Urban schools are often viewed as disorderly and unsafe and often have poor conditions for learni... more Urban schools are often viewed as disorderly and unsafe and often have poor conditions for learning that affect student attendance, behavior, achievement, and safety. These conditions include the experience of emotional and physical safety, connectedness to and support from caring adults and peers, peer social and emotional competence, and academic engagement and challenge. Although connectedness and appropriate mental health services can improve safety as well as conditions for learning, many school districts focus on control through hardware and security officers. This paper examines the Cleveland Metropolitan School District's (CMSD) systematic efforts during the past four years that incorporated regular use of school-level data to improve safety, order, and the conditions for learning. These districtwide approaches included implementing (1) an empirically validated social and emotional learning program that helps students in elementary grades to understand, regulate, and express emotions (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies, or PATHS); (2) student support teams, a widely used planning model for students who exhibit early warning signs (including those related to attendance and behavior) with a referral process to respond to student needs in a timely, coordinated, and effective manner; and (3) planning centers, which replaced punitive in-school suspension with a learner-centered approach to discipline that focuses on student needs and helps students learn self-discipline, and aligns with the student support teams and CMSD's focus on social and emotional learning. Five sets of findings illustrate the importance of CMSD's efforts between 2008-09 and 2010-11 (and, in one case, 2010-12): Improved conditions for learning for students in Grades 5-12. Improved teacher ratings of student social competence and attentiveness, but not in aggression, for students K-5 during the 2010-12 academic years. Improved student attendance districtwide, which increased 1.5 percentage points.
this report underscores how education leaders, community partners and policymakers can use chroni... more this report underscores how education leaders, community partners and policymakers can use chronic absence data to create positive conditions for learning for students and teachers, and at the same time address educational inequities. This report describes four conditions for learning that help create a conducive learning environment and positively affect attendance, achievement, and student well-being. These conditions-physical and emotional health and safety; belonging, connectedness and support; academic challenge and engagement; and adult and student social and emotional competence-can each be improved though educational leadership and policy reform.
This issue of the Journal of Child and Family Studies contains a collection of articles that disc... more This issue of the Journal of Child and Family Studies contains a collection of articles that discuss the National Agenda for Achieving Better Results for Children and Youth with Serious Emotional Disturbance. Finalized in 1994, the Agenda has provided people who care about children and youth with emotional disorders with a common goal—to improve results for children and youth with and at risk of developing emotional disturbance (ED). Since its release, the Agenda has had a phenomenal impact on students, family members, educators, policy makers, and agencies. Here, we give a brief overview of the development and impact of the Agenda.
Schools are often the geographic and sociological center of a community. Given modern community e... more Schools are often the geographic and sociological center of a community. Given modern community emergencies and challenges, schools should make the most of this role and best allocate their resources to maximize the positive impact they have during difficult times. This article uses the vantage point of school psychologists and school nurses from across the country, discussing real life examples of community crises to focus on lessons learned and the "best practices" that can be replicated. This article provides information concerning the skills incorporated to protect and support children in schools and to prevent and respond to school crises. It focuses on the strength of teaming, coordination, and collaboration of school and community in team crisis prevention, response and intervention, with a focus on the professions of school psychology and nursing. This information is important to ensure that all schools have appropriately utilized school nurses and school psychologists in their community's emergency response teams.
Building upon extensive research, Early Warning, Timely Response: A Guide to Safe Schools asserts... more Building upon extensive research, Early Warning, Timely Response: A Guide to Safe Schools asserts that schools can prevent violence and its preceding behaviors by providing a supportive schoolwide climate and responding early to at-risk students' academic and behavioral problems. The Guide's fundamental premise is that none of its recommended policies or procedures should be used to harm or label children. It stresses developing climates that avert violence and its precursors, through prevention approaches, collaboration, and clear and effective policies. Early and imminent warning signs are highlighted, as are procedures for developing appropriate responses to warning signs, including interventions and crisis plans. The Guide's blueprint can be used and adapted to prevent violence and develop safe and effective schools and communities.
Schools across the country are increasingly utilizing the expertise of multiple disciplines to en... more Schools across the country are increasingly utilizing the expertise of multiple disciplines to enhance the mental health of their students and address barriers to learning through the provision of a range of services in schools. School mental health providers, including nurses, counselors, school psychologists, school social workers, special educators, and their clinical Partners—psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychiatric nurses—have a unique opportunity
This article synthesizes foundational knowledge from multiple scientific disciplines regarding ho... more This article synthesizes foundational knowledge from multiple scientific disciplines regarding how humans develop in context. Major constructs that define human development are integrated into a developmental system framework, this includes-epigenetics, neural malleability and plasticity, integrated complex skill development and learning, human variability, relationships and attachment, self-regulation, science of learning, and dynamics of stress, adversity and resilience. Specific attention is given to relational patterns, attunement, cognitive flexibility, executive function, working memory, sociocultural context, constructive development, self-organization, dynamic skill development, neural integration, relational pattern making, and adverse childhood experiences. A companion article focuses on individual-context relations, including the role of human relationships as key drivers of development, how social and cultural contexts support and/or undermine individual development, and the dynamic, idiographic developmental pathways that result from mutually influential individual-context relations across the life span. An understanding of the holistic, self-constructive character of development and interconnectedness between individuals and their physical, social, and cultural contexts offers a transformational opportunity to study and influence the children's trajectories. Woven throughout is the convergence of the science of learning-constructive developmental web, foundational skills, mindsets (sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and growth mindset), prior knowledge and experience, motivational systems (intrinsic motivation, achievement motivation, and the Belief-Control-Expectancy Framework), metacognition, conditions for learning , cultural responsiveness and competence, and instructional and curricular design-and its importance in supporting in integrative framework for children's development. This scientific understanding of development opens pathways for new, creative approaches that have the potential to solve seemingly intractable learning and social problems. Recent decades have witnessed an explosion of knowledge about how children develop into whole individuals, how they become learners, and how contextual factors nourish or hinder their development. This knowledge comes from diverse fields, including neuroscience, developmental science, epigenetics, early childhood, psychology, adversity science, resilience science, the learning sciences, and the social sciences. To date, such knowledge has existed largely in separate fields of research, and has not been integrated such that its profound relevance to developmental processes becomes both visible and directly applicable to the settings in which children grow and learn. As a result, important knowledge remains underutilized, contributing to persistent disparities, challenges, and inadequacies in our education systems, other childserving systems, and the supports that we provide to families, practitioners, and communities. The ability to realize the fullest potential of this knowledge is limited, paradoxically, by both the richness of the knowledge itself as well as the particular disciplinary structures, paradigms, and traditional incentives that have supported its creation (e.g., Kuhn, 1970). On the one hand, recent scientific advances include the accumulation of research, theory, and practice-based knowledge about the constructive, socially, and culturally embedded nature of development (e.g.,
This article synthesizes knowledge on the role of relationships and key macroand micro-contextspo... more This article synthesizes knowledge on the role of relationships and key macroand micro-contextspoverty, racism, families, communities, schools, and peers-in supporting and/or undermining the healthy development of children and youth, using a relational developmental systems framework. Relationships with parents, siblings, peers, caregivers, and teachers are explored in the context of early care and childhood settings, schools, classrooms, and school-based interventions. Additional contextual factors include; chronic stress, institutionalized racism, stereotype threat, and racial identity. A companion article focuses on how the human brain develops, and the major constructs that define human development, the constructive nature of development, and the opportunities for resilience. Human development occurs through reciprocal coactions between the individual and their contexts and culture, with relationships as the key drivers. Relationships and contexts, along with how children appraise and interpret them, can be risks and assets for healthy learning and development, and their influence can be seen across generations and can produce intra-as well as intergenerational assets and risks. This knowledge about the individual's responsiveness to context and experience has both positive and negative implications across early childhood, adolescence and into adulthood. Sensitive periods for brain growth and development are considered within the contextual factors that influence development including; parental responsiveness and attunement, intentional skill development, mindfulness, reciprocal interactions, adversity, trauma, and enriching opportunities. The accumulated knowledge on human development and the power of context and culture can inform child-serving systems that support positive adaptations, resilience, learning, health, and well-being.
ABSTRACT Children and youth require safe and supportive schools and communities if they are to su... more ABSTRACT Children and youth require safe and supportive schools and communities if they are to succeed in school and thrive. These needs are particularly great for children who struggle with the impacts of chronic poverty, lead poisoning and lead effect, community and media violence, drugs and alcohol, trauma and loss. There are many such students in Cleveland, and research suggests that many of them attend schools that do not sufficiently address their needs. The Cleveland Metropolitan School District and the mayor of Cleveland asked the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to conduct an independent gaps analysis and to make recommendations regarding what can be done in Cleveland's schools and by its mental health and other community agencies to improve the connectedness that students have to school, and their mental wellness and safety. Research was conducted over a six-month period. AIR spoke with more than 100 individuals about what was working and sufficient, what was working but insufficient, what was working but needed refinement, what was missing, what was not working and what was having harmful impacts. District students in grade 5 and up were surveyed regarding the extent to which they feel emotionally and physically safe, supported, connected and challenged, in an environment where their peers are socially responsible. Site visits were conducted to four Cleveland schools, and to SuccessTech Academy. Available data and reports were also reviewed and analyzed. Three key findings are identified: (1) Factors That Place Children and Schools at Risk for Poor School Outcomes, Emotional and Behavioral Problems and Disorders and Violence; (2) Poor or Weak Conditions for Learning, Teaching and Development and a Lack of Effective Approaches to Build These Conditions for Learning; and (3) Undeveloped and Inconsistent Capacity to Address the Factors That Place Children and Schools At Risk of Poor Outcomes and to Improve the Conditions for Learning, Teaching and Development. Recommendations are presented in 10 strategies for a three-tiered approach to (1) Build a school-wide foundation that reduces the incidence of behavioral and academic problems and enhances the probability of student success; (2) Intervene early for students who are at elevated levels of risk; and (3) Provide intensive supports and services for students who are at the greatest level of need. Strategy 1 involves recommendations about using data for assessing, planning, monitoring and evaluating the conditions for learning, teaching and development and the level of need, risk and wellness of Cleveland's children and youth. Recommendations within Strategies 2, 3 and 4 focus primarily on universal promotion and prevention. Recommendations within Strategies 5, 6 and 7 focus primarily on early and intensive interventions. Strategy 8 addresses the need for ongoing and professional development and support, which have been identified as necessary in improving outcomes for children and youth with and at risk of developing emotional and behavioral problems. Strategy 9 addresses the need for focused and sustainable funding to support human ware improvements. Strategy 10 involves ongoing monitoring and evaluation of data for assessing, planning, monitoring and evaluating the conditions for learning, teaching and development and the level of need, risk and wellness. A glossary of acronyms is attached. Five appendixes are included: (1) Conditions for Learning; Middle and High School Surveys; (2) Case Study School Snapshots; (3) Mental Health Agencies and Neighborhood Collaboratives Associated with Schools (And Preventions and Safe and Drug-Free Schools Programs); (4) Other Data Tables and Figures; and (5) Relationships among Strategies, Recommendations and Findings and Implementation-Related Information. (Contains 42 footnotes, 14 figures and 53 tables.)
Urban schools are often viewed as disorderly and unsafe and often have poor conditions for learni... more Urban schools are often viewed as disorderly and unsafe and often have poor conditions for learning that affect student attendance, behavior, achievement, and safety. These conditions include the experience of emotional and physical safety, connectedness to and support from caring adults and peers, peer social and emotional competence, and academic engagement and challenge. Although connectedness and appropriate mental health services can improve safety as well as conditions for learning, many school districts focus on control through hardware and security officers. This paper examines the Cleveland Metropolitan School District's (CMSD) systematic efforts during the past four years that incorporated regular use of school-level data to improve safety, order, and the conditions for learning. These districtwide approaches included implementing (1) an empirically validated social and emotional learning program that helps students in elementary grades to understand, regulate, and express emotions (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies, or PATHS); (2) student support teams, a widely used planning model for students who exhibit early warning signs (including those related to attendance and behavior) with a referral process to respond to student needs in a timely, coordinated, and effective manner; and (3) planning centers, which replaced punitive in-school suspension with a learner-centered approach to discipline that focuses on student needs and helps students learn self-discipline, and aligns with the student support teams and CMSD's focus on social and emotional learning. Five sets of findings illustrate the importance of CMSD's efforts between 2008-09 and 2010-11 (and, in one case, 2010-12): Improved conditions for learning for students in Grades 5-12. Improved teacher ratings of student social competence and attentiveness, but not in aggression, for students K-5 during the 2010-12 academic years. Improved student attendance districtwide, which increased 1.5 percentage points.
this report underscores how education leaders, community partners and policymakers can use chroni... more this report underscores how education leaders, community partners and policymakers can use chronic absence data to create positive conditions for learning for students and teachers, and at the same time address educational inequities. This report describes four conditions for learning that help create a conducive learning environment and positively affect attendance, achievement, and student well-being. These conditions-physical and emotional health and safety; belonging, connectedness and support; academic challenge and engagement; and adult and student social and emotional competence-can each be improved though educational leadership and policy reform.
This issue of the Journal of Child and Family Studies contains a collection of articles that disc... more This issue of the Journal of Child and Family Studies contains a collection of articles that discuss the National Agenda for Achieving Better Results for Children and Youth with Serious Emotional Disturbance. Finalized in 1994, the Agenda has provided people who care about children and youth with emotional disorders with a common goal—to improve results for children and youth with and at risk of developing emotional disturbance (ED). Since its release, the Agenda has had a phenomenal impact on students, family members, educators, policy makers, and agencies. Here, we give a brief overview of the development and impact of the Agenda.
Schools are often the geographic and sociological center of a community. Given modern community e... more Schools are often the geographic and sociological center of a community. Given modern community emergencies and challenges, schools should make the most of this role and best allocate their resources to maximize the positive impact they have during difficult times. This article uses the vantage point of school psychologists and school nurses from across the country, discussing real life examples of community crises to focus on lessons learned and the "best practices" that can be replicated. This article provides information concerning the skills incorporated to protect and support children in schools and to prevent and respond to school crises. It focuses on the strength of teaming, coordination, and collaboration of school and community in team crisis prevention, response and intervention, with a focus on the professions of school psychology and nursing. This information is important to ensure that all schools have appropriately utilized school nurses and school psychologists in their community's emergency response teams.
Building upon extensive research, Early Warning, Timely Response: A Guide to Safe Schools asserts... more Building upon extensive research, Early Warning, Timely Response: A Guide to Safe Schools asserts that schools can prevent violence and its preceding behaviors by providing a supportive schoolwide climate and responding early to at-risk students' academic and behavioral problems. The Guide's fundamental premise is that none of its recommended policies or procedures should be used to harm or label children. It stresses developing climates that avert violence and its precursors, through prevention approaches, collaboration, and clear and effective policies. Early and imminent warning signs are highlighted, as are procedures for developing appropriate responses to warning signs, including interventions and crisis plans. The Guide's blueprint can be used and adapted to prevent violence and develop safe and effective schools and communities.
Schools across the country are increasingly utilizing the expertise of multiple disciplines to en... more Schools across the country are increasingly utilizing the expertise of multiple disciplines to enhance the mental health of their students and address barriers to learning through the provision of a range of services in schools. School mental health providers, including nurses, counselors, school psychologists, school social workers, special educators, and their clinical Partners—psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychiatric nurses—have a unique opportunity
This article synthesizes foundational knowledge from multiple scientific disciplines regarding ho... more This article synthesizes foundational knowledge from multiple scientific disciplines regarding how humans develop in context. Major constructs that define human development are integrated into a developmental system framework, this includes-epigenetics, neural malleability and plasticity, integrated complex skill development and learning, human variability, relationships and attachment, self-regulation, science of learning, and dynamics of stress, adversity and resilience. Specific attention is given to relational patterns, attunement, cognitive flexibility, executive function, working memory, sociocultural context, constructive development, self-organization, dynamic skill development, neural integration, relational pattern making, and adverse childhood experiences. A companion article focuses on individual-context relations, including the role of human relationships as key drivers of development, how social and cultural contexts support and/or undermine individual development, and the dynamic, idiographic developmental pathways that result from mutually influential individual-context relations across the life span. An understanding of the holistic, self-constructive character of development and interconnectedness between individuals and their physical, social, and cultural contexts offers a transformational opportunity to study and influence the children's trajectories. Woven throughout is the convergence of the science of learning-constructive developmental web, foundational skills, mindsets (sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and growth mindset), prior knowledge and experience, motivational systems (intrinsic motivation, achievement motivation, and the Belief-Control-Expectancy Framework), metacognition, conditions for learning , cultural responsiveness and competence, and instructional and curricular design-and its importance in supporting in integrative framework for children's development. This scientific understanding of development opens pathways for new, creative approaches that have the potential to solve seemingly intractable learning and social problems. Recent decades have witnessed an explosion of knowledge about how children develop into whole individuals, how they become learners, and how contextual factors nourish or hinder their development. This knowledge comes from diverse fields, including neuroscience, developmental science, epigenetics, early childhood, psychology, adversity science, resilience science, the learning sciences, and the social sciences. To date, such knowledge has existed largely in separate fields of research, and has not been integrated such that its profound relevance to developmental processes becomes both visible and directly applicable to the settings in which children grow and learn. As a result, important knowledge remains underutilized, contributing to persistent disparities, challenges, and inadequacies in our education systems, other childserving systems, and the supports that we provide to families, practitioners, and communities. The ability to realize the fullest potential of this knowledge is limited, paradoxically, by both the richness of the knowledge itself as well as the particular disciplinary structures, paradigms, and traditional incentives that have supported its creation (e.g., Kuhn, 1970). On the one hand, recent scientific advances include the accumulation of research, theory, and practice-based knowledge about the constructive, socially, and culturally embedded nature of development (e.g.,
This article synthesizes knowledge on the role of relationships and key macroand micro-contextspo... more This article synthesizes knowledge on the role of relationships and key macroand micro-contextspoverty, racism, families, communities, schools, and peers-in supporting and/or undermining the healthy development of children and youth, using a relational developmental systems framework. Relationships with parents, siblings, peers, caregivers, and teachers are explored in the context of early care and childhood settings, schools, classrooms, and school-based interventions. Additional contextual factors include; chronic stress, institutionalized racism, stereotype threat, and racial identity. A companion article focuses on how the human brain develops, and the major constructs that define human development, the constructive nature of development, and the opportunities for resilience. Human development occurs through reciprocal coactions between the individual and their contexts and culture, with relationships as the key drivers. Relationships and contexts, along with how children appraise and interpret them, can be risks and assets for healthy learning and development, and their influence can be seen across generations and can produce intra-as well as intergenerational assets and risks. This knowledge about the individual's responsiveness to context and experience has both positive and negative implications across early childhood, adolescence and into adulthood. Sensitive periods for brain growth and development are considered within the contextual factors that influence development including; parental responsiveness and attunement, intentional skill development, mindfulness, reciprocal interactions, adversity, trauma, and enriching opportunities. The accumulated knowledge on human development and the power of context and culture can inform child-serving systems that support positive adaptations, resilience, learning, health, and well-being.
ABSTRACT Children and youth require safe and supportive schools and communities if they are to su... more ABSTRACT Children and youth require safe and supportive schools and communities if they are to succeed in school and thrive. These needs are particularly great for children who struggle with the impacts of chronic poverty, lead poisoning and lead effect, community and media violence, drugs and alcohol, trauma and loss. There are many such students in Cleveland, and research suggests that many of them attend schools that do not sufficiently address their needs. The Cleveland Metropolitan School District and the mayor of Cleveland asked the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to conduct an independent gaps analysis and to make recommendations regarding what can be done in Cleveland's schools and by its mental health and other community agencies to improve the connectedness that students have to school, and their mental wellness and safety. Research was conducted over a six-month period. AIR spoke with more than 100 individuals about what was working and sufficient, what was working but insufficient, what was working but needed refinement, what was missing, what was not working and what was having harmful impacts. District students in grade 5 and up were surveyed regarding the extent to which they feel emotionally and physically safe, supported, connected and challenged, in an environment where their peers are socially responsible. Site visits were conducted to four Cleveland schools, and to SuccessTech Academy. Available data and reports were also reviewed and analyzed. Three key findings are identified: (1) Factors That Place Children and Schools at Risk for Poor School Outcomes, Emotional and Behavioral Problems and Disorders and Violence; (2) Poor or Weak Conditions for Learning, Teaching and Development and a Lack of Effective Approaches to Build These Conditions for Learning; and (3) Undeveloped and Inconsistent Capacity to Address the Factors That Place Children and Schools At Risk of Poor Outcomes and to Improve the Conditions for Learning, Teaching and Development. Recommendations are presented in 10 strategies for a three-tiered approach to (1) Build a school-wide foundation that reduces the incidence of behavioral and academic problems and enhances the probability of student success; (2) Intervene early for students who are at elevated levels of risk; and (3) Provide intensive supports and services for students who are at the greatest level of need. Strategy 1 involves recommendations about using data for assessing, planning, monitoring and evaluating the conditions for learning, teaching and development and the level of need, risk and wellness of Cleveland's children and youth. Recommendations within Strategies 2, 3 and 4 focus primarily on universal promotion and prevention. Recommendations within Strategies 5, 6 and 7 focus primarily on early and intensive interventions. Strategy 8 addresses the need for ongoing and professional development and support, which have been identified as necessary in improving outcomes for children and youth with and at risk of developing emotional and behavioral problems. Strategy 9 addresses the need for focused and sustainable funding to support human ware improvements. Strategy 10 involves ongoing monitoring and evaluation of data for assessing, planning, monitoring and evaluating the conditions for learning, teaching and development and the level of need, risk and wellness. A glossary of acronyms is attached. Five appendixes are included: (1) Conditions for Learning; Middle and High School Surveys; (2) Case Study School Snapshots; (3) Mental Health Agencies and Neighborhood Collaboratives Associated with Schools (And Preventions and Safe and Drug-Free Schools Programs); (4) Other Data Tables and Figures; and (5) Relationships among Strategies, Recommendations and Findings and Implementation-Related Information. (Contains 42 footnotes, 14 figures and 53 tables.)
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