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Creating Safe Equitable Engaging Schools Introduction

This document provides a 3-paragraph introduction to a book on creating safe, equitable, and engaging schools. It discusses how some students feel supported and able to succeed in school while others face barriers. The introduction explains that the book aims to help educators address this problem by providing research-based practices and tools to support all students' learning and well-being. It highlights that advances in science, lessons from practice, and recent policies create an opportunity to tackle these issues successfully. The introduction then briefly outlines some of the key scientific principles and lessons learned that inform the book's guidance.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
111 views13 pages

Creating Safe Equitable Engaging Schools Introduction

This document provides a 3-paragraph introduction to a book on creating safe, equitable, and engaging schools. It discusses how some students feel supported and able to succeed in school while others face barriers. The introduction explains that the book aims to help educators address this problem by providing research-based practices and tools to support all students' learning and well-being. It highlights that advances in science, lessons from practice, and recent policies create an opportunity to tackle these issues successfully. The introduction then briefly outlines some of the key scientific principles and lessons learned that inform the book's guidance.

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Introduction
David Osher

Think of your first days at school, or at a new school. Maybe you


arrived with high hopes, expectations, and excitement. Or perhaps, due to
previous negative experiences, you felt wary. One way or the other, you felt
alone—until you experienced something that gave you a sense of comfort and
belonging. Maybe it was a principal or teacher meeting you at the front door,
smiling, calling you by your name, and expressing happiness that you were
there. If you were lucky, you soon felt safe and supported, were engulfed in
learning, and felt that you belonged and that you could succeed. If you were
particularly fortunate, these feelings characterized your entire school career:
you experienced challenging and engaging educational opportunities and
support for realizing them, and you could develop the skills, mindsets, and
identity that helped you build a future.
This happens in some places, at some times, in some classes, for some
students. But all too frequently, it does not happen for other students, who
experience poor conditions for learning, have limited opportunities for deep
learning and creativity, and realize poor or mediocre learning outcomes. Mul-
tiple sources of data outline the dimensions of this problem. These data docu-
ment persistent disparities for students of color, English language learners,
students with disabilities, students whose families and communities struggle
with poverty, and students who experience trauma and other adversities.1
So how can schools routinely create a caring community that supports
the social-emotional and academic needs of all students? How can schools
realize equitable high standards and build and foster deeper learning and

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2  Introduction

creativity while supporting the physical, emotional, and identity safety and
engagement of every student? These are the questions that many educators
try daily to answer. As we discuss in the next section, we now have a unique
opportunity to address them successfully thanks to advances in science,
lessons from practice, and recent legislative policy. We have compiled this
volume to leverage this information and to provide a comprehensive resource
of research-based practices, frameworks, and tools for school leaders and
other professionals who support children and youth in and out of school.
With contributions from experts in a variety of fields who serve as chapter
coauthors, we have designed the book to help you, the professional educa-
tor, address these questions in a practical, strategic way. Our aim is to help
you improve your school and district and accelerate equitable and quality
outcomes—both in the short and long run—no matter how close or far you
currently are from equity with excellence at scale.
This volume builds on a variety of reports and publications produced
by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), notably the 2004 publica-
tion Safe, Supportive, and Successful Schools Step by Step.2 It is also based on the
editors’ and coauthors’ extensive experience, including our ongoing work
with urban, suburban, rural, and frontier schools and with districts, states,
and agencies in every US state and territory. Our experience includes both
consultation and technical assistance with schools, districts, agencies, and
states as well as evaluation research and synthesis activities to identify and
apply what we know about supporting student, educator, school, and system
capacity so that every student is engaged and thrives—both educationally and
as a whole person. We have discovered a great need for a single resource that
helps educators think strategically about what it takes to create schools that
support deep learning and well-being for all students, that makes sense of
all the existing programs and frameworks, and that provides a road map as
well as recommended tools. This book intends to do exactly that.

WHY THE OPPORTUNIT Y IS NOW


Scientific Advances: Science-Based Principles for Learning
and Development
Over the past decade, researchers working in neurobiology, learning science,
developmental science, psychology, child and youth development, and educa-
tion have learned much about the factors that enhance or impede learning
and development for children and adolescents. This knowledge converges on

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introduction 3

practical science-based principles regarding learning and development that


have been reviewed by leading scientists and practitioners. 3 These principles
include the following:

•• Relationships and stress drive and undermine learning.


•• Social-emotional and academic skills interrelate and can be learned.
•• Conditions for learning and teaching matter.
•• The impacts of stress and adversity must and can be addressed, and
resilience can be supported.
•• Culture, identity, and subjective perceptions affect learning.
•• Neurobiological and neurohormonal processes (e.g., the impact of cor­
tisol) can support or undermine learning.
•• Learning and development is both social and individual.
•• Multiple factors within the individual and the individual’s context
contribute to results.
•• New analytical techniques enable us to personalize instruction by ad-
dressing the multiple factors that contribute to results.

Lessons from Practice: Successes and Failures


At the same time as scientific understanding has evolved, practice-based
research and wisdom have accumulated. We have learned the following from
the successes and failures of interventions and other initiatives intended to
support children and youth:

•• Evidence is necessary but not sufficient; readiness to implement, imple-


mentation quality, and context matter.
•• Cultural competence and responsiveness are essential to realizing both
equity and excellence.
•• Academic pressure without student engagement and support does not
work.
•• Comprehensive approaches that align social-emotional, academic, and
health supports can best address barriers to learning.
•• Comprehensive approaches can be efficiently implemented through a
relational, multitiered model (see figure I.1) with a robust foundation
adapted to local needs.
•• Data-informed planning and continuous improvement are necessary
to drive change; these data should include stakeholder perceptions and
concerns.

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4  Introduction

Figure I.1  Work at three levels

Provide Provide coordinated, intensive, sustained,


culturally culturally competent, individualized,
responsive child- and family-driven, and focused
individualized services and supports that address
intensive supports. needs while building assets.

Intervene early and


provide focused youth
development activities.
Implement strategies and provide
supports that address risk factors
and build protective factors for
students at risk for severe academic
or behavioral difficulties.

Build a schoolwide foundation.


Promote universal, trauma-sensitive prevention
and youth development approaches, a caring school
climate, a positive and proactive approach to discipline,
personalized instruction, cultural competence, student voice,
supportive conditions for learning, and family engagement.

•• Collaborative, strengths-based asset mapping enhances collaboration


and efficiency.

Legislative Policy: Implications of the Every Student Succeeds Act


This book comes at a fortuitous time, not only thanks to advances in knowl-
edge from science and practice, but also because today’s educators are being
encouraged by policy makers, families, and communities to monitor the
quality of their school climate and its effect on all students. The federal
Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), passed in 2015, provides opportunities
for school personnel to improve student academic progress by addressing
the whole child and equity. The legislation’s Title IV, Part A, grant program
guidance states that education agencies may adopt strategies to support
children’s social-emotional development to meet the program’s mandate
to deliver a “well-rounded education.” As part of its accountability system,
ESSA requires a nonacademic “fifth indicator,” which can relate to whole-
child development, student engagement, or school climate. The act prioritizes

Osher intro.indd 4 8/29/18 10:44 AM


introduction 5

equitable schools and opportunities for students to engage deeply in their


academic experience. ESSA also emphasizes the use of data to continually
inform state and local improvements.

VOICES THAT INFORM OUR PERSPEC TIVE


In addition to the sources of knowledge and policy just described, through-
out this book we draw upon what we have learned from students, teachers,
pupil services personnel, administrators, family members, and agency staff.
We begin now with the voices of youth and teachers.

Youth
In countless conversations in schools and in forums, youth have told us what
they need from adults in order to thrive. These conversations have enriched
our thinking and undergird much of the advice in this book. Here is some
of what they say:

You see me as you want to. If all you see is a stereotype, then you shall
never know me, but you will forever know who I am not. (Langston, an
African American high school senior from New England)
You don’t know me; you just see me. You don’t even give me a chance.
(Melissa, a seventeen-year-old Caucasian high school student)
I am the one people expect less of, the underachiever, the dropout. No,
I think not. But I am the one who had to go against all stereotypes,
mean and dirty looks, and much worse. (José, a Mexican American youth
advocate who dropped out of a California high school)
Know students’ names, and call them by their names; know what em-
barrasses them, and never embarrass them. (Mexican American student
activists from Texas, when asked what teachers can do to make classes work)
We are not afraid of challenge and hard work, because our teachers
“have our backs.” (African American high school students responding to the
question, “Are you ever pushed too hard?”)
We are happy when we have a sense of belonging. (Caucasian 4-H youth
when asked, “What makes you happy?”)

Teachers
Teachers, who work most directly with children and youth, have also in-
formed this volume. Here is one teacher’s story from Mary Cathryn D. Ricker,

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6  Introduction

a National Board–certified teacher and executive vice president of the Ameri-


can Federation of Teachers. Mary’s story, like many stories we have heard,
illustrates the need for a comprehensive, systematic approach to supporting
students:

When I was a new teacher hired to teach eighth-grade English, the


middle school I joined had just completed a lengthy process of rede-
fining itself as a middle school and adopting middle school philoso-
phies and practices, including printing posters to be displayed in every
classroom that began with “All students can learn.”
It was an important, informal induction into my profession, which
solidified three lessons from my teacher training program: approach
everything with the belief that all students can learn; don’t assume
anyone knows you believe that if you haven’t explicitly stated it; and
if students aren’t learning in your class, then do the work to uncover
what barriers are preventing them from learning and remove them.
Initially, I believed the barriers were in the four walls of the class-
room. I asked myself questions such as, “Did I need to reteach some-
thing? Were the definitions clear enough? Had I given enough time
to the material? Did I provide interesting and relevant connections
to create engaging lessons?” Looking back on my career in the class-
room, I realized that these were surmountable obstacles to learning
I could control—not that they weren’t pernicious from time to time.
While those barriers existed and it was my primary job to look for
and remove them, I noticed issues that didn’t reflect on my inability
to introduce a short story in an engaging way or had nothing to do
with offering constructive feedback on a student’s writing that was
both clear and concise—for example, the student who was frequently
late to class, the student who refused to sit in his new seat assignment,
the student who put his head down on the desk and started sleeping
shortly after class started, or the student who would come back from
lunch crying and ask to go to the bathroom.
Initially, these situations elicited a superficial disciplinary re-
sponse. Being marked tardy meant lunch detention. Refusing to sit
down in a newly assigned seat like every other student meant a stand-
off that resulted in sending a student out of the classroom, while I
felt my authority was challenged. The student who slept got nudged

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introduction 7

awake as often as needed so the principal wouldn’t walk in and see a


student sleeping in class and reprimand me (and how was I supposed
to know if my lessons were engaging if a student wouldn’t even try to
engage with them?!). Maybe the student crying would have to use a
pass to go to the bathroom.
However, none of these situations were what they seemed on the
surface. After some investigation, I learned that the student who was
frequently late to class had purposefully hung back in the classroom
to avoid students who otherwise would bully her when they found her
in the hallway. The student who refused to sit down told the social
worker that the desk he was assigned would be too embarrassing to sit
in because it had an attached chair and he was afraid he wouldn’t fit
in it; he was too embarrassed to tell me that. The student who slept in
class had a part-time job at a local fast food restaurant and took only
closing shifts so he could be home after school to watch his little sis-
ter. And all those students who returned to the classroom after lunch
crying? (There were many more than one. A lot happens at lunch in
middle school.) They all had their reasons, and when you are twelve or
thirteen or fourteen and life happens, sometimes it’s sad or it hurts.
No teacher telling you, “It’s time to learn now” is going to distract you
from how sad you are or how hurt you feel.
In these cases, and countless others, students were lacking a safe
environment, or maybe they didn’t feel supported by the teacher or
their school community. I realized there was something besides my
teaching that wasn’t engaging them or that there was a logic in their
world outside of school that was more relevant, meaningful, or engag-
ing to them and took precedence. In some cases, school was not a place
where they felt successful because their success, sometimes just in that
moment, was tied to something the school did not have a way to value.
The realization that a school community, and a teacher in that
school community, had the responsibility to show students their lives
had value extended into the other things I noticed or discovered were
impediments to learning. For example, I had a student who was fre-
quently absent after he turned thirteen. When his mom came to ­parent/
teacher conferences, she apologized profusely for his attendance, with
him sitting right there, and went on to explain that she and her chil-
dren were homeless and had moved from her car to a shelter to be just

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8  Introduction

a little more comfortable; but now that her son was thirteen, he didn’t
get to stay in the “women’s and children’s” side anymore. He had to
stay in the men’s side. He wasn’t getting much sleep, so he would sleep
when he was with her. There was a student whose work started to drop
off after a strong start to the school year. When I called home, I found
out the student’s older sister had recently been convicted of a crime
and sent to jail. Her mom said they had all been struggling with the
situation at home. One Monday, a student came to school and walked
into homeroom with his wrist cupped in his opposite hand. He came
up to me, showed me his wrist—which was blue, purple, black, and
about three sizes larger than it should have been—and asked, “Ms.
Ricker, my mom wanted me to ask you if I could see the nurse this
morning to take a look at my thumb?” His family had no health in-
surance. His mother had kept him as comfortable as she could all
weekend with ice, over-the-counter pain relievers, and her constant at-
tention. The school nurse was his urgent care center.
How do we create school environments that support the learning
and development of the whole child with these and other barriers to
learning and development? What conditions need to be in place so
that I can successfully meet the academic needs of students while be-
ing present and mindful of the social and emotional needs of students
as well? How can we assure those professionals that they are not ex-
pected to do this alone and that there is an entire school community
collaborating toward successfully meeting the needs of our students?
That our talents in isolation may be impressive, but our talents in con-
cert with those of our colleagues are unstoppable? How do we amplify
the professional voices of those of us hired because of our expertise at
meeting the needs of students? What are the most meaningful ways of
collaborating with our students, their families, and our surrounding
community to create safe and supportive spaces that engage learners
and their families for the most successful outcomes possible?

We start this book featuring the voices of students and teachers because
they are essential to driving equity with excellence and must be at the center
of school improvement. We could also begin with pupil services personnel,
who work hard to provide students with individual support, but often feel

Osher intro.indd 8 8/29/18 10:44 AM


introduction 9

marginalized or overloaded by staff-to-student ratios, or by needing to spend


time on documentation rather than on consultation and student support.
Or we could begin with the visionary principals and superintendents we
have met, who are committed to supporting both teachers and students and
who envision schools that promote the success of all students, foster creativ-
ity and healthy development, and contribute to the wellness of their entire
community. We could also start with family members, who, like teachers,
balance multiple jobs and roles. They support their children 24/7, and expe-
rience their children’s strengths and needs as a whole—not as a set of service
silos. Or, we could start with culturally competent agency staff who employ
strengths-based, family- and child-driven approaches to supporting children
and youth. We have written about all of these groups elsewhere, and include
their perspectives throughout this book.4
For these reasons, this book purposely employs the word you for our in-
tended readers—superintendents, principals, teachers, out-of-school educa-
tors, paraprofessionals, pupil service professionals, student leaders, family
members, board members, and agency staff. This book is designed to help
you, and other members of your school or district community, realize your
goals and aspirations by leveraging the assets and addressing the challenges
of fostering educational equity with excellence in a way that includes so-
cial and emotional learning (SEL) and deeper learning for all students. We
know this work is hard and has many elements. However, it is made harder
by ineffective, underaligned, incoherent solutions that address only part of
the problem and may add to the burden on students, families, teachers, and
leaders. This book will help you by:

•• naming and explaining problems and their interconnectedness;


•• strengthening your school’s capacity to assess needs, identify solutions,
plan implementation, and roll out your plan in a way that maximizes
engagement and support;
•• showing how you can identify, adapt, and align interventions that will
work in your context;
•• providing tools to assess and develop readiness to implement these inter-
ventions and to monitor, assess, and continually improve what you do;
•• supplying links to other tools and resources; and
•• documenting examples of schools, districts, and communities that have
experienced success with a comprehensive, systematic ­approach.

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10  Introduction

HOW THIS BOOK IS ORGANIZED


The chapters in this volume are organized in four parts focusing on activities
that will enable you to create schools that support the social-emotional and
academic needs of all students and produce excellence with equity. Although
each chapter can be read as a stand-alone resource, the parts are organized
in a logical, iterative order and the chapters are interdependent, with specific
chapters describing certain issues and practices in depth. Links to all of the
major tools and other resources mentioned in the chapters can be found in
appendix B. For direct access to the tools and resources referenced through-
out this volume, you can go to www.air.org/SafeEquitableEngaging.

Part I: Build Capacity


Chapters 1 through 5 address building the capacity of the school and its staff
to lead and implement the work with passion, enthusiasm, and efficiency.
This involves building skills, structures, and motivation, including organi-
zational incentives, to do the work; fostering leadership qualities and teams
that work well; and conducting needs assessments and developing strategies
and action plans that include the right interventions. Topics by chapter are
as follows:

•• Developing individual and organizational readiness and capacity


­(chapter 1)
•• Leading schools and school improvement through effective leadership
and key teams (chapter 2)
•• Implementing needs assessment and asset mapping, identifying doable
and sustainable interventions that produce short-term gains while
addressing the root causes of problems and challenges, developing an
action plan and indicators for monitoring, and securing stakeholder
input and investment (chapter 3)
•• Becoming a critical consumer ready to select the right programs, prac-
tices, strategies, approaches, curricula, and policies for your specific
context and concerns, and understanding the challenges of implemen-
tation and adaptation (chapter 4)
•• Identifying, leveraging, and coordinating resources that can support
whole-child education and development, including blending and braid-
ing funding and redeploying resources (chapter 5)

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introduction 11

Part II: Engage


Chapters 6 through 10 focus on engaging and harnessing the strengths of
the school’s undertapped stakeholders. You will learn the following:

•• How and why to implement culturally competent and responsive ap-


proaches (chapter 6)
•• Strategies for engaging students and employing youth development
­approaches (chapter 7)
•• Ways to effectively engage families in a culturally responsive and family-
driven way to maximize partnership, equity, and excellence (chapter 8)
•• Methods to effectively engage and collaborate with the community
(chapter 9)
•• Techniques for leveraging community-based, expanded learning and
support (chapter 10)

Part III: Act


Chapters 11 through 19 address approaches to creating safe, supportive, en-
gaging, academically robust, and equitable schools. They cover these activities:

•• Building a foundation for equity with excellence through the lens of a


generalized three-tiered model to support the success of all students
(chapter 11)
•• Building and restoring school communities through relational and
restorative practices (chapter 12)
•• Creating respectful, trauma-sensitive, and inclusive schools with inten-
tional programing to address and prevent the effects of adversity and
marginalization (chapter 13)
•• Using multitiered systems of support (MTSS) to coordinate and align
academic and behavioral goals (chapter 14)
•• Employing selective intervention strategies to address the needs of stu-
dents who are at some elevated risk of academic, social-emotional, and/
or behavioral problems (chapter 15)
•• Employing intensive, indicated interventions to address the needs of
students who are at a highly elevated risk of academic, social-emotional,
and/or behavioral problems (chapter 16)
•• Employing effective approaches to leverage the power of universal SEL
skill-building programs (chapter 17)

Osher intro.indd 11 8/29/18 10:44 AM


12  Introduction

•• Building conditions for teaching so that teachers feel supported and


equipped to address the needs of all of their students (chapter 18)
•• Addressing learning challenges in a way that accounts for the individu-
alized and culturally grounded nature of learning, does not stigmatize
students or create negative identities, and scaffolds skill development
and engagement in deeper learning (chapter 19)

Part IV: Improve


The concluding chapter underscores the importance of continuous improve-
ment—specifically, progress monitoring and formative and summative assess-
ment techniques—for creating and maintaining safe, equitable, and engaging
school cultures (chapter 20).

Building equity with excellence is important for our children, our commu-
nities, and ourselves. It is not an easy task. But it can be and is being done.
This book is intended to help you do this work in a sustainable manner—­
collaboratively, respectfully, and strategically.

Osher
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