For many of us the first day of school is right around the corner. Students and educators across the country are gearing up for another year and this year the issue of bullying and cyber-bullying is not only on the student’s minds but educators as well. This year, 160,000 students will skip school each day in fear of getting bullied. With these numbers as high as they are, it's not a big surprise that academic achievement is an increasing challenge in most schools. If you want take part in making a change in your schools academic achievement and pinpointing where exactly this begins, then you can't miss the first National Conference on School Engagement.
National Center for School Engagement Presents: The National Conference on School Success
Date: October 26-28, 2011
Location: Denver, Colorado
With regestration all conference participants will be given one year free membership to the School Climate Resource Center –Operated by the National School Climate Center
"Practice and policy must work in concert; together we must make the whole child approach to education a national priority so that each child is ready for meaningful employment, continuing education, and active participation in our global society." - ASCD Executive Director Gene R. Carter
Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA) recently introduced H. Res. 1093 to make March "National Whole Child Month". This bill is the first step toward making the whole child approach to education a national priority and ensuring that all children are healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged in our schools. Congress is expected to vote on H. Res. 1093 within the next few weeks, and it's up to us to get involved and help speed its passage!
Take a second to make a difference. In a country where a student drops out of school every 9 seconds and where every 7 seconds a child is bullied on the playground, your simple act of support and solidarity can make a huge difference:
If you believe in whole child education, now's the time to take action. Visit the Whole Child's website for more information and resources.
How do you focus on improving school climate from the district level? Our next newsletter shares guidelines, best practices, stories from the field, funding opportunities, and additional resources to help administrators begin planning for school climate improvement.
In the meantime, here are resources from CSEE to start the conversation:
School Climate District Guide: The district guide is designed to support district policymakers and education leaders plan and implement improvement initiatives. It contains an overview of research and information about quality practices, policy options and resources.
National School Climate Standards: The National School Climate Standards were developed by CSEE, the National School Climate Council and many other educational, school board and community leaders. The Standards present a vision and framework for a positive and sustainable school climate. They complement national standards for Content, Leadership, and Professional Development and the Parent Teacher Association's National Standards for Family School Partnerships Standards, and are endorsed by the National School Boards Association.
School Climate Implementation Road Map: Use this resource to learn how you can measure and improve school climate in ways that support student and adult learning and development. This road map guides you through the process of school climate assessment, evaluation and analysis, understanding and action planning, implementing programs and initiatives, and re-evaluating school climate.
Breaking the Bully-Victim-Bystander Toolkit: This toolkit is a resource designed to support school leadership teams and school community members prevent bully-victim behavior and promote upstander behavior in K-12 schools.
What initiatives and programs have you implemented to create district-wide or school-wide change? What resources have been helpful to get buy-in and understanding from principals and school staff? Share in the comments below or email us at newsletter@csee.net so we can share your work with other districts dedicated to improving their climates for learning.
Research consistently shows that students with higher social and emotional intelligence do better in school. So, why isn't this a more explicit part of the curriculum?
The New Line Learning Foundation (UK) is doing first-rate work to slay SEL's typecast as the "inessential extra" of K-12 education. They've adapted Emotional Literacy into their schools, a classroom-based pilot program designed by Yale researchers to educate kids about their emotions. Through the program, students learn specific words to describe their feelings, in turn learning how to better understand and label their feelings, and to communicate with each other more effectively.
Here's a short video about Emotional Literacy and how it's shaping up to be a powerful enabler to school success:
As a result of working with educators across the country, we at CSEE have amassed some really great classroom resources. To share the goods, we created a free Caring Classrooms toolkit containing the experiential activities and practical guidelines that are being touted by school leaders as effective tools for making the classroom a more caring and open place.
Our hope is that you'll also be able to use the resources within the kit to speak to important dimensions of school climate such as social and civic learning, physical safety and respect for diversity. At the end of the toolkit are also some of my favorite resources for school climate improvement, diversity and bullying, funding support and social emotional learning.
Click here to download the toolkit.
I'd also love to hear about your own favorite classroom rituals or experiential activities. How do you go about developing your own activities to create awareness about classroom dynamics? What outside resources, such as TeacherTube or Edutopia, do you use for inspiration?