This book provides school administrators, school-based mental health professionals, and other educational professionals with the framework and tools needed to establish a comprehensive safe learning environment. The authors identify four necessary phases to achieve this (prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery) and provide numerous examples and tools to help readers create safe environments, while also addressing students’ academic, emotional, and social needs. An emphasis is placed on the importance of the balance between physical and psychological safety within a multi-tiered framework - it is not enough for students to know their school is secure; they must also feel they are safe and can turn to their teachers and school-based mental health professionals with their concerns. An accompanying CD contains several valuable resources, such as forms, handouts, articles, and monitoring tools.

Creating Safe, Equitable, Engaging Schools brings together the collective wisdom of more than thirty experts from a variety of fields to show how school leaders can create communities that support the social, emotional, and academic needs of all students. It offers an essential guide for making sense of the myriad frameworks, resources, and tools available to create a continuous improvement system. Filled with recommendations gleaned from research and ongoing work in every US state and territory, this book is a critical resource for understanding and adopting evidence-based practices and making programmatic decisions to ensure the ideal conditions for learning, growth, and development. "Creating Safe, Equitable, Engaging Schools is an essential read for teachers, principals, district leaders, and organizations that work with schools to create challenging and supportive environments for all students." --Paul Cruz, superintendent, Austin Independent School District "Osher and colleagues not only connect the dots between big ideas--deeper learning, trauma, social and emotional learning, evidence-based programs, comprehensive community planning--but they model the continuous improvement approach in the way ideas are ordered across and within the chapters. This is a masterful volume: comprehensive, accessible, and way overdue." --Karen J. Pittman, cofounder, president and CEO, The Forum for Youth Investment "This book provides a very usable road map for creating safe, healthy, equitable, and caring schools. The editors and contributors successfully integrate research, practice, and policy to help educators develop and implement effective and sustainable models to nurture caring schools that all children and educators deserve." --Mark T. Greenberg, Bennett Chair of Prevention Research, Pennsylvania State University David Osher is vice president and an institute fellow at American Institutes for Research. Deborah Moroney is a managing director at American Institutes for Research and is director of the youth development and supportive learning environments practice area. Sandra Williamson is a vice president for policy, practice, and systems change at American Institutes for Research.

Developing Comprehensive School Safety and Mental Health Programs offers an integrated, long-term plan to create safe and supportive learning environments. This user-friendly guide illustrates how to develop, implement, evaluate, and sustain multiple evidence-based programs that work. This book informs school mental health professionals, administrators, and teachers about multi-tiered service delivery, organizational development, and facilitating the implementation process. It describes the complementary roles of school administrators, counselors, and school psychologists, providing school staff with time, resources, and ongoing support to strengthen their skills and sustain programs they have embraced. It expresses empathy and appreciation for teachers, advocating for their personal growth, professional collaboration, and stress management. School leaders, facilitators, and teams are provided the knowledge, skills, and long-term plans to effectively advocate, assess needs, select programs, train and encourage staff, provide resources, and implement, evaluate, and sustain desired goals.

The untold story of the root cause of America's education crisis--and the seemingly endless cycle of multigenerational poverty. It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension "skills" at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware. But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.

This book will help you reduce the number of young adults who leave school without completing a high school program. These successfully proven strategies were identified through research conducted by The National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University. The strategies are: - EARLY INTERVENTIONS - Family Involvement... reach out to all families - Early Childhood Education... begin positive learning environments early - Reading and Writing Programs... establish this foundation to all learning THE BASIC CORE STRATEGIES - Mentoring/Tutoring... increase competency with a supportive adult or peer - Service Learning... implement academic learning connected to service - Alternative Schooling... provide options beyond the traditional setting - Out-of-School Enhancement... develop after-care, summer school, and extended hours MAKING THE MOST OF INSTRUCTION - Professional Development... provide resources & training for innovative, research-based techniques - Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences... implement proven methods for a diverse student population - Instructional Technologies... integrate technology into daily curriculum - Individualized Learning... provide customized work plans for each student MAKING THE MOST OF THE WIDER COMMUNITY - Systemic Renewal... change rules, roles, and relationships to effect school improvement - Community Collaboration... engage businesses and organizations - Career Education and Workforce Readiness... provide applied training and instruction for today's workplace - Conflict Resolution and Violence Prevention... teach the strategies of fair engagement and safety

This book describes the fifteen strategies identified through research reviewed by The National Dropout Prevention Center and Network at Clemson University. Each chapter in this book was written by a nationally recognized authority in that field. Research has shown that these 15 strategies have been successfully implemented in all school levels from K - 12 in rural, suburban, and urban centers; as stand-alone programs or as part of systemic school improvement plans. Helping Students Graduate: A Strategic Approach to Dropout Prevention also covers No Child Left Behind and its effects on dropout rates; Dealing with Hispanic dropouts; Differences and similarities between rural and urban dropouts. These fifteen strategies have been adopted by the U.S. Department of Education. They are applicable to all students, including students with disabilities.

Noting that the early care and education environment is a vital contribution to children's learning, this book examines the early childhood learning environment with the vision of making it a place where young children will be physically, emotionally, esthetically, and intellectually nurtured. The chapters are: (1) "The Power of the Environment and Its Impact on Children"; (2) "Contemporary Childcare Spaces"; (3) "The Teacher's New Role: Designer"; (4) "Principles of Meaningful Environments"; (5) "Aspects of Quality Environments for Children"; (6) "Assessing What You Have"; (7) "Making a Plan That Works for You"; (8) "The Designer's Toolbox"; (9) "Enriching the Environment," including ideas for using displays, planning work and sitting spaces, and growing plants; and (10)"Extending Your Understanding," including classic resources about early childhood environments. Each chapter includes detailed illustrations and photographs to assist teachers in setting up a classroom. The book's 10 appendices include an inventory form, equipment checklist, team inventory, storage ideas, and an anthropometric chart for a child-scaled environment. (Contains 79 references.) (KB)