Tagged With "Behavioral Alliance of South Carolina"
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A South LA high school's journey back from the brink (edsource.org)
Claudia Rojas had a regular routine she followed most days during the 2012-13 school year, the year she took a job as one of three principals at the newly opened Augustus F. Hawkins High School in South Los Angeles. She would get up in the morning, have breakfast and then cry her way to work. Hawkins, as it’s known, is a part of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Pilot School program , which was established in 2007 to relieve overcrowding at Belmont High School in central L.A. The...
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A South LA high school steps up effort to help students besieged by trauma [centerforhealthjournalism.org]
Along with books and backpacks, the teens who walk through the hallways of Washington Preparatory High School in South Los Angeles also carry secrets and fear. Some have seen moms or dads arrested or taken away by immigration agents during early morning raids. They've watched as loved ones and friends were gunned down or stabbed to death on the sidewalks in front of where they live. Others dread going home to an adult who hurts instead of heals. Trauma, depression and anxiety weigh heavily...
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ACES: Educators Present on Child Abuse: South Boston Online
Jeannette Fodness, Meg Rieley and I went to Boston to present at the ASCD conference--a large (@ 7000 I believe) conference for educators and administrators. The conversations were diverse and the interest in ACEs varied as did the knowledge level. Fortunately, a reporter from South Boston Online chose our learning lab to attend and here is what he had to say: http://www.southbostononline.com/aces-educators-present-on-child-abuse-2/ P.S. He got our titles a little mixed up, but the ideas are...
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ACEs Science Champions Series: Eulanda Thorne Applies ACEs Science Awareness at School and at Home
Eulanda Thorne and her children (L to R) Sarah, Joshua, Leah, Emmanuel When school counselor Eulanda Thorne discovered the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in 2018, she felt as if she were on fire. “I felt that I had missed a vital part of my education. Anyone who is in college for social work or teaching, a class on ACEs and trauma should be a required course.” Without an understanding of ACEs, she says, “I would think the students who are sent to me are being defiant or...
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An Inside Look at Attachment and Trauma
"Thanks to Janyne’s transparent telling of her own story, the complex concept of dissociation can be understood without needing a psychology degree.” MELISSA SADIN, Exec. Director of Ducks & Lions, Program Director of ATN Creating Trauma Sensitive Schools, Author of Teachers Guide to Trauma
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Arne Duncan: ‘Everyone Says They Value Education, but Their Actions Don’t Follow’ [theatlantic.com]
Arne Duncan, the former education secretary under President Barack Obama, has always been more candid than others who’ve served in that role. He’s often used his platform to talk about what he sees as the persistent socioeconomic and racial disparities in access to quality schools. His new book, How Schools Work: An Inside Account of Failure and Success From One of the Nation’s Longest-Serving Secretaries of Education, further cements that reputation. How Schools Work’s first chapter is...
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Oregon Governor Kate Brown signs landmark trauma-informed education bill into law
A landmark trauma-informed education bill to address “chronic absences of students” in the state’s public schools was signed by Governor Kate Brown last week. The bill, H.B. 4002 , requires two state education agencies to develop a statewide plan to address the problem and provides funding for “trauma-informed” approaches in schools. While bill’s $500,000 in funding falls vastly short of the original $5.75 million requested for five pilot sites in an earlier version (H.B. 4031), it provides...
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Potential impact of Trauma on special education eligibility
This is a follow up to my previous email concerning the PP v Compton class action lawsuit concerning adverse events and eligibility under the Americans with Disability act. I did a presentation at the Legal Issues in Special Education conference on April 24th. The participants consisted of special education directors, compliance officers and parent advocates The big surprise was that there was huge interest in this issue. It was standing room only in the room. Secondly even though this...
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PRESS RELEASE - U.S. Department of Education Awards More Than $6.5 Million in Grants to Help Schools and Communities Promote Equity in Education [www.ed.gov]
SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 Contact: Press Office, (202) 401-1576, press@ed.gov The U.S. Department of Education is awarding more than $6.5 million in grants to fund four regional Equity Assistance Centers to support schools and communities creating equitable education opportunities for all students. These centers, authorized under Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, will provide technical assistance in the preparation and implementation of plans for the desegregation of public schools...
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Promoting Positive Adolescent Health Behaviors and Outcomes: Thriving in the 21st Century
This is a new resource from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine! Adolescence is a critical growth period in which youth develop essential skills that prepare them for adulthood. Prevention and intervention programs are designed to meet the needs of adolescents who require additional support and promote healthy behaviors and outcomes. To ensure the success of these efforts, it is essential that they include reliably identifiable techniques, strategies, or practices...
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Could Parkland Shooting Be Prevented? Yes, and Runcie Knew How
School safety, negligence documentation, and a need for a school reform My name is Natalia Garceau. For nine years, I’ve been working at a center similar to the one where Nikolas Cruz was sent to after his expulsion from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. You won’t hear anything from the teachers who work at such centers because they are afraid to lose their jobs and to be taken to court. They have families to feed. By contract, we are not allowed to speak with media about anything...
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Department of Counseling and Behavioral Health & Trauma Conference
Thomas Jefferson University's newly formed Department of Counseling and Behavioral Health has generated its first-ever newsletter . If you're interested in trauma-informed training and education , or if you simply want to stay abreast of the work of some great clinicians, researchers, advocates and aspiring professionals, please have a look. The Community and Trauma Counseling program currently has Art Therapy options and is launching two new specializations and certificates this summer: (1)...
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Development and Implementation of Standards for Social and Emotional Learning in the 50 States (selpractices.org)
Development and Implementation of Standards for Social and Emotional Learning in the 50 States · SEL Thrive { "@context" : "http://schema.org", "@type" : "Organization", "name" : "SEL Thrive", "url" : "https://www.selpractices.org/", "logo": "https://www.selpractices.org/apple-touch-icon-180x180.png", "sameAs" : [ "https://www.facebook.com/", "https://twitter.com/" ], // "contactPoint" : [{ // "@type" : "ContactPoint", // "telephone" : "+1-555-555-555", // "contactType" : "customer service"...
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Dissecting The Soaring Graduation Rate For Black Boys In Chicago [interactive.wbez.org]
Chicago students Sabeer Al-Shareef and Shameir Faulkner are looking forward to a crazy few months as they approach high school graduation. In June, they’ll walk across a creaky stage at their historic South Side neighborhood high school and then move on to college in the fall. These are Chicago success stories, exactly the kind Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson loves to highlight — young black men getting their diplomas and taking the next step. “One thing that does not get enough...
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Do more cops in schools make them safer? New study looking at NC schools says no. [newsobserver.com]
RALEIGH - A new report looking at security in North Carolina schools is challenging the belief that putting more police officers in schools will make them safer. The study of North Carolina middle schools found no relationship between increased funding for school resource officers and reduction in cases of reported school crimes. Kenneth Alonzo Anderson, the report’s author and an associate professor at Howard University, said legislators across the country should consider the findings...
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Do more cops in schools make them safer? New study looking at NC schools says no. [newsobserver.com]
RALEIGH - A new report looking at security in North Carolina schools is challenging the belief that putting more police officers in schools will make them safer. The study of North Carolina middle schools found no relationship between increased funding for school resource officers and reduction in cases of reported school crimes. Kenneth Alonzo Anderson, the report’s author and an associate professor at Howard University, said legislators across the country should consider the findings...
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Dr. Mona Delahooke Will Present at The Trauma-Responsive Schools Conference in California
Have you been hearing all the buzz about Dr. Mona Delahooke's new book, Beyond Behaviors ? In my opinion, it’s the best new book of 2019. Dr. Delahooke is a practicing pediatric clinical psychologist of thirty years. She is gaining critical acclaim and grassroots support for challenging the prevalent and pervasive behaviorist bias in schools. As a result, she is an emerging authority in the growing revolution to re-interpret children's misbehavior. She highlights much of the books' content...
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Effects of L.A. teachers' strike ripple across California and beyond [latimes.com]
They didn’t write the lesson plan or instruct Cristopher Bautista’s ninth-grade English class. But members of United Teachers Los Angeles were a powerful presence in the classroom where he works at Oakland Technical High School. UTLA had taken to the streets 370 miles south, striking for smaller classes, a living wage and more help for their mostly low-income students. Bautista was teaching “Cannery Row,” John Steinbeck’s classic tale of Central Coast haves and have-nots. “I’ve been teaching...
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Finding Resolve After the New Zealand Mosque Shootings (tolerance.org)
Nearly 7,000 miles separate the U.S. west coast from Christchurch, New Zealand. But the attack on two mosques that left 49 dead and 20 more injured during Friday’s afternoon prayers feels close. It feels close because we, too, have witnessed the tragic consequences of violent Islamophobia in the United States. We remember the two victims stabbed on a Portland train . We remember the man who was shot and killed in Olathe, Kansas . We remember Nazma Khanam , Maulama Akonjee and Abdisamad...
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From Trauma Informed To Trauma Transformed: Achieving Post-Traumatic GROWTH for the Youths In Our Most Disenfranchised Public Schools and Communities
Roberto Rivera was a troubled, addicted youth engaged in criminal behavior who discovered his path to transformation in the pit of his traumatic pain. He harnessed the fire of early childhood trauma to change himself from being a problem to being a solution, not just in his own life, but also in the lives of many, many other under-privileged and under-performing young people. The name of his solution is Fulfill The Dream (FTD). FTD is a unique, hip-hop(e) based, Social Emotional Learning...
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Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side (Eve L. Ewing)
In the spring of 2013, approximately 12,000 children in Chicago received notice that their last day of school would be not only the final day of the year, but also the final day of their school’s very existence. The nation’s third largest school district would eventually shutter 53 schools, citing budget limitations, building underutilization, and concerns about academic performance. Of the thousands of displaced students, 94% were low-income and 88% were African-American, leading critics to...
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Giving Students’ Empathy Muscles a Workout (edutopia.org)
A new platform helps teachers in different countries connect their classrooms and encourage an appreciation for different perspectives. Fourth-grade teacher Jesse Ediger wants her digital learners to realize that they can tap into opportunities far beyond their hometown of Hutchinson, Kansas. “I want to draw back the curtain, show them the world, and let them see how connected they are,” she says. Some 1,500 miles south in Maninalco, Mexico, English teacher Karina Cavazos Almaguer has...
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How a False Belief Hinders Kids’ Academic Achievement [PSMag.com]
Are we all born with a stable, unchanging level of intelligence? Or can we grow smarter through study and hard work? New research from South America suggests a student’s answer to that question can hugely impact how well they do in school — particularly if they come from poverty. “Students’ mindsets may temper, or exacerbate, the effects of economic disadvantage,” a group of researchers led by Susana Claro of Stanford University writes in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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How to Create Learning Opportunities For Kids on the Bus (kqed.org)
Over the last two years, Google piloted its Rolling Study Halls program, providing grants to help equip school buses with Wi-Fi and stripped-down laptops. Priscilla Calcutt, director of instructional technology for the Berkeley County School District in South Carolina, says the students who live in the more high-poverty areas of her district ride the bus for 90 to 120 minutes each direction. For them, “the Wi-Fi has been a great tool.” The district has filters in place that block certain...
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How to End the School-to-Prison Pipeline? Stop Treating Disabled and Minority Students as Criminals [PSMag.com]
Last October, a video of School Resource Officer (SRO) Ben Fields ripping a young African-American student from her desk and slamming her to the ground went viral, fueling another round of intense outrage at excessive use of force by government agents against African-American civilians. In South Carolina, where the incident took place, there were protests and counter-protests . Most major media outlets covered the affair, showing the video from multiple angles and debating whether to blame...
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Incorporating Trauma Informed Practice and ACEs into Professional Curricula - a Toolkit
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...
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Introducing myself, Morgan Vien & NEW Practicing Resilience Community
Hello! I’m a Community Manager for the Practicing Resilience for Self-Care & Healing community. This is an introduction to me and this new community. I graduated with a B.S. in Public Health from Santa Clara University June 2017. And I’m interested in preventing chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol, at the community and population level by addressing biological, psychological, and social factors that affect chronic disease outcomes. As the...
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School Walkout: An Adult Ally Guide (youthempowerment.com)
Amplify their voice, not yours. Broadcast your willingness to be a "helper". Assume competence in youth leadership. Don't assume anything else. The moment news spread that the students of Parkland, Florida were using their voices to speak out against school violence, Rep. Shawn Harrison staffer claimed that the students were paid actors. This reaction isn’t uncommon. Some adults in positions of power are hesitant to include youth voice in the public sphere, and some will use any means...
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Screening Mental Health In Kindergarten Is Way Too Late, Experts Say [NPR.org]
When it comes to children's brains, Rahil Briggs describes them as ... sticky. "Whatever we throw, [it] sticks. That's why they can learn Spanish in six months when it takes us six years," says the New York City based child psychologist, "but also why if they're exposed to community violence, or domestic violence, it really sticks." Briggs works at the Healthy Steps program at the Montefiore Comprehensive Health Care Center in the South Bronx, screening children as young as 6 months for...
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Shootings & Suicides Past the Tipping-Point: ACEs Epidemic & Declining Lifespans in US
Re: Building community by facing collective trauma with hope I am writing from Broward county, Florida, the school district in which the MSD school shooting occurred and that gave rise to the March for Our Lives Movement sparked by our students. Mankind has developed solutions to deal with self-perpetuating waves and EPIDEMICS of BEHAVIORALLY TRANSMITTED Neuro-Toxic Stress, CPTSD Trauma & ACEs that cause FIXED-MINDSET reactive black and white Scarcity-based thinking to increase and...
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Social-Emotional Life Skills Wrapped Up in Fun
This past school year Every Neighborhood Partnership (ENP) had a great opportunity to collaborate with two Fresno Unified Elementary schools, Fresno State, Fresno City College and Alliant International University to pilot two unique programs that help to build resiliency and social-emotional life skills. Through this collaborative partnership, ENP was able to facilitate two evidence-based programs that help students to build and develop social and emotional life skills through yoga and...
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Some 350 Florida Leaders Expected to Attend Think Tank with Dr. Vincent Felitti, Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study; Expert on ACEs Science
Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...
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Take a deep breath: Koontz launches resiliency program to help kids cope with stress [Salisbury Post]
SALISBURY — They’re only 5, 6, 8, 10-years-old — but life has already thrown some elementary school students more punches than they can handle. Rowan County children walk into school every day with the scales stacked against them; bearing the weight of abuse, poverty or community violence — and when one more weight is added to the pile, they break. “The response could be fight or freeze, ” Christy Lockhart, a social worker at Koontz Elementary said. “ And it’s out of their control.”...
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Teaching Adult Wary Children and Youth
Secure, trusting bonds are essential if young people are to grow, learn, and thrive (Baumeister, 2011; Brendtro, Brokenleg, & Van Bockern, 2005; Shulevitz, 2013). Today there are literally millions of young people disconnected and living in violent communities with over stressed families and schools that are depersonalized. They traverse dangerous communities and the ecology in which they live is one of extreme levels of toxic stress. The most troubled and troubling kids display...
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The Absence of Punishment in Our Schools
Where to begin... My heart is full of hope and joy as I watch the trauma-informed schools movement swell across our nation and planet. The science of ACEs is mind-bending to say the least and we are now able to open up a much deeper dialogue about human behavior and health. Ultimately this work is about healing… All. Of. Us. A new consciousness is taking root around ending the “us vs them” construct. The idea is growing that we’re all on this journey together and that no matter where our...
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Moama Anglican Grammar School [www.weeklytimenow.com.au]
This school in New South Wales, Australia is building resilience, emotional wellness, and stress management skills starting in Kindergarten and continuing through grade 12! Moama Anglican Grammar School The Weekly Times August 14, 2016 9:00am “AT MOAMA Anglican Grammar we recognise the importance of the connection between mental health and learning,” said Libby Barnes, head of pastoral care at the young co-educational school. The school, on the Murray River north of Echuca, strives to help...
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New Resource Guide for Child Sexual Abuse/Exploitation Prevention
Greetings, ACN Community! I wanted to share this fantastic new resource guide developed by one of the work groups from the Georgia Statewide Human Trafficking Task Force. This guide provides background on best practice, principles of prevention, identifying resources for the classroom, developing a prevention plan, age appropriate teaching suggestions, analysis of specific programs, and guidelines for implementation and evaluation. It is really quite thorough and is full of excellent ideas...
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Bill introduced in Maine to prohibit corporal punishment in schools
Maine is one of 22 states in the U.S. where corporal punishment is allowed in schools. That would change if LD 527, an act to prohibit corporal punishment , is enacted. Fifteen of the 22 states expressly permit corporal punishment—the other seven (including Maine) do not prohibit it. There are 28 states and the District of Columbia that expressly prohibit corporal punishment. Some of the 110,000 students subjected to corporal punishment are in states where it is prohibited. The Maine bill...
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Brain Development and Academic Achievement
"As much as 20% of the gap in test scores could be explained by maturational lags in the frontal and temporal lobes. ... The influence of poverty on children’s learning and achievement is mediated by structural brain development. To avoid...
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Charter school network spreads 'personalized learning' model nationwide [edsource.org]
Founded more than a decade ago, Summit Prep became nationally known for its success in getting all its students through Advanced Placement classes and into college. But school leaders found that many of its graduates struggled in college without the mentoring and support they’d received at the small charter school in Redwood City, south of San Francisco. “Graduates told us, ‘You guys loved us too much'” said Lizzie Choi, Summit’s chief program officer. In 2012, with a goal of creating...
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Chicago's Inescapable Segregation [TheAtlantic.com]
Chicago is a city with a rich black heritage. And the South Side, fondly dubbed the “heart of black America,” is where much of the city’s cherished history emanates. Comprising a mix of poverty-stricken, working-class, and upper-income black residents, the South Side can lay claim to the country’s first black woman senator , the nation’s first black president , and various black elites . Chicago also holds the inglorious distinction of being one of the country’s most segregated cities. This...
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Knowledge & Awareness of ACE's itself AS the Most Powerful Therapeutic Healing Agent
Thesis; ACE's Knowledge and Awareness is a POWERFUL Therapy that delivers proven effective Therapeutic Healing in and of Itself. Simply knowing of ACE's and of one's own score is healing above any therapeutic intervention currently in use, to the best of my knowledge - odd as this might sound to those whose livings are made providing such therapies - not that these are not also beneficial - but the numbers speak for themselves I think. Dr. Nadine Burke-Harris has published some crude data on...
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LIVING SAFE: Back to school and behavioral health [www.yourhoustonnews.com]
by Katherine Cabaniss, Cypress Creek Mirror August 23, 2016 Students have returned to school. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are on their minds. Teachers, parents, administrators, and all who care about kids are focused first on academic achievement. In the Greater Houston area, one program focuses on students’ minds in a different way. Mental Health America of the Greater Houston Area (“MHA”) concentrates on kids’ mental health. MHA’s goals further not only student success, but also...
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The Long-Term Effects of Social-Justice Education on Black Students [TheAtantic.com]
Last summer, the high-school English teacher T.J. Whitaker revised the reading list for his contemporary literature course with the addition of a new title— The Savage City , a gritty nonfiction account of race and murder in New York City in the 1960s. The 24-year teaching veteran said he chose the book to give his students at Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey, a chance to read “an honest depiction of the Black Panther Party and the corruption that existed in the NYPD during the...
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The Real Crisis in Education: An Open Letter to the Department of Education by Krista Taylor
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos U.S. Department of Education 400 Maryland Avenue, SW Washington, D.C. 20202 Governor John Kasich Riffe Center, 30th Floor 77 South High Street Columbus, OH 43215-6117 Superintendent of Public Instruction Paolo DeMaria Ohio Department of Education 25 South Front Street Columbus, OH 43215-4183 Dear Secretary DeVos, Governor Kasich, and Superintendent DeMaria: I write to each of you, in my position as a teacher in the Cincinnati Public Schools, to ask for...
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The Relentless School Nurse: Candida Rodriguez is Creating Community Through the Power of Conversations That Matter
Candida Rodriguez is my mentor, while she may disagree with that statement and say it is the opposite, it is the absolute truth. My respect, admiration, and amazement at the depth of her knowledge, talent, and compassion astound me every time we work together. Candida serves her complex and ever-changing community with dedication, skill and a relentless pursuit of coordinating care for her students and families. We are partners in the Community Cafe Initiative that began in 2015 after I...
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The Repercussions of the Black Teacher Shortage [CityLab.com]
Ashley McCall was teaching her third grade students about American voting rights last year when one of them asked a question she couldn’t answer: How do older people of color process the evolution of the right to vote? McCall, a black teacher whose student body is mostly of color, asked her own grandparents to do a video conference with the class. They fielded students’ vibrant inquiries about having lived in the south during the civil rights era. “It was awesome,” says McCall. McCall says...
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The Utter Inadequacy of America’s Efforts to Desegregate Schools [theatlantic.com]
My best friend in kindergarten, Eddie Linton, did not live in one of the spacious houses on the hill in the Boston suburb where I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, Belmont, which is best known for its stellar schools and abundance of Harvard professors. Eddie, who is black, lived instead in a brownstone in the South End of Boston, alongside his two American-born sisters, plus grandparents and aunts and godparents from Barbados, the country where his parents were born. Every morning, Eddie...
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To close or evolve? As teen birth rates drop, school programs for teen parents face a new landscape [chalkbeat.org]
There was just one student in the Boulder Valley School District’s teen parent program last year. She graduated in May, and and the district spent the summer turning the program’s nursery into a child care center for staff . In the Englewood district just south of Denver there were no students in the teen parent program last year, and in the western Colorado city of Montrose, the long-standing charter school for pregnant and parenting teens was newly closed because of dwindling enrollment.
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To close or evolve? As teen birth rates drop, school programs for teen parents face a new landscape [chalkbeat.org]
There was just one student in the Boulder Valley School District’s teen parent program last year. She graduated in May, and and the district spent the summer turning the program’s nursery into a child care center for staff . In the Englewood district just south of Denver there were no students in the teen parent program last year, and in the western Colorado city of Montrose, the long-standing charter school for pregnant and parenting teens was newly closed because of dwindling enrollment.