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As California teachers return to the classroom this fall, many of them will be faced with the multiple challenges of how to deal with children’s responses to the No. 1 political issue in the United States: the increasingly troubled presidency of Donald Trump. It will be hard for teachers to avoid the issue. Students will show up after a summer during which Trump ignited some of the most intense controversies and passions of his presidency. [For more of this story, written by Louis Freedberg,...

Title image: Marjy Stagmeier, Atlanta real estate developer and social entrepreneur **Author's note: This story was a combined effort and co-authored by ACEs Connection members Jennifer Hossler and Carey Sipp. We are a new and united front focused on shedding light on a variety of trauma-informed and ACEs - informed initiatives happening across the state of Georgia. Thanks to Carey for her awareness of the work of Marjy Stagmeier and for leading me to her so we can share her vision with the...

Please plan now for when schools re-open in Houston and surrounding area. It is not enough to just open the doors again.

This piece is about how big data can be a service provider -- and there can be a warm handoff. We can use data and technology to improve education and healthcare and many other fields.

Here's the most important question for a school leader to ask as a new year starts: "How can I cultivate emotional resilience in teachers?" Focusing on resilience as a goal also offers an opportunity to go beyond simply preventing burnout. Resilience is about not just surviving but thriving in life. And school leaders should be committed to creating the conditions in which educators can thrive. This might help retain teachers, and it may mean they'll continue to be dedicated to growing...

“No time.” Again and again, teachers tell me this is why they can’t teach social-emotional skills to their students—and it’s no wonder given the demands placed upon them. But while a 30-minute social-emotional learning (SEL) lesson might be impossible to fit into a week, slipping a social-emotional concept into already-existing curriculum content may not be. In one study , student teachers were paired with novice school psychologists to create language arts lessons with an SEL focus. The...

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...

There won’t be any more cheese sandwiches served at Elk Grove Unified schools. The region’s largest school district will no longer give students a bland, alternative lunch when they run out of meal funds or forget their lunch money. Elk Grove Unified is joining districts across the region and nation that are changing rules so that children who come up short for lunch money aren’t embarrassed with a different meal than what their peers receive – or not fed at all, as has been the case...

For many teachers, a pall has been cast over the first few days of school. This weekend, a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., turned deadly when a 20-year-old man drove his car into counter-protesters, fatally injuring one woman and hurting 19 others. The Associated Press reported that the high school teacher of the man accused of the incident said he had been fascinated with Nazism in school, and had "deeply held, radical" convictions on race in the 9th grade. Even before the...

How should educators confront bigotry, racism and white supremacy? The incidents in Charlottesville, Va., this past weekend pushed that question from history to current events. http://www.npr.org/2017/08/14/543390148/resources-for-educators-to-use-the-wake-of-charlottesville

After the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., this past weekend, educators on social media have started using #CharlottesvilleCurriculum to share resources on how to have conversations with students about racism, inequity, and more. For decades, ASCD authors and contributors have addressed these tough topics, and we've compiled a list of available ASCD resources to help educators effectively discuss racism and hatred in the classroom. To access the comprehensive list, visit,...

School-based mental health programs can reach large numbers of children, with increasing evidence of effectiveness in improving mental health and related outcomes, according to a research review in the September/October issue of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry . The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer . “ This review provides evidence that large-scale, school-based programs can be implemented in a variety of diverse cultures and educational models as well as preliminary evidence that...