Tagged With "Years to Tackle Race"
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Let Her Learn: Stopping School Pushout: Overview and Key Findings (National Women's Law Center)
The National Women’s Law Center’s 2017 Let Her Learn Survey2 of 1,003 girls ages 14-18 shows that being called a racial slur is a common experience shared by all girls of color, with one third to more than two in five of them saying they have had this experience (Asian and Pacific Islander girls reported the highest rates), compared to just over one eighth of white girls.3 The Let Her Learn Survey also reveals that more than 1 in 5 girls (21 percent) have been sexually assaulted,4 with LGBTQ...
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“The forces that are driving inequality are pretty powerful right now”: Paul Tough talks race, poverty and how we really fix our schools (salon.com)
The brilliant education thinker explains why so much of what we're doing to low-income kids in school is wrong. Salon: Your new book “Helping Children Learn” is subtitled “What Works and Why.” But if I may, I’d like to suggest a different subtitle: “Just About Everything We’re Doing to Low-Income Kids in School is Wrong and Here’s the Neuro-Biological Research to Explain Why.” Was it just me or does the research you write about upend some pretty fundamental assumptions? Paul Tough: I was...
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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 Relentless School Nurse: The Day the School Nurse Went to Capitol Hill
I am sharing my remarks from the press conference held by Congresswoman Lauren Underwood to bring attention to the impact of gun violence in schools. We are asking for the Senate to bring the Background Check Bill to the floor for a vote. Democracy is built on the voice of “The People” and yesterday, I had the ultimate privilege of being one of the voices. I spoke on behalf of school nurses across our country who are managing the aftermath of school shootings or the stress of active shooter...
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This teacher's reaction to a sleeping student has gone viral for all the right reasons. (upworthy.com)
Meg's nap meant she missed an in-class essay, but she turned it in that night. "I didn't beat her up about it. Didn't have to," he wrote. "In a different room, Meg may have been written up for sleeping in class and given a zero for missing and essay, but she wasn't in a different room; she was in my room." "I think too often the biggest thing that people forget about high school students is that they are kids," Syrie says. "They're kids — kids who are having to grow up way too fast and are...
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This Trail-Blazing Suburb has Tried for 60 Years to Tackle Race. What if Trying Isn't Enough? [washingtonpost.com]
By Laura Meckler, The Washington Post, October 11, 2019 It’s an article of faith in this Cleveland suburb: If any place can navigate the complex issues of race in America, it’s Shaker Heights. Sixty years ago, black and white families came together to create and maintain integrated neighborhoods. The school district began voluntary busing in 1970, and boundary lines were drawn to make schools more integrated. Student groups dedicated themselves to black achievement, race relations and...
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Three SEL Skills You Need to Discuss Race in Classrooms [greatergood.berkeley.edu]
This isn’t your average school year. There are politicians and media personalities who are fanning the flames of racial hatred, their words seeping out to kids through the news. Educators are grappling with the aftermath of Charlottesville, and we have undocumented students who feel threatened by anti-immigrant policies coming from state capitols and Washington, D.C. I asked teachers on Facebook, “What sorts of conversations around race have you been witnessing (or facilitating) at school...
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Rate of Depression is Double for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Youth
Depression-Related Feelings Among Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Youth, 2013-2015 An alarming 61% of youth who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual have felt depressed in the previous year in contrast to 29% of their peers who identify as straight. These students, who are in grades 7th, 9th, or 11th grade or are in non-traditional programs, felt so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more that they stopped doing their usual activities. Disparities among youth who experience...
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Re: Looking for Suggestions on Policy
Hi Katie, Educational policy, as you well know, is a tricky beast. I would suggest starting with broad, non-mandated policy that may exist within the district. This could be anything from communication policy to policy/practices on how meetings are conducted. When we examine current literature in Trauma Informed anything, the stall point is often at policy, because we get stuck trying to quantify and operationalize a fundamental shift in paradigm and thinking about ourselves and others. That...
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Re: How are schools incorporating trauma informed practices, if they are at all?
Lee ~ You hit on a key point. No one should be surprised that we don't "punish" the students. We use a restorative justice model to teach students how their actions/behaviors impact the community as a whole. It's time intensive, but it has helped prevent suspensions and expulsions, which has helped create stability in the lives of our students. While I'd like to believe that everyone was on board with the restorative justice model, I know that for some of the staff who had been in the school...
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Trail of Tears: From a Middle School Student’s Perspective (indiancountrymedianetwork.com)
This persuasive essay was submitted to ICTMN by Matthew Scraper, Megan Scraper's father. Megan, 12, is a student at Marlow Middle School in Oklahoma. They are citizens of the Cherokee Nation, and Matthew pointed out that their last name is an English translation of the Cherokee word disugasgi, which means something along the lines of the one who repeatedly scrapes the skin. She chose to write about the Trail of Tears on her own when given a class assignment. The Trail of Tears set a...
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Training course: Building Resilience and Challenging Systemic Racism
The Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) is here to help you gain the skills necessary to change your community and the world. We will be offering a three-day training course June 10 - 12, 2019, taught by Dr. Ram Bhagat , related to challenging the status quo in the education system that allows systemic racism to flourish . Course details are: The framework for Building Resilience for Challenging Systemic Racism is grounded in Restorative Justice theory, values, and praxis. This three day...
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Trauma education and mindfulness help youth living amid gun violence
Armon Hurst, 2nd from left, first row, Teens on Target, courtesy of YouthAlive! Eighteen-year-old Armon Hurst serves as vice president of the student body at Castlemont High School in Oakland, Calif. He has a 4.0 grade point average, is an avid baseball player, and is slated to go to college next year. But until a few years ago, Hurst would find himself waking from nightmares in the middle of the night. It was difficult to concentrate at school, and he wasn’t eating well. Armon Hurst “There...
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Trauma in Paradise: A California school system focuses on mental health after devastating fire [edsource.org]
The flames have long since died down, but Fiona Roberts, a high school senior, remains haunted by the memory of being trapped with her mother in a slow-motion race for their lives on the morning of Nov. 8, the day the Camp Fire swallowed Paradise. Driving from their home in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the left-hand side of the road, they gasped at the pop of backyard propane tanks exploding and the sight of embers the size of butterflies swirling in the air. Their fear held its tightest grip...
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Trauma-informed groups rev up to address race, inclusion
Eighteen-year-old Kia Hanson has always enjoyed her time as a youth leader at the East Oakland Youth Development Center (EOYDC). She’s worked mostly with five- and six-year-olds since she began in 2016. Recently, she tapped into new skills, especially if the kids were having a meltdown. Kia Hanson “If they’re off, we ask them, ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘Do you want to talk about anything?’,” she explains. “Basically asking before assuming they’re mad at the world for no reason.” What made the...
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Trauma-Informed Learning Network for Girls of Color launches in late spring.
The Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality and the National Black Women’s Justice Institute are proud to announce the Trauma-Informed Learning Network for Girls of Color (The Learning Network), which will be launched in late spring. The Learning Network will provide a secure platform for school system leaders and educators to learn from experts across the country about trauma-informed approaches to girls of color and to engage in peer-to-peer learning. Registration is free and open...
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Trauma-Informed Social Justice: Q&A with Dr. Bukuloa Ogunkua
Cissy's Note: I work with people who challenge systems and policies, who reform or start non-profits, and who see hope and promise where others see despair or destruction. While some folks shake their heads or shrug indifferently in the face of injustice and suffering, others organize, mobilize, and channel their time and energy towards making a change. Maybe a physician hosts an annual conference bringing trauma-informed approaches to medical practice. Perhaps a woman shares ACEs 101...
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Trauma-Informed Support for Children - A Follow Up to "What Lies Beneath Behavior?"
You’ve worked through the questions in our infographic “ What Lies Beneath Behavior? ” and instead of judging or punishing you’ve figured out the child is just trying to do the best they can to communicate whatever pain or distress lives inside of them… “So now what do I do?” you ask. As promised, we have produced a second infographic to provide you with a step-by-step guide to a trauma-informed response. The bad news is that there is no manualized program, no one-size fits all solution, no...
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Trauma-informed teaching changes culture in Caldwel [IDEDNEWS.org]
From the Idaho Education News - Trauma-informed teaching changes culture in Caldwell By Andrew Reed 01/31/2018 CALDWELL — Abuse. Bullying. Divorce. Neglect. Some students bring these experiences to school from home, which they can’t get out of their brain and truly focus on their learning. Angela Layne is no stranger to working with students who have experienced trauma. The Lewis and Clark Elementary counselor is changing the way students’ express feelings at school. She introduced...
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Turnaround for Children releases new paper and announces hiring for key positions
Michael Lamb, Executive Director, Washington D.C., Turnaround for Children sent the following message about a new paper, Building Blocks for Learning, just released by Turnaround and three new positions it is seeking to fill. Take a look: "Hi friends and colleagues, it’s an exciting time for Turnaround in Washington, D.C. as we work towards our vision that one day all children in the US attend schools that prepare them for the lives they choose. In addition to our exciting work in schools,...
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Unexpected trends in California’s student discipline data: Suspensions peak in middle school, black kids more likely to be disciplined in segregated schools & more (laschoolreport.com)
There’s been heightened awareness and activism in recent years surrounding the discipline gap, or the occurrence that minorities — black males in particular — are disproportionately suspended or expelled relative to other racial and gender subgroups. But what’s received less attention are some of the other surprising trends embedded deep in data out of California. Black males in California public schools are suspended at a rate 3.6 times greater than the statewide average for all students,...
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We need to prepare for the mental health impact of coronavirus on kids [latimes.com]
By Sonali Kohli, Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2020 Four-year-olds have playdates through closed windows, sliding their toy cars in unison on either side of the glass. A high school student worries about his mother going to work in a food-packing warehouse, at risk for contracting COVID-19. Another teen says “there is nothing to look forward to,” as he tries to avoid sliding into depression. Worried parents are calling school district hotlines seeking help for their troubled children. Experts...
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What does it mean to educate the ‘Whole Child’? [communityadvocate.com]
Marlborough – One in five students today may struggle with mental illness as reported in the December 2017/January 2018 issue of Educational Leadership. Furthermore, The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMOI) estimates that 20 percent of youths aged 13-18 live with a mental health condition. On average, there are 121 suicides every day in the United States, of all ages as reported by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. According to NAMOI, 50 percent of all mental illness...
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What Happens When Schools Close for the Academic Year? tcpress.com]
By Karen Gross, Teachers College Press, March 20, 2020 Just as we are hearing about positive research efforts to combat the coronavirus in the relative near term, we are learning that some statewide school systems may stay closed through the end of the 2019–2020 school year. As of this writing, one state—Kansas—has affirmatively closed all its schools until the next academic year. Other states will likely follow in the coming days, including California, Arizona and Texas. The critical...
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When Grit Isn’t Enough [EWA.org]
The first time I heard a preschooler explaining a classmate’s disruptive behavior, I was surprised at how adult her four-year-old voice sounded. Her classmate “doesn’t know how to sit still and listen,” she said to me, while I sat at the snack table with them. He couldn’t learn because he couldn’t follow directions, she explained, as if she had recently completed a behavioral assessment on him. Months before either of these children would start...
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Why the Myth of Meritocracy Hurts Kids of Color (theatlantic.com)
Brighton Park is a predominantly Latino community on the southwest side of Chicago. It's a neighborhood threatened by poverty, gang violence , ICE raids , and isolation in a city where income, race, and zip code can determine access to jobs, schools, healthy food, and essential services. It is against this backdrop that the Chicago teacher Xian Franzinger Barrett arrived at the neighborhood's elementary school in 2014. Recognizing the vast economic and racial inequalities his students faced,...
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YBRS survey and report from Monroe County, New York
Elizabeth Meeker, an ACEs Connection member from Monroe County, New York shared that her county schools added ACEs questions to their Youth Behavioral Risk Survey (YBRS) in 2015, which is administered to students in schools. They were kind enough to share the instrument as well as a summary report of findings (both attached here). Elizabeth has indicated that she is available to answer questions that you all may have about the implementation of the survey. Thank you Elizabeth, for sharing!
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Youth in Schools Data Available on Kidsdata
Kidsdata announces a comprehensive suite of data, Youth in Schools, including new and updated indicators across more than a dozen topics from the viewpoint of California’s students and school staff. These data are available for state, county, and school district levels, and student-reported data are easily customizable by grade level, gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, parent education level and level of school connectedness. Youth in Schools data come from the 2013-2015 California...
Ask the Community
School Council, School Improvement Plans, ACEs, Diversity & Help?
Dear ACEs in Education Community: I'm wondering if anyone has worked ACEs-related language into a School Council School Improvement Plan? I'm on the School Council for a charter school and we're looking at improving parent engagement., in general, and as part of that I'm trying to introduce two topics: 1) ACEs and 2)Race, Class & Parent Involvement We have kids from 30 different communities and 1/3 of the students are Haitian. The other 2/3 are mostly but not entirely Caucasian. Anyhow,...
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Re: Could Parkland Shooting Be Prevented? Yes, and Runcie Knew How
Please see the attached report that demonstrates the effectiveness of the interventions - seen in the Paper Tigers movie: Higher Resilience and School Performance Among Students with Disproportionately High Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) at Lincoln High, in Walla Walla, Washington, 2009 to 2013 Research Report, February 2015 Conclusions This s tudy provides empirical support for the thesis that systemic changes in school practices, ones developed with the support of the community to be...
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Re: Starting the School Year Optimally
Hi, Karen: Nice essay! If you’re interested in posting the whole essay on ACEs Connection, we can include it in the Daily Digest and will clone to ACEs in Education. If you decide to do so, feel free to link to your blog, LinkedIn page or web page at the end of the essay. Cheers, Jane Jane Stevens Founder, publisher ACEsConnection.com ACEsTooHigh.com ACEs = Adverse Childhood Experiences 707-495-1112 jstevens@acesconnection.com > On Aug 6, 2018, at 8:24 AM, ACEsConnection <...
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Re: Paper Tigers Data Slides.pdf
I love how you were able to organize the data by race, gender, income, etc. That really helps to make a lot of connections and goes far beyond what the CDC provides. Is it possible to learn how you did that? Also, what was included in the resource guide mentioned toward the end?
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Re: Paper Tigers Data Slides.pdf
Hi, Sara -- Try it again....it worked for me. I'm also attaching the slides. Cheers, Jane
Blog Post
The Traumatic Impact of Racism on Young People and How to Talk About It [Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg]
Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg (Keynote speaker from the recent Creating a Resilient Community Conference) shared the excerpt from his book Reaching Teens titled The Traumatic Impact of Racism on Young People and How to Talk About It. This is a valuable resource for anyone interacting with youth and we are providing the excerpt as an attachment here for you to read and share. Also, Dr. Ginsburg will be coming back to our community (virtually) and you’ll be invited to his workshop. Look out for the...
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George Floyd killing sparks classroom discussions about race, police brutality [edsource.org]
By Ali Tadayon and Ashley A. Smith, EdSource, June 5, 2020 The shock and anger that is rippling throughout the country over the police killing of George Floyd hits home for West Contra Costa Unified — a majority Latino and African American district in the San Francisco Bay Area. As the district ends instruction this week, teachers described their efforts to give students the opportunity to talk — even if it is just virtually — about their concerns. Superintendent Matthew Duffy, in a message...
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New Research Shows Killings by Police Hurt Grades, Graduation Rates of Nearby Black and Hispanic Schoolchildren [educationnext.org]
By Desmond Ang, EducationNext, June 4, 2020 How will the death of George Floyd affect Minneapolis schoolchildren? New research I conducted on the effects of police violence indicates that it will significantly hurt their educational and emotional well-being. Examining detailed data on more than 700,000 public high school students and over 600 officer-involved killings in a large urban county, I found that police use of force has large, negative spillovers on educational achievement and...