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All levels. Includes Kid President

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5-Minute Film Festival: Videos on Kindness, Empathy, and Connection

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VideoAmy compiled this moving playlist of videos to explore the importance of human relationships and the power of being kind, generous, and compassionate.

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Learn Empathy:Learning Skills for Caring (Bad pic- link works.)

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Kids didn't choose their parents.

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"They did not choose their parents..."

"They didn't choose their genetic pool."

"They couldn't say I want two college-educated parents who love me, care for me, and make education my priority."

These words were spoken at the 2011 PLC Summit I attended in Arizona. I realized after hearing this statement, that many times, I get frustrated with my students about things over which they have no control. And I'm resolving to change my ways.

When students come to school without school supplies, when their parent doesn't sign a form, or misses a scheduled appointment, or has made the child stay home to babysit, again. These are things that the student can not control, but yet, year after year, my frustration is placed on a child, who is probably just as frustrated as I am!

How many times has the child walked in the day after parent-teacher conferences, and I've said, "Your mother scheduled an appointment and didn't come." The child stands there wide-eyed, not knowing how to reply. Maybe they know why, maybe they don't, but that's not the issue.

We need to work around the parents who are not supportive, the ones who just don't have the time. We need to tell our children, "You do you." "You do what you need to do to succeed."

Let's not hold them accountable for the mistakes, or neglect, of their parents and guardians. Let's not make them bear the weight of their parents' transgressions. Why say to a child who is late every day, "You're late again." Knowing the only way the child can get to school is if their parent drives them.

So, I'm taking a new outlook, and it began yesterday. I have a student who is out every Monday. I would fuss at him every Tuesday about the work he had to make up or didn't understand.

"Well", I would say sternly, you need to be here on Mondays."

He was in school yesterday and instead of a "Glad you could make it," I smiled and said, "I am so glad that you are able to be here today." A smile lit up his face and he said, sincerely, "So, am I." The next time he's out, I will work with him and help him catch up.

Am I a "bad" teacher? I don't think so, but I'm certainly not the best I can be. I'm learning though, and I'm willing to take a good, hard, look in the mirror, and correct my mistakes.
What reminders can you share with other teachers? Share in the comments section!

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Teacher Reminder: Students Didn't Choose Their Parents

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"They did not choose their parents..." "They didn't choose their genetic pool." "They couldn't say I want two college-educated parents who love me, care for me, and make education my priority." These words were spoken at the 2011 PLC Summit I attended in Arizona.

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Involves teachers and kids.
All levels.

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I visited the Ron Clark Academy in October and left with so many ideas that I wanted to bring back to my classroom. Over the past few months we have made several of those changes to our classroom. I had a wonderful parent build a classroom stage for the front of our class that my students and I use all the time. Students now stand up when they are speaking to the class and applaud and cheer on their classmates when they say something very thoughtful, or encourage them ("You can do it, (student name)!") when they are thinking about a response. All of these things are quickly noticed whenever anyone steps foot in our classroom, but one of our favorite parts is our student photo wall.

I have always loved displaying student pictures around the classroom. I have a collection of colorful frames that I've picked up throughout the years and I am always taking pictures of my students so I have plenty to choose from when printing and adding pictures to frames. Our student photo wall is extra special though. Each student chose a word that is important to them, along with a quote and a mission. I took a picture of each student outside on our school grounds and then combined their picture with their word, quote, and mission to create an incredible display of the students and leaders in our class. I've included all the instructions for you, along with tips, templates, and affiliate links for your convenience!

Introducing the Student Photo Wall:

We started the task of choosing a word, quote, and mission with a simple word. I had students choose a word that they felt represented who they are, or what is important to them. I showed them some examples, but most of them already had a word in mind that they wanted to use. If they weren't sure of a word, some of them decided on a quote first, then went back and decided on a word.

Next we talked about choosing a quote. My students are pretty familiar with inspirational quotes because they find and respond to them almost daily (more about our Quote Quick Writes coming soon)! As a result, many of them already had a favorite quotation, and most of the time the quotation tied in with the word they chose. Some students even went back and changed their word after finding the perfect quote!

The next step was for students to choose their mission. Once again, this usually tied in to their word and quote. We discussed some examples of good missions, and then they created their own.

Materials:

Instructions:

The first thing I did to prepare for our student photo wall was take individual photos of each student. I took the pictures outside because the backdrop of our school grounds is beautiful and the lighting was much better than inside our classroom.

Next I flagged the photos I liked (I had several pictures of each student to choose from) and edited the pictures in Adobe Lightroom. Most of the photos already looked nice and just needed minimal adjustments made.

After the pictures were all selected and edited, I inserted them into PowerPoint and added on the individual text for each student. I created a PowerPoint layout that already had the fonts and text size set up, so entering the pictures and changing the text was a breeze. I had two different layouts, one for landscape photos and one for portrait photos. I tried to do about half of the student photos landscape and half portrait. Then I saved the PowerPoint slides as .jpegs and uploaded them to be printed at 8×10 size.

The black frames I purchased from IKEA were a little larger than 8×10, so I matted the photos on black cardstock before putting them in the frames.

Tip for the Frames:

I have a couple tips to share with you that made putting 32 pictures in frames a fast(er) process.

Tip 1: Use a card to help lift up the tabs on the back of the frames so that your finger nails don't get ruined! I have spent years trying to pry those things up with my fingers only to have sore fingers and broken fingernails by the time I finally had a picture in the frame! While I was adding pictures this time I came up with an easy solution! I used an old grocery store card to help lift up the tabs. Not only was it easier on my fingers, but it was much faster too!

Tip 2: In order to get the picture frames to stay up on my wall, I hot glued small tacks to the back of the frame! I glued one thumb tack in each corner of the frame. I put hot glue under and on top of the thumb tack to make it more secured to the picture frame and they have held up beautifully!

PowerPoint Templates:

If you're interested in using the PowerPoint templates to create a student photo wall for your classroom, you can get them here! Read the note to teacher first (it has important information about fonts), then download them to create a student photo wall for your classroom!

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Building a Classroom Community with a Student Photo Wall - Lessons With Laughter

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I visited the Ron Clark Academy in October and left with so many ideas that I wanted to bring back to my classroom. Over the past few months we have made several of those changes to our classroom. I had a wonderful parent build a classroom stage for the front of our class that my students and I use all the time.

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For kids and teachers!

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Not sure if this is too cheesy....

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Living the life you want means making time for yourself. Think you're too busy? Try these self-care activities in 30 minutes or less. Plus, I've made a printable version of my journal page to keep you going strong.

Self-Care Activities You Actually Have Time For|

If you're anything like me, you don't make enough time for yourself.

You know the routine. You overcommit, fill your schedule to bursting, plan everything, and don't ask anyone for help. You don't want work or family to suffer. So you suffer, instead. You give up sleep, skip meals, neglect your workouts, and forgo leisure time. Before you know it, you're exhausted, cranky, and you've lost sight of why you're doing it all.

Sound familiar? It happens to all of us at some point. Moms are especially guilty of putting themselves last, and our excuse is almost always the same: "I don't have time for myself." Of course, moms aren't the only ones. Young professionals, dads, college students, even grandparents fall into the trap of putting everyone else's needs before their own.

Oh, my friends, I've been there! I was there last week, in fact...Working from home during Spring break with flu-ridden kids, and a husband away on business. In 5 days, I probably got a collective 18 hours of sleep. It was rough. I got everything done (largely because of my task-batching plan), but it wasn't pretty for me.

I do feel bad for the pizza guy who mistook me for a gremlin. If you're reading this, Pizza Dude, you can come out of hiding. I've discovered self-care.

What is Self-Care?

Self-care is any activity that helps promote your physical or mental well-being. This can be anything from taking your vitamins to taking a bath. The trick is to train your mind to view these activities as essential, rather than self-indulgent. Remember, taking these few minutes to yourself will help you meet the other needs in your life.

I've been meaning to incorporate self-care into my journaling routine for a while now. After last week, I knew I couldn't put it off any longer. I finally sat down and made a quick list.

30 Minute Self-Care Activities

You don't need full days or even hours to get started in self-care. Taking a few minutes for yourself can help you reenergize and restore balance. I put this list in my Bullet Journal to guide me, but do whatever works for you. There's also a printable version of my journal spread at the end of this post.

Rest & Relax

Listen to music (Not while doing another task. Just listen.)

Take a timeout (If you have kids, explain to them that you need to close the door and have a grown-up timeout)

Take a bath or shower

Take a nap

Watch your favorite movie

Read a book or magazine

Make Time for Creative Expression

Free-write in your journal

Draw or paint

Do some gardening

Sing and/or dance

Spend time on other hobbies

Connect With Others

Call a friend (texting doesn't count)

Write a letter to a loved one

Meet up for a quick coffee

Nurture Your Physical & Spiritual Health

Make yourself a healthy snack

Practice yoga

Go for a walk/run

Meditate or pray

Write or recite affirmations

Give Yourself Permission

The most important thing to remember with self-care is that you should feel ENTITLED to it. I know the "e-word" gets thrown around at lot these days with negative connotations. But in this case, we're not talking about taking something. We're talking about giving.

Give yourself time. Give yourself respect. Give yourself the tools you need to achieve your own goals while caring for your loved ones. Give yourself permission to be more than you are today.
Over to you! How to do practice self-care in your busy life? Comment below to share you favorite tips.
Printable Bullet Journal Self-Care Page

Want more freebies like this one? Get free access to all my exclusive printables in the Page Flutter Vault when you subscribe to my newsletter. Enjoy!

Brainstorm with me!

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Self-Care Activities You Actually Have Time For | Page Flutter

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Living the life you want means making time for yourself. Think you're too busy? Try these self-care activities in 30 minutes or less. Plus, I've made a printable version of my journal page to keep you going strong. If you're anything like me, you don't make enough time for yourself.

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(End of Year-Printable)

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As much as I try to turn my "teacher brain" off over the summer, I still have ideas bouncing around. When I get back to school in the fall I try to remember all those random ideas and I can't! I'm solving that problem this summer!

I created a Teacher Reflection Journal to help me keep track of all of these ideas. I've also included questions to help me reflect on the last year, what I want to do differently, and what goals I want to accomplish for the coming year. I also have about 5 teaching books on my summer reading list and I wanted a way to keep track of quotes and ideas that I want to implement with my students, so I included some book reflection pages as well.

Directions:

1. Print the cover (page with flowers that says Reflect, Rest, Recharge) on cardstock. When you fold it in half it will become your cover and your back

2. Print all the other pages front to back.

3. Fold them in half.

4. Put them in order by page number.

5. Staple the binding to make a book.

6. Write in it!

Quote and coloring page (page 1)

End of the Year Reflection Questions (page 2-3)

Next Year Reflection Questions (page 4)

Reading List (page 5)

Book Reflections (page 6-13)

Goals for the School Year (page 14-19)

Quote and coloring page (page 20)

Best Memories from Teaching (page 21)

Self Care List (page 22)

Beginning of the School Year To Do List (page 23)

Happy SUMMER!

Erika

Erika

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As much as I try to turn my "teacher brain" off over the summer, I still have ideas bouncing around. When I get back to school in the fall I try to remember all those random ideas and I can't! I'm solving that problem this summer!

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Yoga in the classroom

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Yoga 4 Classrooms® | Yoga and Mindfulness Health Education for Schools

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Yoga 4 Classrooms™ is a low-cost, research-based health and wellness program for students and teachers to use to create a more harmonious, and learning friendly, school day.

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Great primary resource..takes you to available character lessons on TPT.

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Hi friends! I wanted to stop by today and share all about Character Education. I believe that our students NEED us to model kindness and respect, and they also need explicit instruction on anything we ask of them. In this post, I'll have tons of ideas for you on character education! I hope you take away several ideas you can implement in your classroom tomorrow!
Why Teach It?
I believe that every year, teachers are expected to teach even more to our kiddos each day. Our days fill up so fast, and there is barely enough time to cover the required curriculum. BUT I have seen in my own classroom that time spent discussing being a great friend, handling conflicts respectfully, and being confident in ourselves leads to my students being more successful in almost all area of their lives. This article has some great research about the power of Character Education, and I definitely recommend it!

Over the past few years, I have seen such a need for engaging curriculum that went beyond classroom rules. I didn't want my students to just FOLLOW the rules, I wanted them to understand WHY. It's easy to have "Be Kind" as a classroom rule, and I have always said it like a broken record. But I realized for many of my students, they didn't completely understand. They learned when they said something hurtful, they would get a consequence. But it didn't go much deeper than that for many of my students. When you ask them what being kind looks like, they might say something like "don't bully" or "don't hit your friends" because those have always been the expectations. But that's not enough to change the world...and we have the power to change the world in our classroom! Our students can learn to be leaders, stand up for others, and show empathy...we just have to help them a bit!

From my time in the classroom, it's obvious that some kiddos are more sensitive than others. For some, their personalities are more emotional, for others, they've had fabulous parents who modeled strength, courage, and compassion for them. But...we can teach all of our students and something will stick with each of them. Even our "hardest" kiddos that seem impossible to reach can grow in this way just as they grow as readers and mathematicians!
When do I Teach It?
Of course, there are SO many amazing ideas for teaching character education on Pinterest, in books and in your classrooms! I'm just sharing what has worked for me over the past few years! 🙂 I chose to teach Character Education during our morning meetings and during weekly R-Time lessons. R-Time was a district requirement, but I tried to take our lessons deeper and spend more time than was required. Each week, we spent at least 30-45 minutes talking about great character. BUT...I also tried to find teachable moments throughout our year when these conversations happened naturally. Sometimes, if I noticed several students were having a hard time playing a game fairly, we would stop for a bit and talk about fairness. If multiple issues happened on the playground, we would take some time to discuss it and share ideas for solving conflicts. I've finally taken the time to write these ideas down in an easy to read format and you can find those in my Character Curriclum pack on TPT. You can buy the full year, or choose specific units that would help your class! 🙂

Just like with academics, when we learn a new concept, we keep visuals in our room to help remind us! Each year, my classroom walls start out blank, and we add anchor charts and work to them! In the same way that we model problem solving in math, we can model problem solving in friendships! Having the language displayed for our kiddos makes its easier for them to use! Here are some anchor charts that model the language we might use, or the steps.

We went through this chart together. It's super important to do it WITH them, so make sure you discuss each picture before you add it! 🙂

Apologizing is SO tricky! I think many grown ups could use this structure! The structure helps the kiddos process what they are apologizing for, and reminds them that an apology isn't just words...it's a promise not to do it again!

When we talk about handling emotions with control, it's so important we teach our kiddos how to label their emotion. It's much easier to solve problems when they can say "I feel JEALOUS when he gets to play the iPad."

This chart helps our students know exactly how to share their feelings. For some of our students, they don't need this! They have grown up being able to express themselves, and probably handle most conflicts well. 🙂 But for those students who aren't able to express themselves, sentence stems help so much, just like in class discussions or writing.

After we TEACH a strategy, it's important we take time to discuss and model with our students!

After talking about conflict resolution, you can have your class help you come up with solutions! Using post-its makes students feel like THEIR words are on the chart, and perfect for students who aren't writing yet. For fluent writers, they could write their own post-its!

Using sorts are a great opportunity for discussion! After reading each scenario, have your students share their opinion with a shoulder partner!

Just like we say "I love how you used that reading strategy today!" we can encourage students using the strategies we are teaching!

For kindness, students (or the teacher) can write down kind things they see! You could share them in a class meeting, or send them home for parents to see!

I love to give students reflecting time on HOW they will integrate these skills in their life.

These are just a few activities to integrate Character Education into your day! I hope they were helpful to you! I'm so excited to continue to share ideas with you! All of these ideas are included in my Character Education lessons. You can click each picture to take you there! There's even a freebie in the preview of my Kindness packet!

I also wanted to offer you some FREE Binder Covers and Dividers for organizing your curriculum! You can create one big binder and use them as dividers, or use them as covers for individual binders! 🙂 I also included spine labels and a black/white version! 🙂 Just click the picture to grab your copy!

For a special discount, be sure to check out the growing bundle! Purchasing it before it's finished means you get it for a steal! 🙂 Each time I add a new unit, the price increases, so the earlier you buy it, the better!

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Hi friends! I wanted to stop by today and share all about Character Education. I believe that our students NEED us to model kindness and respect, and they also need explicit instruction on anything we ask of them. In this post, I'll have tons of ideas for you on character education!

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ASCD Book Chapter/Rubrics

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by William H. Parrett and Kathleen M. Budge

I don't care about all the things that went wrong in your other school. They're history. Now you're here. You go to work, you show us what you've got, and believe me, we'll get you there ... you'll catch up and walk across that stage.

-Pat Swift, assistant principal, Port Chester Middle School

To learn, children and adolescents need to feel safe and supported. Without these conditions, the mind reverts to a focus on survival. Educators in high-performing, high-poverty schools have long recognized the critical importance of providing a healthy, safe, and supportive classroom and school environment. At Port Chester Middle School and other HP/HP schools, this means all forms of safety and security while at school-food if hungry, clean clothes if needed, medical attention when necessary, counseling and other family services as required, and most of all caring adults who create an atmosphere of sincere support for the students' well-being and academic success. When students who live in poverty experience comprehensive support that works to mitigate the limiting, sometimes destructive poverty-related forces in their lives, the likelihood for success is greatly enhanced.

Comprehensive support uses the needs-based approach and "whatever it takes" mind-set discussed in Chapter 7. Striving to create and maintain a healthy, safe, and supportive learning environment for every child, leaders in HP/HP schools adhere to the key principle of continuous improvement-acknowledging that the work is never completely done-and ask questions such as these to guide their actions: Is our school safe? Do we understand the influence of poverty on student learning? Have we fostered a bond between students and schools? Do we engage parents, families, and the community in authentic ways?

In this chapter, we provide background helpful in answering these questions. These same questions serve as leverage points for improving the learning environment in any high-poverty school.

A healthy, safe, and supportive learning environment enables students, adults, and even the school as a system to learn in powerful ways. Such an environment promotes innovation, inquiry, and risk taking. Moreover, such an environment reinforces and enhances the leadership capacity in the school because competent, excellent, and dedicated educators want to work under such conditions. Is your school fostering a healthy, safe, and supportive learning environment? Use the self-assessment rubric in Figure 8.1 to focus your reading and reflect on your school's current situation.

Figure 8.1. Fostering a Healthy, Safe, and Supportive Learning Environment

Figure 8.1. Fostering a Healthy, Safe, and Supportive Learning Environment (continued)

Is Our School Safe?

I was scared at times when I first arrived here. The gangs seemingly had control of the place. Teachers were afraid to discipline kids because their cars would get keyed. Neighboring schools had to hire security folks to escort their teams here for athletic events, and the worst was that a lot of our kids did not have a safe place to learn.

-Principal, HP/HP high school on the West Coast

A school must be safe. Creating this condition requires thoughtful and constant attention to the security and safety of the facilities; creation of clear policies and procedures for student and staff conduct; frequent and effective communication with parents, families, and the school community; and attention to classroom management as well as the requisite professional development. Without these conditions in place, learning cannot become a school's focus.

The knowledge base on HP/HP schools is consistent with the practices of the schools we studied, particularly the secondary schools, in which leaders emphasized safety for students and staff as a prerequisite for learning. At Port Chester Middle School, the previous principal, Carmen Macchia, explained, "In the beginning, kids would hold their bladders all day out of fear of what might happen to them in the bathrooms." To help students become accountable for their actions, the school established structures, such as the frequent presence of school staff in bathrooms and hallways. By clearly setting expectations and modeling appropriate behavior and good citizenship, staff encouraged students to help promote school safety, which authentically contributed to changing students' perspectives from one of "ratting out" their friends to one of civic responsibility to their school.

Every student needs and deserves to feel respected and free from physical harm, intimidation, harassment, and bullying. To ensure a safe learning environment, leaders attend to all aspects of daily life in schools. They ensure safety at bus stops and on playgrounds, as well as in lunchrooms, bathrooms, hallways, and classrooms. Matthew Mayer and Dewey Cornell (2010) refer to teasing, hateful language, and social exclusion as factors of "low-level incivility that impact a student's adjustment and psychological well being" (p. 8). Through daily vigilance, consistent consequences, and continual monitoring of progress with frequent midcourse corrections by the adults, HP/HP schools wage war on such low-level incivility. Still, leaders of these schools report that the school did not become truly safe until the students came to believe that destructive behaviors would not be tolerated. Only then did they feel comfortable enough to trust each other and to join the adults in collectively working against inappropriate behavior. As a principal of an HP/ HP school on the West Coast explained, "Once the kids let the other kids (particularly new kids) know that we don't do that stuff in our school, it all began to change. They were taking responsibility for their school and liked the way that felt."

Leaders in the HP/HP schools we visited and those in other studies report that their concerted mission to eliminate aberrant behavior required daily attention in the early weeks and months. Their tenacity in successfully addressing students' negative behaviors paid off. Discipline referrals dropped, overall behavior improved, and relationships of mutual respect became the norm in the school culture.

They also explain that as instruction became more focused and relevant, student engagement in learning improved, which in turn had a positive effect on behavior. When children and adolescents willingly engage in productive learning experiences in their classrooms, such as solving a challenging math problem or writing a compelling introduction to an essay or grasping how a consonant blend works, they begin to see value in learning and experience success, and their need to act out or disengage diminishes. The negative behavior is replaced by a newfound confidence that success in a classroom or course is something they can attain. This phenomenon accounts for why, even in a highly dysfunctional school characterized by rampant misbehavior, some teachers are still able to maintain respectful, productive classrooms. These environments become islands of safety for the kids fortunate enough to be in them. High-performing, high-poverty schools strive to create a similar atmosphere of safety and security schoolwide.

Ensuring school safety goes hand in hand with the development of optimal working conditions for teachers and staff. In 2006, Eric Hirsch and Scott Emerick examined working conditions for teachers in North Carolina and produced a report entitled Teacher Working Conditions Are Student Learning Conditions. Not surprisingly, they found that student learning increases when schools create safe, supportive, and trusting school climates. They also found that teachers and staff viewed such a climate as directly related to their working conditions; when safe and trusting, they felt compelled to do all they could to enhance student learning. Leaders in HP/HP schools optimize the link between professional learning and student learning. They understand that teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions, and as such, ensuring safety for all learners (students and adults) becomes a priority.

Once the establishment of a safe learning environment is under way, the challenging work of improving instruction can happen. As an HP/HP high school principal in the West explained: "Once we reestablished law and order, we were poised to take off. It's our foundation ... we had to get it fixed, and we did."

THE DISTRICT'S "AD-VANTAGE POINT"

Expect Safety-Support Schools

Do We Understand the Influence of Poverty on Student Learning?

This morning I was asked to join two officers from our county health and welfare department on a visit to the home of three of our kids. What we found was a small trailer house where our three students, their baby sister, two of their adolescent siblings, and five adults were living-11 people in a two-bedroom trailer. There was very little food, a blaring TV, a blue haze of cigarette smoke, and a very unhappy baby. I wanted to cry. How in the world can we expect these three kids to come to school every day ready to learn? Yet they do ... and we will teach them!

-Principal, rural HP/HP school

A second question that drives the establishment of a safe, healthy, and supportive learning environment relates to understanding the effects of poverty on student learning. Although the concept of a culture of poverty has been refuted (Gorski, 2008), too many educators continue to believe that people who live in poverty share a common set of beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviors (such as a poor work ethic, alcohol or drug abuse, or apathy toward school). To counter these myths, leaders in the schools we studied and in other HP/HP schools use data and research to support high expectations of students.

How Does Poverty Influence Lives?

Although some scholars and practitioners contend that educators can better understand the daily realities of poverty by focusing on "patterns or traits" ascribed to people who live in poverty, this stance can be a slippery slope that perpetuates damaging stereotypes. No one theoretical framework can completely describe the life experiences of those living in poverty. People in poverty are as diverse as people in any other socioeconomic class (Bane & Ellwood, 1994). They present, like other groups, a wide array of values, beliefs, dispositions, experiences, backgrounds, and life chances. This diversity makes ascribing specific characteristics to people who live in poverty at best challenging and at worst harmful.

A better approach considers the constraints that poverty often places on people's lives, particularly children's, and how such conditions influence learning and academic achievement. As witnessed in HP/HP schools, this approach is not about "fixing" students; rather, it is about transforming schools so that they better serve students who live in poverty-students who are as worthy of excellent schools as are their middle-class peers.

As we've already noted, living in poverty does not inherently result in a shared culture. Rather, poverty affects intervening factors that, in turn, affect outcomes for people (Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997). These intervening factors or constraints are wide ranging and complex, and they can compound one another. They can be experienced directly or indirectly as an individual, a family, a neighborhood, or a community (Calkins, Guenther, Belfiore, & Lash, 2007). What do we mean by intervening factors? They can include students' health and well-being; literacy and language development; access to physical and material resources; level of mobility; and degree of continuity between home and school in terms of expectations, values, and beliefs.

On a fundamental level, for instance, with an income at or below the federal poverty level, it is very difficult to provide for one's basic needs. Under such circumstances, choices in housing and the quality and quantity of food available as well as access to health care are all severely circumscribed. Uninhabitable living conditions, perpetual hunger, and sporadic access to health care can result in poor physical and emotional health, which in turn can inhibit cognitive development and one's readiness to learn. As also noted in Chapter 3, one in five children comes to school living in such circumstances.

Having money provides a sense of power and control over one's life and the means to make choices for one's self and family. This situation contributes to the development of personal agency, which is a belief in one's capacity to effect change or action and in one's ability to act on behalf of one's self, family, or community. By definition, people who live in poverty have limited economic capital (money). Nonetheless, it is not only lack of money that can compromise the ability to develop personal agency. Three other types of capital often affect personal agency: human, social, and cultural. Limitations in each of these forms of capital can also adversely influence students' success in school.

Limited Opportunity to Develop Human Capital. Human capital refers to the skills, abilities, and knowledge that an individual brings to the table, including the "capacity to deal with abstractions, to recognize and adhere to rules, and to use language for reasoning" (Putnam & Feldstein, 2003). Poor communities offer fewer opportunities to develop human capital than do wealthy communities because, for example, they often have inadequate schools, libraries, and medical facilities to promote healthy development.

Limited Opportunity to Develop Social Capital. Social capital can be a valuable resource to parents. It is gained by forming relationships in formal and informal social networks, although participation in such networks necessitates understanding the group's norms and gaining members' trust (Coleman, 1987). These networks often benefit parents with middle and upper incomes as they negotiate the bureaucracy of schools and advocate for their children. People who live in poverty, for a variety of reasons, are often isolated from such networking.

Limited Opportunity to Develop Cultural Capital. Students living in poverty often do not begin school with the same kind of cultural capital as their more affluent peers. Upper-middle- and upper-class students have a cultural advantage because they have often been socialized to the cultural benefits of exposure to libraries, museums, books on Western civilization, theater, or travel. Such knowledge is rewarded in schools (Parker & Shapiro, 1993). Studies have shown that parents, regardless of income level, often share similar aspirations for their children in terms of cultural capital. Some families simply have more means (money), leisure time, and resources (such as transportation) to achieve their goals (Lareau, 1987).

How Does Poverty Influence Learning?

In general, children and adolescents living in poverty are not nearly as prepared to benefit from school as their more affluent counterparts. Poverty-related factors that intervene in students' ability to learn include health and well-being, limited literacy and language development, access to material resources, and level of mobility.

Health and Well-Being. As previously mentioned, these factors are interrelated, and one factor can compound another. For instance, substandard housing, inadequate medical care, and poor nutrition can affect the rate of childhood disease, premature births, and low birth weights, all of which affect a child's physical and cognitive development. Such factors influence students' ability to benefit from schooling. Living in daily economic hardship can also adversely affect students' mental health (Winters & Cowie, 2009), self-efficacy (Conrath, 1988, 2001), self-image (Ciaccio, 2000a, 2000b), and motivation to do well in school (Beegle, 2006).

Language and Literacy Development. Children who live in poverty often come to school behind their more affluent peers in terms of literacy and language development. In Educating the Other America, Susan Neuman, (2008) states that more than 50 years of research "indicates that children who are poor hear a smaller number of words with more limited syntactic complexity and fewer conversation-eliciting questions, making it difficult for them to quickly acquire new words and to discriminate among words" (p. 5). A significant body of literature also points to differences in access to reading materials by students from low-income families in comparison to their more affluent peers (Allington & McGill-Franzen, 2008).

Material Resources. Poverty often places constraints on the family's ability to provide other material resources for their children as well. For example, they may have limited access to high-quality day care, limited access to before- or after-school care, and limited physical space in their homes to create private or quiet environments conducive to study. They may not own a computer or have the fiscal resources necessary to complete out-of-class projects.

Mobility. Poverty often places another kind of constraint on families-the ability to provide stable housing. Students often move from one location to another because their parents are in search of work or are dealing with other issues that require them to move. Frequent moves almost always have a negative academic and social impact on students.

Much is known about the far-reaching influences of poverty on a student's learning. An understanding of these factors provides invaluable knowledge to educators in their efforts to support and teach students who live in poverty. Like HP/HP schools, every school that enrolls such children must seek to acquire as much understanding as possible about the life circumstances of their students.

Have We Fostered a Bond Between Students and School?

If my kids don't get through this class, they won't graduate, and that means losing their dreams. We have to help them keep those dreams ... we have to. It's the most important work we do.

-Principal in a rural HP/HP high school

It's 6 a.m. and three kids are waiting at the door for their math teacher to arrive. They had each received a call on their cell phones the night before reminding them that their work was late and they needed to get in early to finish it before zero hour. Reminders like these are not unusual from their math teacher. The kids know he keeps close track of their progress, and while not always appearing appreciative of those reminders, they show up.

SCHOOL CULTURE ALERT

Foster Caring Relationships

"They didn't know my name; they didn't care if I slept in class or even if I came" is a statement that reflects a common refrain voiced by students in large comprehensive high schools of the United States. Yet this refrain is not heard in HP/HP schools, where a premium is placed on relationships.

Start Student Advisories

I love my advisory-it gives me a chance to keep track of where I am and know what is important for me to be doing. [My advisor is] also great to talk to ... she cares about me.

-11th grade student in the Northwest

Positive, productive, and caring relationships are indeed possible in secondary schools; but they don't just happen, as illustrated by the case of one small school in the rural western United States. Although the school served fewer than 400 students, many of the kids felt disconnected from school. A principal's commitment to making the school more personal for kids led the staff to reorganize the school day to include a well-designed advisory program. All professional staff members, including the principal, advise a small group of 18 to 20 students four days each week and stay with those students for four years, navigating their path toward graduation and beyond.

UNCOMMON SENSE

Create Smaller Learning Environments

We are saving 90 of our kids that we used to lose every year when they moved from our middle schools to our large 1,700-student high school. Starting our new 9th grade Academy is all we had to do!

-Superintendent in the West

Many HP/HP schools provide additional protective factors, such as restructuring into small learning communities. These schools create focused learning environments that help keep smaller groups of students connected with each other as well as to a smaller group of core teachers throughout the day. In large or moderately sized high schools, this approach may be in the form of 9th grade academies. In effect, these academies "protect" 9th graders from the impersonal nature of the large, comprehensive high school experience in which it is too easy to get lost. Academies are a strategy for easing the transitions from middle school to high school. Creating smaller learning environments and communities of practice has the potential to authentically connect students with adults every hour of every day.

Increase the Likelihood of Participation in Extracurricular Activities

When we removed the fees to participate and supplied the outfits, the number of girls who came out to join our cheer squad quadrupled!

-Principal in the Southwest

High-performing, high-poverty schools provide a protective factor when they find ways to ensure that their students living in poverty will be able to participate in extracurricular activities. The importance of such participation to the creation of a bond between students and school has long been known. Whereas middle-class children have opportunities to develop their skills and talents through private lessons and participation in community-based activities in their elementary years, kids who live in poverty generally do not. Poverty poses a variety of barriers to participation for many students, such as the cost of fees, equipment or instruments, uniforms, and transportation home after participation.

In addition, kids who live in poverty often face responsibilities that prevent participation, such as holding down a job and caring for younger siblings. Highly competitive "cut policies," which dramatically reduces the number of kids allowed to make the team, pose another barrier to participation. Waiving fees, supplying equipment or instruments, covering the cost of uniforms, providing transportation, partnering with community-based entities to offer scholarships for specialized skill and talent development, and eliminating "cut policies" are a few of the ways in which HP/HP schools work diligently to ensure that all kids have access to the benefits of extracurricular participation.

Do We Engage Parents, Families, and the Community?

I was headed to the home of one of my 2nd graders to let the parents know that Luis was coming to after-school tutoring on time and doing well. When I knocked on the door, Grandma and Dad greeted me warmly in Spanish, inviting me in. Luis's mom was preparing dinner. Dad asked me to come directly to the kitchen to show me what Luis had begun doing at home since he started the tutoring program. On the cupboards were taped a mishmash of cereal boxes, pasta containers, dairy product holders, and simple drawings. All were in English. Dad smiled and explained, "He's teaching all of us to read English! We learn 5, maybe 10 words every day!

-Elementary teacher, HP/HP school in the Northwest

The story of Luis is a good example of the benefits of engaging parents and families. A simple home visit by the teacher revealed how, previously unbeknownst to the school, a young ESL student was connecting his tutoring and schoolwork with his family. In turn, Luis's family was most appreciative of their son's progress in school and welcomed his newly gained English skills that were helping them learn. His family was also both surprised and pleased that the teacher had come to their home.

The success of HP/HP schools in addressing the learning needs of their underachieving students who live in poverty does not always solely focus on academics. Instead, helping students' families meet their basic needs, which include housing, food, medical attention, and in some cases safety, can be part of teachers' or administrators' jobs. Leaders in HP/HP schools are not naïve about their inability to solve the myriad of problems their kids face, but they often can help families connect with the community resources available. They do not concern themselves with whether or not such a task is in their "job description." If it helps kids learn, they do it.

In HP/HP schools, educators commit to engaging other stakeholders-parents, families, community members, patrons, and anyone else who holds an interest in the student or the school who may be a potential source of support if engaged in a positive manner. Families living in poverty often work multiple jobs, may have limited English language skills, and in some cases may have had few positive experiences with their children's teachers or schools. These factors frequently work against a school's attempts to form relationships with families who live in poverty and authentically engage them in their children's education. Even in high-performing schools, this problem is an ongoing concern. Leaders in HP/HP schools continually look for ways to provide opportunities for involvement and to gain back their trust.

The Critical Importance of Trust

In a recent study of the Chicago public schools, Anthony Bryk, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and his colleagues concluded, "Relationships are the lifeblood of activity in a school community" (Bryk, Bender Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, & Easton, 2010, p. 137). Their previous work targeted trust as the essential building block in the positive relationships that foster authentic school improvement. He concludes, "In short, relational trust is forged in day-to-day social exchanges. Through their actions, school participants articulate their sense of obligation towards others, and others in turn begin to reciprocate. Trust grows over time through exchanges in which the expectations held by others are validated by actions" (p. 139). This pervasive sense of trust characterizes the relationships found in HP/HP schools among educators, students, families, and other stakeholders.

In one HP/HP elementary school, a teacher remarked, "Without a trusting environment in our classroom and with the families of my kids, it's all uphill. We never make the progress we could ... we never can 'click.' Trust is what makes it all happen for us."

The development of trusting relationships lies at the heart of successfully engaging parents, families, and the community. To do this, HP/HP schools employ a variety of strategies and practices. They operate full-service schools, hire school/family/community liaisons, offer adult mentoring, connect the school and community through service learning, conduct home visits, ensure effective two-way communication between the school and the family, and use the school as a community center.

Create Full-Service Schools and Safety Nets

Many HP/HP schools connect needed social and medical services with their students. These "full-service schools" typically provide services such as social workers, physicians, dentists, vision and hearing specialists, and mental health and family counselors on site. Some schools provide a child care center and a family resource center to assist families in meeting their basic needs. Joy Dryfoos, noted scholar and longtime advocate of full-service schools, has studied these models for decades and concludes that when a full-service school works well, student achievement increases, attendance rates go up, suspensions drop, and special education placements decrease (Dryfoos, 1994; Dryfoos & Maguire, 2002).

Another critical purpose of a full-service school is to provide needed safety nets to catch kids in crisis and keep them from falling through the proverbial cracks of life. Leaders in HP/HP schools develop processes through which needs can be identified in a timely manner. Homelessness, hunger, medical issues, social and emotional distress, imminent physical danger, and coping with illness and death can interfere with learning. High-performing, high-poverty schools often establish networks within their school community to stay on top of these issues on behalf of their students. Once challenges are identified, teachers and staff move quickly into intervention mode, using all of the resources available to them.

Create Links Between School and Home

Strengthening the family's ability to support their children's academic achievement and other forms of success in school is a priority in HP/HP schools. One school organizes a learning academy on Saturday mornings to assist families of refugee students. Other schools employ school-family liaisons who connect families with schools in a variety of ways. Sadowski (2004) identifies six activities a school might consider to establish linkages between students' homes and school: (1) dual-language classes for students; (2) English as a second language, GED, and parenting classes; (3) home-school liaisons (with fluency in the home language); (4) preschool and early literacy programs; (5) early assessment; and (6) community and school activities and events.

THE DISTRICT'S "AD-VANTAGE POINT"

Offer Adult Mentoring

Mentoring works. Most educators have long known that a meaningful relationship with an adult is what kids want and need most. Mentors provide such a relationship. The National Dropout Prevention Center identifies mentoring as one of the most effective strategies to keep kids engaged and in school. The Western Regional Center for Drug-Free Schools and Communities identifies five positive outcomes of mentoring programs: (1) personalized attention and care, (2) access to resources, (3) positive/high expectations for staff and students, (4) reciprocity and active youth participation, and (5) commitment (Jackson, 2002). Many HP/HP schools draw from this knowledge to create and operate their own programs with local staff and volunteers; others access the help of Big Brother/Big Sister programs, local YMCA/YWCA services, and a host of other community-affiliated programs that offer adult mentoring.

Provide Opportunity for Community-Based and Service Learning

Our kids actively work to support their community. Through clubs and classes, they raise money for families in need, work on a "coats for kids" project, plant trees, build park benches, help with efforts of the Northwest Blood Center, Children's Miracle Network, American Cancer Society, March of Dimes, Red Cross, and many others. They rake leaves in our parks and do yard work for our elderly folks in need. Our students feel better because of these efforts, and our community values the extra help that the school gives back to them. When everyone is supporting one another, it makes Tekoa a great place to live and raise children.

-Wayne Roellich, principal, Tekoa High School

At Tekoa High School, all kids are expected to participate in community service. Noted for connecting academic learning to real-world problems beyond school, community-based learning, particularly service learning, has become common in HP/HP schools. Many benefits accrue from service learning, including the following: enhanced academic achievement, increased school attendance, improved student motivation to learn, decreased risky behaviors, increased interpersonal development and student ability to relate to culturally diverse groups, and improved school image and public perception (Billig, 2000a, 2000b).

Community-based learning also provides an excellent means to initiate career exploration, internships, shadowing, and in some cases jobs.

Conduct Home Visits

I was worried and very nervous about visiting my students' homes. But I've learned that making that connection with the family has made all the difference in how well my kids are doing at school. I now view them as part of my work ... my job.

-Elementary school teacher, HP/HP school in the Northwest

Many HP/HP schools encourage and conduct some form of home visits. Ten years ago, test scores in the Mason County School District in Kentucky ranked in the lowest quartile of all districts in the state. Inspired by a theory of action that held that to improve achievement, educators had to build closer connections to students' home lives. Therefore, the district, with a cadre of volunteer teachers, embarked on a goal of visiting every home of the 2,800 kids enrolled. Maintaining this commitment over the years, together with positive administrative and collegial support and the requisite professional development, has resulted in every family's receiving at least one home visit from their child's teacher annually.

Since the home visits began, the district has experienced consecutive years of student achievement growth and a 50 percent drop in discipline referrals, as well as reduced achievement gaps and increased attendance. Mason County leaders consider "getting to know the individual talents and interests of the students" to be the "true benefit" of the home visits. "These visits go a long way toward bridging the barrier created when predominately middle-class teachers find themselves teaching in a system where 57 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced-priced lunch and an even greater percentage are from single-parent households," explained the assistant superintendent. "By taking the time to actually go to the homes to meet the students and their families, we begin to build the relationships that research suggests are a foundation of student success" (Middleton, 2008, p. 58).

Sometimes these visits have a truly transformational effect on teachers. Here's a descriptive account from an elementary school teacher:

I stood at the front door of the small clapboard house. Black garbage bags were stacked beside me. A barking dog was chained to a post in the bare yard behind me. The weathered door didn't seem to completely latch. I had sent a note home indicating that I could come by after school since she had missed our conference at school. As my student's mom opened the door and smiled, I wondered what kind of life this family had. I was invited into a front room-more garbage bags in the corner along with a mattress on the floor next to a TV, which sat on an empty shipping box. We sat at a bare table with three rickety chairs and had our conference. Three younger kids ran through the house as we talked about Michael. Mom said she didn't like coming to the school. But she appeared pleased that I had come to her home and truly cared about her son, and was happy to hear he was improving. We had a good talk. I learned that Michael had no father at home, that his mom had never finished elementary school, that his older brother was in jail, that his family-mom and three other siblings-lived on state assistance, and that he had no positive relationship with another adult male in his life. As I walked down from the front stoop to my car, I realized that I had been teaching a kid whom I didn't know really anything about. I left in a strange state of unrest, but also one of hope. I knew that when I looked at Michael tomorrow I would see him differently, and that alone would help us develop a better relationship to guide his learning. I was glad I went.

Ensure Effective Two-Way Communication

We had to figure out how to make sure that the family understood what we were trying to do. The telephone was disconnected, translated letters mailed home yielded no response, and notes sent through the student didn't work either. Two attempts to drive by the apartment and knock on the door found no one home. Finally, we reached them through a neighborhood connection one of our paraprofessionals had with the family. We had our conference in the community building at their apartment complex. It went great!

-Middle school teacher, HP/HP school in the South

We know that a "whatever it takes" attitude prevails in HP/HP schools. This is especially true in their efforts to communicate with the parents and families. Despite often limited resources, educators in these schools do not make excuses or settle for less than authentic connections with students' parents and families. The goal of fostering two-way communication between school and home requires leaders in HP/HP schools to be relentless in their insistence that communications be respectful, honest, and timely.

Use the School as a Community Center

Many HP/HP schools engage parents, families, and other community members by opening their doors and expanding their schedules to offer clubs, parent support and education, early childhood activities, GED programs, advisory groups, community education classes, and a host of other events and activities of interest to the community. These HP/HP schools partner with community or city organizations, local foundations, state and municipal agencies, service clubs, universities, and businesses to host these valued endeavors in their buildings, as well as offer services at times that better fit families' work schedules.

As an example, in partnership with the City of Saint Paul and the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, Dayton's Bluff Elementary provides students and families with a recreational facility and the services of a nurse practitioner, dentist, and social worker at the school. According to the principal, "The payoff has been huge ... our parents and kids see us as way more than a school. It helps in so many ways that all connect to learning."

The Principal's Role

Principals, working with teacher-leaders and staff leaders from various vantage points within the school, are positioned to address the wide spectrum of environmental needs that confront high-poverty schools. Figure 8.2 (p. 133) describes the actions that principals in HP/HP schools take to ensure that every student is surrounded by the positive supports and scaffolds necessary to ensure his or her individual success.

Figure 8.2. The Principal's Role in Fostering a Healthy, Safe, and Supportive Learning Environment in HP/HP Schools

The principal-

Relentlessly ensures the school is safe.

Initiates conversation and supports professional learning about the influence of poverty.

Organizes collaborative efforts to address student mobility and other poverty-related factors that negatively influence learning.

Initiates and promotes policies, structures, and practices that link students and families with medical, dental, and mental health services, as well as other sources of support in the community.

Promotes the development of positive relationships and a bond between students and school by doing the following:

Modeling caring;

Facilitating strategies that strengthen the student-adult connections, such as advisories and small learning groups; and

Examining data related to barriers to student participation in extracurricular activities and leading collaborative efforts to address them.

Initiates and promotes policies, structures, and practices that develop trust between school and family, such as hiring a school-home liaison and visiting homes.

Initiates and promotes policies, structures, and practices that connect schools to families and the community, such as service learning and using the school as a community center.

Ensures effective, frequent communications between school staff, students, families, and the community.

High-performing, high-poverty schools don't go it alone-and they don't reinvent the wheel. They access support, resources, and guidance whenever and wherever they can to foster a healthy, safe, and supportive learning environment. The resources and organizations listed in Figure 8.3 (p. 134) can guide a school's efforts to build strong relationships with parents and families.

Perhaps the most widely respected and accessed of these organizations is the National Network of Partnership Schools at Johns Hopkins University. This network of more than 1,500 schools originated from the work of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships and its founder and senior scholar, Joyce Epstein. Guided by more than two decades of research and practice, the network offers what Epstein calls "a new way" to authentically incorporate parent and community involvement into a school's improvement process. The network helps member schools organize and implement action teams within their school communities, with the goal of increasing quality partnerships. In addition to creating new partnerships and supporting existing ones, the teams-composed of 6 to 12 volunteers, including the principal, teachers, staff, and parents-review school data to determine and prioritize needs.

Many HP/HP schools belong to the Johns Hopkins Network or other similar organizations to support their work. Any school concerned with furthering efforts to engage parents and families and associate activities at home that support a child's learning might consider Epstein's conclusion regarding the value of these partnerships and endeavor to create something similar in their school. According to Epstein, "The greatest impact on student achievement comes from family participation in well-designed at-home activities-and this is true regardless of the family, racial, or cultural background or the parents' formal education" (Jones, 2001, pp. 18-22).

Fostering a healthy, safe, and supportive learning environment is an essential function of leadership in HP/HP schools. Creating such an environment is inherently connected to its paramount mission-the improvement of learning.

ACTION ADVICE

Relentlessly monitor data related to ensuring a safe learning environment. Are we making sure every student is always safe?

Build a commonly held understanding of the influences of poverty on learning among the adults in the school. Do we all understand how living in poverty may negatively influence the ability of our underachieving students to catch up?

Plan for mobility. Are we ready for mobile students' arrival-providing welcome packets, diagnostic testing, and appropriate placements? Do we develop "catch-up" plans if needed? Do we provide built-in opportunities for new friendships with peers? Do we make it a practice to communicate with parents during the first six weeks after enrollment? Do we address transportation issues if a student is mobile within our district? Have we marshaled schoolwide support from staff?

Make sure all students are connected to a caring adult. Do we know which students come to school without the support of a caring adult?

Start student advisories. Is every secondary school student connected to an adult at school who regularly monitors his or her progress?

Personalize relationships through creating small learning environments and communities of practice. Is the size of our school presenting problems for some students and preventing us from forming caring relationships?

Provide opportunities for all students to participate in extracurricular activities. Do our students have an equitable opportunity to participate?

Work to engage every family with school. Do we have a plan in place to guide our efforts to build trust and connect with our families?

Personalize the connection between school and the student's home. Who among our staff visits the homes of our kids?

Initiate an effective adult mentoring program. How are we connecting students with caring adults and positive role models?

Offer community-based learning and service-learning opportunities to all students. Are we connecting students with the community? Are we teaching students about the value of giving back? Are we providing opportunities for students to explore career options in the local community?

Visit every student's home. Do we have a plan in place to guide us in conducting productive home visits?

Ensure two-way communication between homes and school characterized by the following:

Language-appropriate written and verbal contacts

Translation assistance when needed

Respectful and clear communications

Frequent contact through the most effective mode

Authentic requests for feedback/response

Willingness to help with requests and family needs

Personal invitations to participate in school conferences

Timely invitations to activities and events

Open the school to the community. Have we created a plan to provide welcome and needed services to our community?

Join a network to enhance school, family, and community relationships. Can we improve our connections with our families and communities?

THE DISTRICT'S "AD-VANTAGE POINT"

Creating Full-Service Schools

Action Planning/Next Steps

Use the action planning template in Figure 8.4 to help you and your colleagues reflect on the information and ideas in this chapter. What commitments do you need to make and what actions do you need to take to foster a healthy, safe, and supportive learning environment?

Figure 8.4. Action Planning Template for Fostering a Healthy, Safe, and Supportive Learning Environment

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Fostering a Healthy, Safe, and Supportive Learning Environment: How HP/HP Schools Do It

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by William H. Parrett and Kathleen M. Budge I don't care about all the things that went wrong in your other school. They're history. Now you're here. You go to work, you show us what you've got, and believe me, we'll get you there ... you'll catch up and walk across that stage.

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(Grade 5+/great for MS)

Tough love, high expectations

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When you establish the classroom ground rules on the first day it can provide year long benefits for your challenging students. See how one teacher uses Tough Love to set a classroom culture from day 1.

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Classroom management (Elementary)

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

Thought starters

1. How does the 1 to 5 rating system encourage self-reflection and provide important feedback?

2. How does Ms. Sinclair reinforce desired behaviors through positive feedback?

3. What strategies does Ms. Sinclair use to consistently communicate expectations to her students?

School Details

Woodlawn Elementary School
508 Elm Street
Lawrence KS 66044

Data Provided By:

Teachers

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Caring and Control Create a Safe, Positive Classroom

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Third grade teacher Lori Sinclair seeks the advice of instructional expert Jim Knight in an effort to improve classroom management and maximize student engagement.Lori and Jim analyze her daily procedures and routines and uncover three important takeaways that contribute to the positive culture of her classroom.

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The campus administrator plays an important role in establishing school climate. It is the administrator who provides the vision and guidance needed to establish a positive campus environment. Successful principals understand that positive relationships and respect for others are necessary for student success. They realize the attitudes and actions of adults in the learning place greatly impact the behavior of students. Therefore, the adults in the learning community should be aware that they serve as role models for their students' behavior.

The collective attitude of a teaching staff, its teachers, student services, and administrators, is the most powerful conduit to ignite the highest degree of success in academic achievement for students. The staff is the 'power source' and the students receive the benefit of the power source to light the way to their future.

John Steltz, "Building Positive School Climate" 2010, WordPress

It is necessary for administrators and staff members to understand their campus needs and make plans to bring about change. Principals may want to conduct surveys, review school data and speak to stakeholders, such as parents, teachers and students. Find out what their opinions are regarding the campus climate. Do they feel safe? Are their needs being met in a respectful manner? After you have determined your campus needs, work with stakeholders to establish goals that address the areas you have identified.

Consider using some of the ideas listed below in your action plan:

Get input from stakeholders

Identify the areas that require support

Provide training to staff members and parents

Encourage parent involvement and education

Use a research based system for addressing behavioral issues

Have a plan to address resistance to change

Use teaching opportunities to promote respect for all students and staff members

Make sure students are aware of your expectations

Have on-going meetings with staff to review goals and problem-solve issues that may arise

Recognize and reward individuals who take steps to help bring about positive change.

Adults should respond to any deviation from the standards for behavior that have established. It is essential that all parties involved be committed to achieving your goals. Faculty and staff should work together and support each other in implementing positive change. Monitor your plan and reaffirm your dedication to achieve your goal of a positive inclusive environment for learning. Encourage character development and let students know that one person can make a difference.

The individuals involved in implementing the plan should understand that success might not come overnight. Creating a supportive school environment requires commitment and perseverance. Think of it as a garden that requires tending. An unattended garden will not flourish. However, with appropriate care and the right nourishment, great things will happen.

A learning environment that advocates respect for others leads to improved achievement. It produces good plants. Remember, students require guidance and support to build character and appreciate others. Consider providing opportunities for all students to get involved and build relationships. Students with lower grade averages are often not allowed to participate in certain sports and other activities. Make opportunities that give all students the opportunities to participate and feel a part of the school family.

Administrators who have been successful in this area should share their ideas with their peers. But, keep in mind that each campus is different. Principals may be able to use some elements of others' successful plans. However, it is important that each school's plan meet the unique needs of the campus.

References:

Building Positive School Climate, John Steltz, 2010 WordPress

Steps to Becoming an Inclusive Learning-Friendly Environment, UNESCO, 2004

Learning and Succeeding in a Caring Environment, Dan Mulligan 2005

Leadership Capacity for Lasting School Improvement by Linda Lambert, ASCD 2003

The Results Fieldbook: Practical Strategies from Dramatically Improved Schools by James Schmoker, 2001

Lynn Guidry, M.ED.

Stetson & Associates, Inc.

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School Climate: Working Together for Success

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The campus administrator plays an important role in establishing school climate. It is the administrator who provides the vision and guidance needed to establish a positive campus environment. Successful principals understand that positive relationships and respect for others are necessary for student success.

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Why we need positive school/classroom climate.

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A positive school climate boosts student achievement.

It includes a system of supportive and caring teachers, a safe learning environment, student connectedness and parental involvement.

Since conditions like these support the interests of a school's major stakeholders, it is very important for them to know if they're in a positive climate.

That's why educators need to measure school climate, according to "Research Synthesis of the Associations Between Socioeconomic Background, Inequality, School Climate, and Academic Achievement," a new study in Review of Educational Research, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association.

As researchers on positive school climate note, the "personality" of a school is an expression of how teachers, students, family members and community perceive the milieu.

In other words, a school doesn't have to be mean to be good. Treating students with care and respect increases academic performance among students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, higher than if a school placed a singular single focus on academics.

Researchers for this study pulled evidence from multiple studies from around the world to understand the relationships between socioeconomic status, school climate and academic achievement to help academics and practitioners alike understand what a positive climate is and why ultimately it can boost academic achievement.
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They found that the research community defines positive school climate differently along an array of varied measures - just like practitioners. However, nurturing teachers, safety, student connectedness and parental engagement stuck out.

It's important for educators to measure how members of a school community perceive its climate. And few districts and states incorporate climate assessments in their school improvement strategies.
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The Research Synthesis study found that while the majority of the studies on climate focused on students, a proper accounting of the school's personality requires taking in the views of all members of the school community.

There is a "tendency to dismiss climate reports of teachers, school staff, and especially those of students' parents and other family members," the report states.

"We should be as rigorous about being supportive as we are about making kids smart."

Our views on school climate and/or culture have changed alongside our beliefs of what the purposes of schools are.

When schooling was central to our democracy, as in the early 20th century, positive school climates reflected what it took to be a good citizen (at least for white males).
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"Research Synthesis" analyzed studies since the year 2000. Since No Child Left Behind, it's pretty clear that schools are expected to increase student learning particularly in discrete academic areas.

Coming out of the accountability era and into our new national education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, most people acknowledge that a singular focus on test scores limits our ability to lift students academically.

This research backs that up. But most also realize the need to know how students are doing academically through testing. The deal struck between test-driven reformers and community-driven reformers that hatched ESSA may actually get us to see the fullness of schools and the limitations of tests.

As a former school leader in a low-income district, it wasn't uncommon for me to hear parents and teachers share what they believed necessary to create a positive climate to accelerate learning. The "need for structure" and the word "discipline" almost always emerged followed by "consequences."
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On its face, structure, discipline and consequences seem like solid building blocks for school culture. However, if you go beneath the surface of these beliefs and ask students how they received these practices, you'll find a much harsher vision of schools than the nebulous terms convey.

In many schools, to have a structured school for low-income students is to have a quiet one.

To have a disciplined school is to have culture of rule adherence that's made visible by a militaristic uniformity.

Having students walk on white lines is the ultimate example. To teach consequences is to have high suspension and expulsion rates.
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Many schools that possess these characteristics still show gains on standardized tests.

Based on the findings of this study, those schools can reach higher heights if all members, including students, perceive the climate to be positive. But that would require schools accommodating students', teachers' and parents' perceptions.

In the same district, I saw schools that seemingly sought a collective belief in a positive climate. In these schools, rigorous lessons were made fun. Independent and creative thinking was embraced.

As far as consequences, students learned the byproducts of love that comes from embracing depth over breadth in their lessons. That love engendered trust between school personnel and students who were allowed to move throughout the building (and God forbid make noise) without lines to direct them.

For many school leaders, students' and parents' perceptions are like dirty laundry. They repel against the fear those voices will be aired. However, if school leaders really want to maximize achievement, they have to open themselves up to the people they serve.

"The whole school climate literature has been pretty independent in the last 20-25 years of the academic discussion, but there has been a slow shift in connecting the two," said Ron Avi Astor, one of the study's authors.

Astor has found many schools that serve low-income families that beat the odds. In them, the social-emotional and climate plan was integrated with academics. Improving climate wasn't done through a one-off program or through efforts independent of a school's academic program.

"So rather than have a program for mathematics, a program for reading, a program for bullying ... everything was wrapped up in a single philosophy," said Astor. "I like to describe it as having more central air rather than window air."

School leaders won't have to air their dirty laundry if they get central air. We should be as rigorous about being supportive as we are about making kids smart.

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.

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Don't walk that line! Why schools need to create, and measure, positive climates - The Hechinger Report

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A positive school climate boosts student achievement. It includes a system of supportive and caring teachers, a safe learning environment, student connectedness and parental involvement. Since conditions like these support the interests of a school's major stakeholders, it is very important for them to know if they're in a positive climate.

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Empathy, caring.

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Summary of Dr. Stuart Shanker's Keynote Presentation, Self-regulation Summer Symposium, July 2015.

A focus on self-regulation can support the four main pillars of education: literacy, numeracy, social/emotional learning and safe schools. With respect to safe schools, the question is not simply preventing harm, it is also about creating environments in which children feel emotionally safe.

Part of this involves helping children develop self-regulation skills in the social and prosocial domains. But the effect sizes from social and emotional learning programs designed to teach prosocial behaviour are disappointing. Part of the problem is that many children are experiencing stressors in the prosocial domain, stressor that interfere with their ability to empathize.

Key Question: Is empathy and other prosocial behaviour innate to humans or is it a construct of civil society?

Some have argued that there is a violence gene and that some children have it worse than others. One prominent psychologist says that about one third of kids show violent tendencies and, while some grow out of or can be socialized out of those tendencies, a minority will remain violent. Thus, the only thing we can do is knock it out of them - either through harsh discipline or by expelling them from school.

In contrast, Dr. Shanker's view is that research shows that the human brain is wired for empathy, so if a child is not displaying prosocial behaviour then something is interfering with it, and that something is usually stress.

How do we know that humans are innately empathetic?
Primate research
Jane Goodall, who spent many years living with and researching chimpanzees. At the time were seen as the primate that was closest to humans. Goodall observed loving maternal behaviour in chimps. This supported the idea that, if chimps might be innately prosocial, thus it was possible humans might be innately loving. But then Goodall started witnessing infanticide and warfare in chimps. That shook the perception that humans are innately compassionate and people started to think that perhaps humans are innately vicious after all, an idea that goes back to the philosopher Hobbes.

However, it turns out that chimps are not the closest primates to humans. In fact bonobos (primates whose proper name is bilia) are the closest to humans among apes. Bonobos have a way of diffusing aggression (sometimes with intimate sexual behaviour). They can also sense that a person is trouble and will do things like stroke someone's arm as a response. These discoveries rekindled the idea that humans are innately compassionate and empathetic.

This dovetails with other observations of human behaviour. For example, one-year-olds will try to cheer up their upset mothers. That's not true empathy. It is a precursor, a baby's limbic system trying to respond to the distress of others. But it suggests that our brains are wired for empathetic behaviour.

Big idea

Empathy is the glue that held our species together.

In the last ten years new research findings have shown that empathetic people do better in life. They are also healthier, get fewer colds and have better immune system function Jorge Moll showed that when we engage in kindness we get a shot of oxytocin. In other words, we're not only biologically primed for empathy we get rewarded.

This leads to questions. If prosocial behaviour feels good, if you get this neurowallop and surge of energy for being empathetic, why doesn't everybody do it?

Why do some people lack empathy?

In the past, people thought lack of empathy was the result of maltreatment or, in some cases genetic defects. For example, some experts thought that "bad" moms, who didn't display empathy, had a genetically induced deficit in producing oxytocin, a hormone that supports social behaviour. The solution to this deficit seemed to be, "Let's just give them a shot of oxytocin." But that didn't work. Now we know that the real problem is that something is blocking the release of oxytocin and other neurochemicals associated with the reward system.

What could be blocking a mom from being a sensitive caregiver? Stress.

So now we need to know how is stress interfering with a natural biological instinct? It's partly that the mom is in fight or flight, but there's more. Too much stress puts us into a "presocial brain" where we are unable to read social cues and respond with appropriate prosocial behaviour.

The stressors can vary from person to person. In one study involving adults with autism, when subjects looked at pictures of a person looking them in the eye the fusiform gyrus, a part of the brain involved in face and body recognition, was shut down. That's because the eye contact was a stressor. But when the subject was shown pictures of faces where the eyes were averted the fusiform gyrus was switched on. Thus, removing the stressor allowed the brain to work the way it needed to in order to process all the visual information from the picture.

So, if we think about the case of a stressed out teen mother who is not responding sensitively to her baby, if you give her info about infant development and sensitive parent, that will most likely add to her stress. What you need to do is reduce her stress so she will be more able to see, read and respond to her baby's signals.

How stress interferes with empathy

Stress shuts down our ability mind-read. It also gives the mind a negative bias that distorts your view of reality. You begin to see danger even where it doesn't exist. If a teenaged mother's stress levels are high enough she may actually start to see her baby as a threat. In the late 1970, American child psychiatrist Stanley Greenspan started a program in which were able to switch a child's attachment status from insecure to secure simply by reducing the mother's stress.

Therefore, we don't need to ask a child to be empathetic, but if he isn't empathetic we need to ask why. What stressors are interfering with the child's ability to do something his brain is wired to do?

What is it that derails some kids in this journey?

Essentially, children learn empathy by being treated with empathy. But there are exceptions. Some kids can't learn prosocial because stress is blocking their ability to learn about empathy.

In each domain of self-regulation there is a stress unique to that domain. The stressor that is unique to the prosocial domain is somebody else's distress. When somebody else is in distress, that's when you're supposed to be empathetic. But if their distress is stressful to you, then you are unable to respond with empathy,

With bullying, the extra stress of someone else's stress tips the bully into fight or flight. This happens through unconscious transmission of information from the limbic system. The result in aggressive behaviour that is a reaction rather than a conscious choice.

Case example: 11-year-old boy with violent behaviour. It turned out that the boy was misreading social signals. He would perceive that other child was threatening him, even though it wasn't true much of the time.

But what do you do in the short term when a child is out of control, other than sedate him. In that moment you can't reason with him or teach him. That part of his brain is shut off. You can't tell him - if you continue to make bad choices this is where you will end up.

The only thing you can do in this moment is to send the limbic message, "I am not a threat, I am a source of safety."

So the first thing you have to do is make a kid feel safe. Yes, you have to figure out what is going on - what the stresses are and you do have to get kid to learn that there are limits and consequence. But you can only do that when he feels safe.

Research Examples

Psychologist Adrian Raine found that criminals and psychopaths had differences in their brains. But he also scanned his own brain and found some of those same differences, yet he was not a psychopath. He began to ask, why did I turn out like this? The answer is that he had a series of "interbrains" throughout his development - parents, coaches and scout leaders who always made him feel safe and secure. That enabled him to develop his capacity to deal with the distress of others.

In New Zealand's Dunedin longitudinal study they found that children with the long allele version of the 5-HTT gene (aka, "the Depression Gene") could absorb an awful lot of adversity without triggering depression. But people who had the short allele version of 5-HTT were at much higher risk for depression. However, if a child had the short allele version but grew up in a warm nurturing environment in which the child felt emotionally and physiologically safe, the gene worked differently. Essentially it "stayed turned on. That enabled the brain to produce serotonin, which help the child stay calm and alert.

Summing Up

The challenge for educators is that kids are living in a world where they get the message that the world is unsafe. So they feel unsafe and then we ask them to exercise self-control. That won't work. In order to contribute to safe schools and a safe society children have to go from being one who is being regulated by others to the one who regulates others. This starts with create feeling of safety when a child walks into the school. If children feel safe they will be able to learn and use prosocial skills.

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The Meaning of Caring: Self-Regulation, Empathy and the Roots of "Safe"

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Summary of Dr. Stuart Shanker's Keynote Presentation, Self-regulation Summer Symposium, July 2015. A focus on self-regulation can support the four main pillars of education: literacy, numeracy, social/emotional learning and safe schools.