How Would Covey Organize an SEL School Initiative? Strategically Planning for the Usual and the Unusual

 Dear Colleagues,

[CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Article]

Introduction

   I hope everyone is doing well as many school districts are either beginning to start school, or preparing their staff for the same thing.

   I spent most of this week planning and then providing a virtual presentation and consultation with a district’s newly formed Social-Emotional Learning Task Force. Representing all of the schools in the district, the administrators, teachers, and related service professionals on the Task Force were focused on (a) developing an SEL mission statement, and (b) planning the multi-tiered actions needed to positively impact every preschool through high school student in the district, while embedding social-emotional learning practices into all staff interactions.

   As I do these strategic planning consultations nationwide, it is not surprising to find that many educators:

• Have only a vague or generalized notion of what social-emotional learning is;

•  Do not know the implementation science that drives students’ social-emotional learning—from both a psychological and a pedagogical perspective;

• Focus more on programs rather than practices, and activities rather than student and staff outcomes;

• Do not know what social-emotional learning practices already exist in other schools in their own district, and whether these practices are truly providing a “return on their investment;” and

• Do not know how to use strategic planning principles and practices to facilitate collegial buy-in, to seamlessly integrate new activities with existing ones, and to produce real, meaningful, and sustainable results that are maintained over time

   Significantly, this was just the beginning of the journey for this Task Force. And yet, they still felt a self-imposed pressure to begin implementing “something” as quickly as possible.

   While some of this pressure was pandemic-related, I have seen time and time again, Task Forces say, “We need to involve our colleagues and get their buy-in” . . . while advocating their own agendas, and prematurely pushing their own approaches into others’ classrooms.

   For me, strategic planning is the key to a successful school- or district-wide initiative. Indeed, there is a gigantic body of strategic planning science. While the science is not always definitive, when an evidence-based blueprint is used, the results are usually positive and impactful.

   For this Blog, in the context of planning and implementing a school- or district-wide social-emotional learning initiative, I would like to outline an evidence-based blueprint using Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

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Using the Seven Habits to Guide Strategic Planning

   One of the most popular business and self-help books in history, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was first published in 1989. Focused on how to attain goals in a principled and ethical way, the 7 Habits have been applied to any number of professional and personal contexts.

   To apply the 7 Habits to the strategic planning of a social-emotional learning initiative, they will be connected to seven specific action steps.

   They are as follows:

• Be Proactive—Do Your Homework

• Begin with the End in Mind—Specify Your Desired Outcomes

• Put First Things First—Go Slow to Go Fast

• Think Win-Win—Honor Your Colleagues

• Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood—Listen to the Children

• Synergize—Set Your Mission, Role, and Function

• Sharpen the Saw—Resource, Train, and Support

   So, here we go. . .

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Habit/Action 1: Be Proactive—Do Your Homework

   At the beginning of a strategic planning process, educators need to:

•  Complete a Data-Based Up-to-Date Status Evaluation.  This involves the collection and analysis of (at least) the past three years’ worth of information and outcomes related to the initiative being focused on. This is done so that statistical trend analyses can be completed. 

For a social-emotional learning initiative, these data should be collected from each participating school, and it should investigate both assets (e.g., climate and safety surveys, academic engagement and student prosocial interactions observations, student and staff focus group interview results), as well as deficits (e.g., discipline referrals to the office, incidents of teasing and bullying, law enforcement involvement). 

The reason for looking at both prosocial as well as anti-social behaviors is that (a) the absence of a problem does not necessarily reflect the presence of any strengths; and (b) the best way to progress in life is to build on your strengths.

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• Complete a Needs Assessment and Gap Analysis. 

• Complete a SWOT Analysis.

 [CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Article & the Rest of this Habit’s Discussion]

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Habit/Action 2: Begin with the End in Mind—Specify Your Desired Outcomes

   Many years ago, when I became the Director of the State Improvement Grant at the Arkansas Department of Education, I gave an incoming address to my new staff.

   During that presentation, I emphasized:

“Activity does not count as Much as Outcomes.”

   What I was communicating was that I was less concerned about the number of calls, visits, or consultations that they completed, and far more focused on the student, staff, and school outcomes that we could help facilitate.

   Others call this “The Activity Trap.”

   The point is: Too many schools plan their initiatives as a bunch of activities (many that have never been field-tested and validated with the types of students who walk their hallways), rather than focusing on what they want their students to eventually do due to the initiative.

   As Covey would emphasize, once you determine—at the beginning of your planning processes—your short- and long-term outcomes, you can work backwards and evaluate proposed goals, actions, practices, and activities with the question:

“Will these goals, actions, practices, and activities help our school to attain these outcomes in a cost-, time-, and resource-effective way? 

   Beginning “with the end in mind” becomes a litmus test with which to objectively evaluate all suggestions and recommendations.

   But. . . beginning “with the end in mind” also is a litmus test as to whether the Team planning the initiative can successfully get “on the same page” through consistent communication, collaboration, and consensus.

   For a social-emotional learning initiative, there are many possible “ends in mind,” as well as many possible student, staff, and school goals.

 [CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Article & the Rest of this Habit’s Discussion]

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Habit/Action 3: Put First Things First—Go Slow to Go Fast

   Every important district or school initiative should have a Leadership or Planning Team that has representatives from every constituency likely to be touched by the initiative. This often occurs when Superintendents guide their districts through each five-year strategic planning cycle. And it should certainly be true when a district commits to a social-emotional learning initiative that will be systemically integrated into the fabric of a school’s climate, classrooms, and clientele.

   Critically, who is chosen to be on the Social-Emotional Learning Leadership Team (SLT) is paramount, as the Team must represent not just positions, experience, expertise, and perspectives, but also district and community demographics and diversity.

   As school climate and social-emotional learning necessarily involve issues of gender, geography, race, socio-economic and multi-cultural status, sexual orientation, and disability, the SLT Team needs to be chosen with an eye toward “equity-based representation.”

   That is, Team membership should not necessarily reflect just district staff or community demographics. If that occurs, it is likely that there will be very few staff with disabilities and/or from black, brown, and other multicultural backgrounds on the Team. If we are truly committed to giving voice to staff (and students) from these backgrounds, it is not appropriate to put these few individuals in a potential role where they feel that they have to speak “for their people.”

   Indeed, if we are truly committed to addressing the social-emotional learning needs and wants of students with disabilities and from minority and multi-cultural backgrounds (the latter who may be the “majority” of students in our schools), we need to disproportionately weight our SLT Teams with representatives from these groups.

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   With the SLT Team chosen, Team leaders need to attend to long-term development of positive relationships, trust, and effective decision-making processes within the Team.

   While Team (and district) leaders certainly want the planned outcomes and products expected to emerge from the Team, they also must recognize that:

“Process drives Product.”

   That is, the relationships and effective group processes that are nurtured and sustained within any team predict not just the “Action Plans” produced, but the team’s commitment (a) to ensuring that these Action Plans are of high quality and strategic importance, and (b) to publicly committing to support and implement these Plans.

   Thus, SLT Team leaders need to “go slow to go fast” by investing the time needed to build team members’ relationships, communication, collaboration, and consensus-building skills and processes.

   This will facilitate the development of sound Action Plans. . . another “slow” area that many planning teams ignore . . . as they either try to write their Action Plan prematurely, or they do not write an effective Action Plan at all.

 [CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Article & the Rest of this Habit’s Discussion]

   When SLT Teams move too fast, they potentially undermine the quality, effectiveness, and outcomes of their entire initiative. Indeed, when district or school initiatives fail, administrative leaders think twice about embarking on such initiatives in the future.

   But more importantly, when these initiatives fail, staff come to believe that such initiatives are not worth the time and the effort . . . and sometimes, they blame the administration for the effort’s demise.

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Habit/Action 4: Think Win-Win—Honor Your Colleagues

   In order to initially generate the commitment and energy to sustain a multi-year, multi-faceted systemic initiative, everyone needs to feel that a “win-win” potential exists.

   While this rarely reaches a 100% consensus, initiatives must begin with the full, clear, and public commitment of at least 80% of everyone involved to the Action Plan. While this starts with the SLT Team’s systematic involvement of these different constituencies in the Action Planning process, it especially requires reaching out to instructional, support, and administrative colleagues.

   This takes time and effort, and it is best guided by asking instructional, support, and administrative staff what they need to feel involved, and how they want the Action Plan approved.

   This is yet another example of “Going slow to go Fast,” and it involves sharing the results of all of the Habit/Actions discussed above.

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Habit/Action 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood— Listen to the Children

   Piggy-backing on Habit/Action 5, initiative planning must also involve the children and adolescents who eventually will be targeted by many initiative activities, and whose social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes will determine the success of the process.

   Too often, we forget to “Listen to the Children.” In most cases, I find this to be an oversight, and not a slight—although some educators do undervalue student input. . . or they are afraid of it.

   The use of student surveys, focus groups and interviews, observations, and action planning feedback are all essential to a sound Action Plan and the potential success of a multi-year initiative.

   Ultimately, on a social, emotional, and behavioral level, when students support, reinforce, and guide the implementation of critical social-emotional learning practices, everyone wins.

   Said a different way:

“When You Want Student Outcomes, Let the Students Do the Heavy Lifting.”

   As a case in point, Sabrina Capoli, an incoming high school senior and Student Representative to the New Jersey State Board of Education focused her August, 2020 monthly Board report on the reopening of school in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 [CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Article with Sabrina’s Report and a YouTube Clip of Adolescents’ Pandemic Experiences]

   Clearly, students’ voices must be continuously, consistently, and systematically heard from the beginning and throughout any social-emotional learning initiative. Implicitly or explicitly, schools should not be “doing things” to students, they should be collaborating, communicating, and carrying activities out with students.  

   Similar to Habit/Action 4 above, if students are not involved and committed to a social-emotional learning initiative, they will not engage. And if they do not engage, all of the planning, training, and resourcing will go for naught.

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Habit/Action 6: Synergize—Set Your Mission, Role, and Function

   As part of a new district-wide initiative, many strategic planning experts believe that an Initiative Mission Statement provides a helpful “compass” to keep the initiative on track.

   Typically an extension of the district’s Mission Statement, an Initiative Mission Statement has four primary components.

 [CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Article & the Rest of this Habit’s Discussion]

   From the Mission Statement and embedded in the initiative’s Action Plan, the Roles and Functions of the different training, supervision, implementation, and evaluation “players” in the process is important. When written in a formal document, this helps to publicize and clarify who is involved in what parts of the initiative. This also serves to identify areas of shared and solo responsibility and accountability, who the “Go-To” people are (and are not), and where important lines of communication, engagement, and collaboration need to be.

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Habit/Action 7: Sharpen the Saw—Resource, Train, and Support

   When strategic initiatives consciously “sharpen the saw,” they use their Action Plans to prepare for the initiative prior to its formal “roll-out” or implementation, as well as to periodically review, reflect, rejoice, recalibrate, and renew the energy and commitment to the initiative’s goals and outcomes.

   In the former area, too many initiatives fail from the beginning because the district or school has not spent the money and quality time (sometimes an entire year prior to the initiative’s formal roll-out) making sure that (a) the resources are available, (b) the training and coaching has been effectively completed, (c) the staff (and others) are prepared and motivated to implement their parts of the multi-tiered process with integrity and intensity, and (d) a supportive process of progressive and continuous improvement is explicitly evident as a guiding principle.

   In the latter area, formal evaluation, analysis and reflection is needed in every major area of implementation or student, staff, and school outcome. Periodic celebrations are planned, and recalibrated “mid-course corrections” are needed so that everyone shares and commemorates the successes, while realizing that, when miscalculations or “wrong turns” have occurred, Team Leaders are willing to acknowledge and change them for the better.

   In these ways, initiative participants do not burn out, they have opportunities to renew their energy, and they can take heart in the transparency of the process and the dedication to growth and success.

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Summary

   As noted in the Introduction to this Blog article, many districts and schools inadvertently begin their social-emotional learning initiatives in a manner that decreases their probability of both short-term and long-term success. This is because initiative leaders and planners:

• Have only a vague or generalized notion of what social-emotional learning is;

•  Do not know the implementation science that drives students’ social-emotional learning—from both a psychological and a pedagogical perspective;

• Focus more on programs rather than practices, and activities rather than student and staff outcomes;

• Do not know what social-emotional learning practices already exist in other schools in their own district, and whether these practices are truly providing a “return on their investment;” and

• Do not know how to use strategic planning principles and practices to facilitate collegial buy-in, to seamlessly integrate new activities with existing ones, and to produce real, meaningful, and sustainable results that are maintained over time

   To avoid these pitfalls, we have emphasized the importance of (a) strategic planning as the key to any successful school- or district-wide initiative; and (b) using an evidence-based strategic planning blueprint.

   In presenting this blueprint, in the context of planning and implementing a school- or district-wide social-emotional learning initiative, we built on Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by identifying critical strategic planning principles and practices.

   The evidence-based blueprint consisted of the following Habits and Actions:

• Be Proactive—Do Your Homework

• Begin with the End in Mind—Specify Your Desired Outcomes

• Put First Things First—Go Slow to Go Fast

• Think Win-Win—Honor Your Colleagues

• Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood—Listen to the Children

• Synergize—Set Your Mission, Role, and Function

• Sharpen the Saw—Resource, Train, and Support

_ _ _ _ _

   I hope that this “strategic planning primer” has been helpful to you.

   Clearly, strategic planning is an important process that helps maximize the success of districts, schools, and specific initiatives. While it does take time (and the expertise of those who know how to guide it), its ability to motivate student and staff buy-in, and produce quality implementation resulting in short- and long-term success are well-documented.

   I appreciate, as always, the time that you invest in reading these Blogs, and your dedication to your students, your colleagues, and the educational process—especially in these challenging times.

   Please feel free to send me your thoughts and questions. 

   And please know that—even during this time when many schools are beginning the school year in different and creative ways—I continue to virtually train, consult, and “add value” to schools and districts across the country.

   I would love to work with your school or district. Contact me at any time.

Best,

Howie

[CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Article]

 

Why Stress-Informed Schools Must Precede Trauma-Informed Schools

 

When We Address Student Stress First, We Begin to Impact Trauma. . . If It Exists

[CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Article]

Dear Colleagues,

Introduction

   I hope that you, your families, and your colleagues are safe, healthy, and protected as the pandemic continues—somewhat unabated.

   Over the past three weeks, I have been providing almost non-stop virtual consultations and professional development trainings with the different school districts that I work with nationwide. The primary focus has been getting the administrators, leadership teams, teachers, and support staffs (including bus drivers, secretaries, paraprofessionals, cafeteria workers, and custodians) ready to open their schools (in one form or another) for their students.

   Many of the discussions have focused on addressing the students’ social, emotional, and behavioral needs. . . both relative to their pandemic-specific experiences, and to the more “routine” re-entry and transition issues that typically occur at the beginning of any new school year (e.g., having new teachers, classes, expectations, opportunities).

   In latter area above, the different school staffs are making explicit classroom and school-wide plans to help students—on the first day of the new school year—to:

• Re-establish positive and proactive relationships with their teachers and peers;

• Learn and physically practice the social and behavioral expectations in the classrooms and across the Common Areas of the school (i.e., hallways, bathrooms, the cafeteria, playgrounds/common meeting spaces, etc.);

• Understand and commit to a progressive “Behavioral Accountability Matrix” that (a) facilitates positive and safe school and classroom settings by identifying and motivating students to make “Good Choices,” while (b) telling them what staff responses and consequences (including at the “Code of Conduct” level) will occur for different intensities of “Bad Choices;” and

• Recognize how their social and behavioral choices impact school and classroom climate, academic engagement, and learning and academic proficiency.

   To address the former area above, the different school staffs are embedding the pandemic-related needs of their students into the plans above. . . beginning even before the first day of the new school year. These plans include the use of multi-tiered continua of services, supports, and interventions.

   One significant part of the multi-tiered system, specific to the pandemic, involves district and school mental health support staff. Here, we are adapting the crisis-related approaches used by our schools in the days following a community, weather-related, or student/staff-specific catastrophe or crisis. Thus, every school plans to have mental health staff present on the first day of school, and to explicitly share the additional mental health resources available with students and parents—encouraging their use.

   Beyond this, please feel free to read the previous pandemic-specific Blogs that I have written in the social, emotional, and behavioral areas during the past few months (see immediately below—CLICK the DATE to link to the original Blog).

May 16, 2020  Why is Education Week Sensationalizing Student Trauma During this Pandemic? Will Schools Re-Open Without Pathologizing their Students’ Emotional Needs? (Part I)

May 30, 2020  Preparing NOW to Address Students’ Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Needs Before They Transition Back to School. Let’s Use Caring and Common Sense as Our Post-Pandemic Guides (Part II)

July 25, 2020  Identifying Students with Back-to-School Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Needs: How to Screen Without Screening. In Uncommon Times, Uncommon Sense is Best.

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Differentiating Between Stress and Trauma

   In the three Blogs cited above, we made a number of step-by-step research-to-practice implementation recommendations. They resulted in the following conclusions:

• Clinically and pragmatically, more stressed students than traumatized students will return to school this year—despite the recent plethora of popular and professional press publications, pronouncements, and promotions touting “traumatized students.”

Critically, many of these statements have been made by newspapers and magazines, groups advocating their trauma-specific programs and assessment tools, and those who simply “do not know what they do not know.”

• The current presence of student stress or trauma needs to be confirmed the same way as the presence of COVID-19. That is, through reliable and valid scientifically-proven assessments that occur as students re-enter the schools and engage in the transition activities and interactions noted in the Introductory section of this Blog.

• As part of these assessments, if students currently experiencing traumas are validly identified, the process needs to discriminate students with (a) traumas that existed prior to the pandemic and have not been affected by the pandemic; (b) traumas that existed prior to the pandemic, but have been exacerbated by the pandemic; and (c) traumas that did not exist before, and are fully related to the pandemic (e.g., a fear of getting sick) or events caused by the pandemic (e.g., the death of a parent, sibling, or friend).

•  Significantly, despite the popular press pronouncements, no objective, controlled, large-scale epidemiological studies have yet been published (a) validating the number, kinds, or intensities of pandemic-related traumas currently present in U.S. children and adolescents; or (b) demonstrating that such traumas are widespread or disproportionate to the population as a whole.

   But to fully understand the points above, it is important that educators, parents, and the population at-large understand the clinical and diagnostic differences between stress and trauma.

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Stress versus Trauma

   According to the U.S. Office of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5, 2013), there are significant differences between stress and trauma.

[CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Article that Describes These Differences]

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   Given these definitions, and as different students separately experience anxiety, stress, or trauma, there are a number of critical conclusions that educators must understand to provide the best settings, environments, and interventions (as needed).

   Critically, many schools utilizing “Trauma-Informed Practices” are missing or emphasizing elements that either are not helpful to students, or that may be making some of their issues worse (because they are not getting appropriate interventions).

[CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Article with this Important Discussion]

   The “bottom line” is schools need to establish the positive climate, safety, prosocial relationship, and multi-tiered service elements that first and foremost prevent or respond to student stress. For trauma-involved students, schools need to have multi-tiered assessment and interventions services available— something missing from most trauma-informed programs.

   Said a different way: Schools and educational staff need to be more broadly trained and expert in Stress-Sensitive or Informed Practices, while school mental health professionals (e.g., counselors, social workers, school psychologists) need also to be clinically trained and expert in Trauma-Sensitive or Informed Practices.

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   Moreover, there are virtually NO Trauma-Informed Programs, currently marketed around the country— including those affiliated with federal or state agencies—that have been soundly evaluated such that these programs can claim that they produce clear, consistent, sustained, and meaningful student results over time and across school districts nationwide.

   Indeed, Maynard and her colleagues (July, 2019) reviewed over 7,000 studies published during the last ten years that evaluated school-based trauma-informed programs. NONE of the studies reviewed were methodologically sound enough to validate the efficacy of any of the trauma-informed programs analyzed.

   We discussed this study and these conclusions in a two-part Blog Series this past January (CLICK on the DATE to link):

January 11, 2020  Trauma-Informed Schools: New Research Study Says “There’s No Research.” Schools “Hitch-Up” to Another Bandwagon that is Wasting Time and Delaying Recommended Scientifically-Proven Services    (Part I)

January 25, 2020  Mindfulness & Meditation Will NOT Change Students’ Emotional Volatility or Immediate Reactions to Trauma. The Neurological Science Does Not Add Up—Another Fad & More Wasted Time in Pursuit of a Silver Bullet (Part II)

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     In summary, school staff need to be educated about stress, anxiety, and trauma, but student stress should be the primary and predominant focus for all administrative and instructional staff.

   With stress now as the focus, schools need to consider ways to progressively teach, develop, and reinforce students’ emotional self-management skills. Indeed, if students learn and use these skills, they will be more prepared to minimize the social, emotional, and behavioral effects of stress, and/or be more responsive when needed services, supports, or interventions are provided.

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Emotional Self-Management: Students, Teachers, and Support Staff

   Emotional self-management skills, which some call “emotional self-regulation” or tangentially “emotional intelligence,” involves teaching students—from preschool through high school—skills and interactions related to emotional awareness, emotional control, and emotional coping.

   These three interdependent areas are the research-to-practice areas that result in students being able (a) to understand, manage, and deal with the emotional events in their lives—and how they interpret them; and (b) to demonstrate prosocial interpersonal response and conflict prevention/resolution skills and behaviors.

   These three areas are explained in the Full Blog message from Student, Teacher, and multi-tiered Support Staff perspectives.

[CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Article with this Important Discussion]

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   In summary, the clear questions implicit in here are:

• Are schools focused on students’ social, emotional, and behavioral self-management are the primary goal of their SEL and Stress-Informed systems?

• Have they included and staffed, in that system, a multi-tiered continuum of services, supports, and interventions?

• Are they systematically teaching all of their students, in general education classrooms from preschool through high school, the emotional awareness, control, and coping skills needed through an evidence-based social skills program?

• Does the school have the related service and mental health professionals trained and available to provide the small group and intensive supports and interventions needed by students with high levels of stress, anxiety, and trauma?

   If the answer to any of these questions is “No,” then schools should take this pandemic-specific opportunity to establish this system, differentially train their staff, and serve their students—especially those in need.

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Summary

   Before finishing this Blog, I was skimming through my LinkedIn feed and saw the following quote:

Relationships before Rigor. Grace before Grades. Patience before Programs. Love before Lessons. (Brad Johnson)

   As reflected in this (and past) Blog(s)—focusing on students’ social, emotional, and behavioral status, learning, mastery, and self-management— these sentiments are clearly always relevant, but especially relevant in our pandemic-ridden world.

   But as important as it is for educators to “walk the walk above,” it is similarly important for our students.

   Indeed, they will be more successful if they understand that:

• Their school and peer relationships will mediate the rigor in their academic worlds;

• Their grace and humility will put their class grades into the proper perspective;

• Their patience will help any instructional program to work; and

• Their love of learning will guide them as they undertake their lessons.

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   As summarized in a past Blog, as our students return to physically and/or virtually, schools and educators need to:

• Plan from a strength-based perspective that recognizes and utilizes students’ social, emotional, and behavioral strengths. . . leaning in and building on these assets;

• Recognize the importance of creating immediate and sustained safe and supportive climates—from staff to students, students to students, and school to home;

• Allow students to discuss and debrief the pandemic’s past and present effects on their lives, to socially and emotionally re-connect with their peers and staff, and to (re-)establish the supportive interpersonal and academic routines and protocols that will help them successfully navigate the re-entry process and beyond;

• Realize that we will still be living in the shadow and context of the pandemic, that students (and staff) will need ongoing understanding and support, and that everyone has their own “timeline” relative to emotional response, recovery, and “normalization;”

• Identify students in social, emotional, and/or behavioral distress... but ensure that the identification process involves multiple, objective data-based assessments (including student interviews and observations) representing multiple school settings that are shared from multiple validating sources;

•  Have a continuum of in-school and community-based social, emotional, and behavioral services, supports, strategies, and interventions prepared for students who demonstrate significant or persistent challenges (before and) during the post-pandemic transition back to school; and

• Understand that this “new normal” post-pandemic school and schooling world includes a “new normal” relative to the social, emotional, and behavioral status and needs of students (and staff)—and that these new norms will vary by students’ age, gender, culture, race, socio-economic backgrounds, home and family supports, and presence of medical conditions and other disabilities.

   We are all experiencing different social, emotional, and behavioral reactions and responses to the current pandemic and its impact on our lives. But we, as adults, understand what is happening far better than our children and adolescents.

   We need to wrap-around and support our students . . . strategically, planfully, collaboratively, and empathically.

   While I understand that some students have experienced academic losses these past few months, I also know that—if we do not address (once again) the needed instruction through relationships anchored by grace, patience, and love—we will be hard-pressed to get the academic outcomes that we all want.

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   I hope that this Blog message has been helpful to you. However, as part of the underlying message here, I want to emphasize that—as you prepare for your students’ social, emotional, and behavioral needs this new school year,  you also need to take care of yourself.

   I appreciate your investment in reading these Blogs, and your dedication to your students, your colleagues, and effective school and schooling practices—especially given today’s difficult personal and professional challenges, competing priorities, and decisions.

   Please feel free to send me your thoughts and questions. 

   And please know that I am always available to you through Zoom calls. . . if and when you need me. Contact me at any time.

Best,

Howie

 

[CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Article]