increase staff and community buy in for a trauma-informed school? How do you determine...

Wealthy communities have been reaping far more local bond money than poorer districts, amplifying existing inequities for the state’s public-school students, CALmatters education reporter Ricardo Cano reports . He tells a story of two schools: At Hilmar Unified, in a Merced County, 60 percent of the district’s 2,400 students last year were on free or reduced-cost lunch. Hilmar voters have passed one local bond in 20 years, worth $2 million, or $838 per pupil. Voters in Beverly Hills Unified,...

Cissy's note: This is a great podcast for parents, educators, and community organizers and change makers. It is an interview with @Rebecca Lewis-Pankratz interviewed by Danny Bowers "Sunshine" of Better Leaders Better Schools . Rebecca Lewis-Pankratz says things like, " We all need each other. Everyone here is important," and " The community is who we are," but they aren't inclusive-sounding platitudes. She is a tireless optimist but also understands, personally and professionally, how...

H alf of all Americans now reside in a “sanctuary” jurisdiction where state or local political leaders have committed to supporting refugees and undocumented residents by declining to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in certain ways. But other communities have moved in the opposite direction. These “reverse sanctuary” communities have adopted partnerships with ICE that effectively deputize local police to enforce federal immigration laws. The Trump administration has...

Imagine a school system where some of our country's most underserved students have limited access to grade-level math and science courses, pass rates for those classes are significantly lower than those of their peers in nearby schools, and accurate enrollment information is only available for a fraction of eligible youths. And in that system, 44 percent of youths are black . This describes the education system experienced by students attending school while incarcerated in juvenile...

Boosting SEL in K-12's "Ivory Towers" Educational Leadership October 2018 | Volume 76 | Number 2 The Promise of Social-Emotional Learning Those of us in administration must lift our "social awareness" by getting closer to schools and the people inside them. The superintendent's leadership team for the district where I was working had just finished its Monday morning meeting. One member of that team stopped as he passed by my cubicle to view the large poster I'd recently hung up. It displayed...

n the United States, poverty, incarceration, and race are linked in complex ways, with much evidence that poverty may be both a cause and a consequence of incarceration. Black men are disproportionately more likely than white men to be arrested and incarcerated, a racial gap that first emerged in the early 20th century. In a new study, I explore the historical role played in that gap by education. I find that black men fully exposed to an expansion of rural primary schools between 1913 and...

Many of my seventh-grade students do not arrive at school ready to learn. Their families often face financial hardship and live in cramped quarters, which makes it difficult to focus on homework. The responsibility for cooking and taking care of younger siblings while parents work often falls on these twelve year olds’ small shoulders. Domestic violence and abuse are also not uncommon. To help traumatized students overcome their personal and academic challenges, one of our first jobs as...

The parents in Overland Park, Kan., were fed up. They wanted their children off screens, but they needed strength in numbers. First, because no one wants their kid to be the lone weird one without a phone. And second, because taking the phone away from a middle schooler is actually very, very tough. “We start the meetings by saying, ‘This is hard, we’re in a new frontier, but who is going to help us?’” said Krista Boan, who is leading a Kansas City-based program called START, which stands...