School departments in Massachusetts seek to reassure parents, students, and teachers that protections remain in place for immigrant and transgender students.
The Hechinger Report describes New Orleans charter schools’ efforts to ditch the Zero Tolerance model of discipline in favor of trauma-sensitive practices.
We are pleased to share our new video “Why We Need Trauma-Sensitive Schools”. This video highlights the importance of leadership—superintendents, assistant superintendents-principals, and educators—in creating the understanding and infrastructure that can support the team work among staff needed to support all children to be successful.
A study in Urban Education found “Students who reported feeling unsafe in the classroom experience a consistent decrease in math scores.” This highlights the importance of a safe school environment as a prerequisite for productive learning and provides insight into the relationship between feelings of safety in the classroom and academic achievement.
During a recent event at the White House focusing on how schools should be addressing the traumatic experiences of girls, and girls of color in particular, Sara Burd, District Leader of Social Emotional Learning in Reading, MA shared the innovative approaches used across the Commonwealth to endeavor to create Safe and Supportive Learning Environments for all students.
Susan Cole, Director of MAC’s Trauma & Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI) presented at a White House Conference entitled: “Trauma-Informed Approaches in School: Supporting Girls of Color and Rethinking Discipline.”
Watch the event live by clilcking the White House Briefing Room Link.
Follow live social media updates at the hashtag: #rethinkdiscipline
TLPI director, Susan Cole, has been invited to the White House to lead two sessions related to policy reform at the Trauma-Informed Approaches in School: Supporting Girls of Color and Rethinking Discipline meeting.
A new article in the ACEs Connection Network’s ACES Too High News features a discussion on the implementation of the 2014 Massachusetts Safe and Supportive Schools Framework law.
A critical new report outlines a comprehensive model of building community capacity used in the state of Washington. By increasing the capacity of the community to reduce adversity, the Self-Healing Communities Model (SHCM) helped make dramatic reductions in rates of youth and family problems including suicide and suicide attempts, child head injury hospitalizations, filings for juvenile offenses and drop out rates and developed strong networks that promoted much greater collaboration across the community of Cowlitz County in Washington.
The budget signed by the Governor on July 8, 2016 includes funding for Safe and Supportive Schools at $400,000, which allots funding for DESE to hire a full time staff person devoted to carrying out the provisions set forth in the law.