Equity & Access - Back to School 2021-22

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THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CONSORTIUM FOR EQUITY IN EDUCATION

BACK TO SCHOOL 2021-22 Exclusive Interview: JoAnna Hunt, Head of Accessibility for Books & Retail at Amazon THE EQUITY CASE FOR AUTOMATIC ENROLLMENT IN GIFTED PROGRAMS RESTORATIVE JUSTICE: COMBATING INEQUITABLE DISCIPLINE REFERRALS WHAT NEUROPLASTICITY CAN TEACH US ABOUT HELPING STRUGGLING READERS MOTIVATING STUDENTS WHO ACT LIKE THEY DON’T CARE AND SO MUCH MORE JOIN THE CONVERSATION: #AGEOFEQUITY

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CONTENTS ARTICLES & FEATURES CHAMPIONS OF EQUITY

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The Realities of Work Ethic, Opportunity, and the American Dream Melvin Hines

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Prioritizing Social-Emotional Learning During the Hiring Process Joshua Bobrow & Brandon Frame

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A Model for Accessibility in Technology Interview with the Head of Accessibility for Books & Retail at Amazon

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SEL Can be Transformational for Alternative Schools Ceatriss Wall & Elisa Harrison

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4 Ways to Create Equitable Virtual Learning Environments Karen Henery

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How to Motivate Students Who Act Like They Don’t Care Allen N. Mendler

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Neuroplasticity, Literacy, and Hope for Struggling Readers Maria Finaro Cleary

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Restorative Justice: Combating Inequitable Discipline Referrals Howie Knoff

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Enhancing Equity Through a Better Approach to Personal Finance Andy Davidson

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Expanding Walls & Increasing Equity: iLearnNH’s Vision for the Future Rebecca Van Horn

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SEL TODAY

SPECIAL SECTION

FROM THE ASSOCIATIONS National Association for Gifted Children - 24 | National School Public Relations Association - 42 Association of Educational Service Agencies - 64 | National Virtual Teacher Association - 80

THE ACE-ED.ORG EXECUTIVE TEAM Publisher & Director of Sales LARRY JACOBS 978-712-8187 4

VP & Editorial Director MAIA APPLEBY 561-427-5092

INDEX OF ADVERTISERS - 84

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A VISIT TO TANZANIA: Reflecting on the Realities of Work Ethic, Opportunity, and the American Dream

By Melvin Hines In 2010, I had the opportunity to travel to Africa for the first time in my life. his, to me, was a monumental experience. s far as I knew, I would be the first person in my family to travel to the other ountry since we first left on slave ships all those years ago.

I arrived as part of a group from a nongovernmental organization based in Washington, . . called act. he purpose of act at the time was to conduct capacity building work in different countries each in sia and frica.

I remember the feeling I felt when I first landed, seeing ust a small portion of a continent whose leaders all looked ust like me. I was a stranger in

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a strange country but in an even stranger way, I felt home. he city was ar Es alaam, anzania. he inhabitants were used to seeing people there from foreign countries, and even people from the . ut very few black people from the travel to anzania, and so many were taken aback by who I was and wondered how I arrived there. ur work was conducted in two week-long sessions. In between the weeks, we were free to do what we wanted. or my weekend, I decided I wanted to explore the island of anzibar and as a result, I had to buy supplies. o, early aturday morning, I stood outside of my hotel to be picked up by a driver in what was called a a a i . It basically resembled a motorbike on

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wheels with a backseat and a soft-cloth covering. Many of the drivers and workers in Tanzania did not speak English, so I felt fortunate that this particular driver did, as it made the hour-long drive feel much shorter. As I expected, he was surprised by my demeanor and instantly knew I wasn’t from there. I told him that I had come on a work trip from the United States, and his curiosity suddenly turned to excitement as he tried to share with me every possible thing he knew about America.

“I want so bad to go to New York, I want so bad to go to New York,” he kept saying in between various facts and stories about the US. Despite what he wanted to discuss, I couldn’t help but notice the fact that he and I were so similar. We both had many of the same interests, we were both around the same age, and we both had longed for years to see a foreign country we had never been to.

On the ride into town, we stopped at an intersection. I saw a young boy -- not more than 10 years old -- take a nearby stick and impale a melon. He then began slowly wrapping this contraption in some sort of tape or fabric of something. I wondered what on Earth could he be up to?

I didn’t have long to think, as the bajaji driver once again commanded my attention. “What celebrities have you seen in America? I hope to get to meet Jay Z!” I laughed at the prospect of myself walking up to rapper Jay Z and having a normal conversation. After a while, I thought it was unfortunately time to deflate his bubble a little bit.

“You know, not everyone in the US is rich or a celebrity. There are many, many poor people -including in New York City.” There was an awkward silence. I could tell he was thinking something, and I hoped I hadn’t let him down too much. That’s when he somberly said back to me: “I know that. But in America I feel like as

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long as I work hard I can be anything I want to be. And I know I’m a hard worker. I even taught myself how to speak English. But here, the best I can be is a driver.”

At this point in my life, I had been through several years of schooling. I graduated from University of Georgia with honors, attended and graduated from Duke Law School, and was currently a student at Duke Fuqua School of Business. Yet, for all I had learned in classrooms, I instantly felt so ignorant, and obtuse.

Deep down, I suppose we both knew that the likelihood of him having the opportunity to see New York City in his lifetime was probably slim.

And therein lies the difference. Perhaps we both started from humble beginnings, but the opportunities and resources that surrounded me made it possible for me to see Tanzania. He didn’t have those same opportunities.

Whether we are talking about differing countries, states, or hometowns, one thing is clear: Where we are born (and who we are) has an outsized influence on our opportunities in life.

When I graduated from my high school in South Georgia and announced that I was attending the University of Georgia, the announcement was so exciting that the local newspaper printed my ambitions. So it was quite the shock for me when I arrived at UGA and found that many students had treated it as their fallback school.

Yet we were all expected to viably compete for the same job opportunities. We are told that our work ethic determines our success. The byproduct of this argument is that everyone who doesn’t rise to the levels of Ivy League success -- or ever college success -- didn’t work hard enough; weren’t smart enough. We believe this because it allows us to have faith in the system that deemed us winners without requiring us to look down at the shackles on the feet of those we’ve beaten.

As I’d finished the errands on my trip, the driver turned us around and took me back to my hotel.

As we stopped at the same intersection as before, I noticed the same 10-year-old boy now playing a game with several friends.

It turns out he had created a soccer ball.

Melvin Hines is the co-founder and CEO of Upswing. He grew up in an Albany, GA, where seeing only 68 of his 250 classmates graduate high school ignited his passion for education equality.

He is a graduate of University of Georgia ('06), and Duke Law ('09) and Business ('11). Melvin resides in Durham, NC with his amazing wife Janna and pup, Journey.

Having gone to elite private (and even affluent public) high schools, they were equipped with resources we in South Georgia could only dream of. They grew up in towns where graduate school degrees were common. In my hometown, fewer than one in five had a college diploma.

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Exclusive Interview JoAnna Hunt, Head of Accessibility for Books & Retail at Amazon

Curb Cuts as a Model for Accessibility in Technology “In a second interview for our series on accessibility in edtech for Equity & Access, I spoke with JoAnna Hunt, Head of Accessibility for Books and Retail at Amazon, JoAnna leads a team of people who are working to ensure that all of Amazon's reading, shopping and publishing experiences work effectively for people with disabilities. It was heartwarming to hear the passion she has for accessibility. Her perspective on how to make significant changes especially in educating engineers and designers, is the kind of effort that can have a lasting positive change in the work we do.”

- Valerie Schreiner, Turnitin

What does the term accessibility mean to you at this moment?

Accessibility means that every human being on the planet has the same opportunities and access as everyone else has to engage with society – be it access to information, to physical or digital locations, to product experiences, or to anything that they want to do. It means that physical or cognitive limitations caused by medical conditions are no longer stigmatized

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and societal barriers are no longer keeping these individuals from successfully living their lives. It means society really, truly creates an e ual playing field for everybody.

What motivated you to do the work you do?

When I first got interested in accessibility, probably 13 or 14 years ago, I was a designer. I was handed this technical problem and I didn't

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know anything about it, so I started doing research. A few months later, my four-year-old nephew was diagnosed with severe ADHD and an oppositional defiance disorder. He lived in a small town without access to the educational support that he should have had and, consequently, he struggled. A lot. That bothered me, especially because I worked in education.

About this same time, I started to more regularly meet or interact with people who had disabilities--a woman who was deaf, a gentleman who was a single-arm amputee. I saw that they were required to interact with the world in unnecessary and unnatural ways for what felt like just regular everyday activities. I worked in education and in software product design at the time and knew that technology could help make things better. That kicked off this mission for me. I wanted to work to equalize the playing field and ensure that people like my nephew and these people I kept meeting got what they needed from school. I felt like I needed to make sure that everyone had access to the same opportunities that I had.

Where do you see an example of improved accessibility, either in education or in general?

An example that I lean on when thinking about how to help people understand that accessibility is a societal problem and a design problem not a problem with any particular physical or neurological limitation, is to bring up the curb cuts in sidewalks. Curb cuts in sidewalks were created many, many years ago in Berkeley, California because a group of residents advocated for safer ways for people in wheelchairs to navigate city streets. Prior to that, a person using a wheelchair couldn't get up onto a sidewalk or off of the sidewalk safely and had to be on the street. The solution to the problem was to create these cutaways at the beginning and end of any sidewalk. Nowadays,

curb cuts are ubiquitous in urban planning.

They're used by cyclists and by moms pushing strollers. They're used by kids riding their scooters, parents pushing strollers and professionals pulling suitcases. Those curb cuts, a design solution to an environmental accessibility problem, have created a simpler way for a lot of people, not just those in a wheelchair, to engage with sidewalks and safely navigate city streets.

When you think about how curb cuts and sidewalks were developed, it's a model for thinking about accessibility in a digital environment. If you are aware of the need, you can plan for a curb cut at the beginning of developing a neighborhood. When you do that, the supplies that are necessary, where they should go, how you should frame and build them, and how they should function for people, are identified up front and built into the cost of creating sidewalks.

When you don't do that kind of planning, however, then you pour the sidewalk without it and have to go back and jackhammer it out, buy more supplies, and bring in people to fix it. Then three years later it cracks because it's not actually integrated into the whole. Eventually the whole thing has to be done all over again.

Accessibility in digital environments is similar.

When you’re aware of the needs of people with disabilities, for whatever it is that you're building, and you plan for it, it’s easier and more cost effective to accomplish. Accessibility can’t be an afterthought. It has to be integrated into the core of the product.

Where do you see a discernible need for improved accessibility in education?

Accessibility in education means providing access to knowledge and information. Access to knowledge and information has proven ability to have an impact on people’s lives. With access to books, learning materials and reading

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opportunities, perspectives broaden and doors are opened to employment opportunities, economic stability, and other success factors leading to healthier and more equitable societies. That people are still prevented from having access to education and learning materials in todays’ technology focus feels very wrong. There's no reason we can't fix these problems and rethink the way we approach education.

For years, there have been conversations about competency-based learning, which focuses more on learning and building on specific concepts rather than a traditional lecture-based model of learning. The idea is to flip things around. Think about the different ways people learn--auditory, visual, kinesthetic, or multimodal—and how education can embrace all of these different learning styles by allowing individuals to learn the same competencies in different ways. Now apply that to the learning

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needs and differences created with various disabilities. By taking the same thinking, that everyone can learn the same thing in different ways, we open opportunities for people with all kinds of disabilities. If we don't push everybody into a box, we are already thinking about how to make education more accessible.

Society decided that there are norms and patterns and that we should build everything for those norms. This has stopped us from celebrating what is unique and different, and encompassing those into what we believe to be “normal.”

What steps do companies need to take to make that happen?

Ultimately, it starts with learning about people’s unique needs. I have a theory that we need to

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shift our understanding of user experience to focus on what I call the “extremes”. People tend to focus on understanding user experience for the majority, those common and consistent use cases that everyone understands. We think about people who have different use cases, as being edge cases. We believe they are a smaller population and thus “not our target customers.”

However, when you actually dig in to understand those “edge case” customers, you realize they have all the same needs as your previously considered “majority” along with one or two other things that are unique and different to their experience.

When you start designing your experience with the needs of these customers first, you ultimately create a straightforward, easy-to-use, delightful experience for everyone. Like those curb cuts, the product will actually work for everyone.

The best steps any company can take is to start to think about these accommodations early in product ideation and design. Make a decision to be inclusive and design for the whole of the human population. It might seem difficult at first.

But, focusing on these outside edges catches all of the needs of the people in the middle and, in the end, results in a much better and more equitable experience.

The technology part of design is easy because it evolves all the time. Where it becomes hard is when we don't realize that there are these other unique needs of people who also want to interact with that technology. So, we make wrong choices early on, which makes it more complicated and expensive to fix it after the fact.

Where do you turn to look for input from the disability community?

There are advocacy organizations in the 16

disability community that support all different segments of this population. Generally, people are willing and interested in talking about their challenges using any particular technology.

While it’s a best practice to compensate individuals, who take the time to engage with you as you do research, you don’t need to rely on big expensive corporate or agency partnerships to find individuals to talk with.

Just like most customers, people with disabilities have feedback and opinions to share with companies to make the products or services they use or want to use. We often seek out customers to talk to us about shopping on Amazon, or about a new idea we have in Kindle that can help you focus more. When we do, we include people who use screen readers, or other forms of assistive technologies, or just face some of the challenges we believe our new product or feature might help to address. I find that it is really easy to ask people how they interact with any technology, and what might help them when facing any type of extra challenge created by a disability.

But when you do need organizations to work with there are a lot of great ones to choose from including the National Federation of the Blind, American Foundation for the Blind, and the Lighthouse for the Blind, National Association of the Deaf, International Dyslexia organization, and many many more. You can always find an organization that is willing to share information and help connect you with people who have feedback you might benefit from hearing.

Is there something that the general public misses when you're talking about equity, accessibility and education technology?

I think that disability has historically been kept quiet and not normalized in our society, so the general public still has a lot of misconceptions.

If people are not exposed to the totality of the human experience, including disabilities, they

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tend to only focus on what makes disability seem like a negative. We as a society shy away from teaching our children that it's okay to ask questions about why a person uses a wheelchair or why someone speaks differently or looks differently, or what Down Syndrome is. Instead of shying away from it, shushing our children or telling them not to point or stare, we should be working to normalize things, to answer the questions and help them understand that some people have a different way of looking at things or doing things, and that it’s wonderful to see all of the ways people are different.

Many people haven't been exposed to the complete normalcy of people with disabilities.

There's actually nothing they can’t do; it might just look different than other people are used to.

When we start actually seeing people with disabilities as whole and capable human beings, I believe most people will start to make different choices and we can stop thinking about disability as the edge case.

How do we improve this? Is that the key to it? Or do you have something else?

Marginalized communities in today's society are marginalized because some other societal group thought that these individuals were less capable or less valuable, which helped them to justify that it's okay to be exclusionary. I don't know a single designer or engineer building a product who isn't passionate about creating an experience that works for every human on the planet. The problem is many don't actually know what they don't know because, as a society, we have pushed groups [who don’t fit this norm] to the side.

When it comes to technology, all of the things that need to exist for us to create more accessible products already exist. We don’t do it because we’re frequently only looking at the narrowest definition of customer needs. We

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edWeb Releases 2021 Professional Learning Survey Results When the Covid-19 pandemic emerged, educators had to pivot instantly to remote learning and make unprecedented changes in the delivery of instruction and support for students and families. Supporting them with current and effective professional learning has never been more important. edWeb.net has just released the results of its 2021 Professional Learning Survey. Here are a few key takeaways: edWeb members continue to rate webinars as the type of professional learning that helps the most.

The most important features of professional learning are that the content is current and relevant, and that they can participate on their own time.

The top reasons edWeb members participate in professional learning are to improve learning for their students, learn new ideas and practices, and to improve teaching. edWeb members continue to report that edWeb has an impact on their own students’ learning, and that the knowledge is shared and frequently has a school-wide impact on student learning.

62% of respondents said that edWeb was better than other professional learning programs for getting support during the pandemic. edWeb members report that in three areas of importance during the pandemic, edWeb has been very helpful: social-emotional issues (66%), remote learning (63%), and equity (60%).

“I'm so thankful we could help during this tragic year with free online professional learning and support for educators who have been so dedicated to helping their students, and their families, through this.”

— Lisa Schmucki, edWeb.net founder & CEO

edWeb.net Professional Learning Survey 2021

DOWNLOAD THE EDWEB 2021 SURVEY RESULTS HERE 78

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need to think about how to integrate accessibility concepts into the training of designers, engineers and business people.

Design schools need to cover things like color contrast, text size, and text simplicity and the impact those have on the function, not just aesthetic of what is being designed. We don't teach engineers what it means to make accessible products, we don’t talk about the necessary code attributes and how they help support different ways of interacting, but also improve the maintainability of the code itself.

Overall, there is an education component missing in some of these core training programs. If we solved that, we’d have more people designing and building accessible experiences without needing to create special roles to fix it. It would just be how things are done.

The same is true in architecture and urban planning. Thirty or forty years ago, urban planners weren't taught to think about curb cuts and architects weren’t taught to discuss elevators, ramp access for wheelchairs, wide hallways and doorways, or counter heights. But, they are now. We fixed their training programs and set new expectations for “good quality” construction.

What about socio-emotional thoughts of students now, coming back off of the COVID experience? Is that something you address?

A lot of the technical functional limitations from a physical medical condition can exist equally for someone struggling with a mental health condition. For example, cluttered experiences are hard to navigate with a screen reader, they’re distracting for someone with ADHD, and they’re often overwhelming for anyone who is just exhausted – physically or emotionally. As students transition back to in-person school, or continue with virtual learning, or navigate some hybrid model, we need to be thinking about all

of the different impacts of the past year and its effect on the mental health of our students, whether they previously identified as being disabled or not.

Research definitely shows that there has been an outsized impact of COVID complications and socio-economic, emotional and mental health impacts in the disability community. Much of that stemming from this community often being already isolated to begin with.

Any final thoughts?

I’m excited and encouraged by the shift that I'm finally starting to see in both education and technology related to accessibility. Over the last 15 years, I've had difficult conversations with education companies, educational institutions, and the private sector about focusing on people with disabilities. It’s starting to become more obvious that leaders in the technology industry realize how important it is to open those doors, widen our perspectives, and think about more diverse audiences.

And I think that's very heartening to see. Don't get me wrong, we have an incredibly long way to go and an awful lot of work ahead of us if we really are going to deliver on this promise of making a more equitable world for people with disabilities. But now it feels like maybe it's really possible, and that it won’t take us another 20 years to get there.

JoAnna Hunt is Head of Accessibility for Books and Retail at Amazon. We thank her for sharing her insight and Valerie Schreiner of Turnitin for providing this interview.

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Most importantly, any development or modification of a high-quality, equitable curriculum should be guided by established best practices, including the following: A foundation in Universal Design for Learning (UDL) encouraging multiple ways for students to demonstrate understanding Accommodations and variety for all students to receive multiple opportunities to achieve standards Equitably accessible and culturally responsive materials for teachers, students, and parents A robust and committed alignment from vertical objectives (PK-12) to the horizontal (within grade level) reinforcing system-wide coherence and collaboration Guidance models and specific educator facilitation guides ensuring aligned delivery of instruction Is it time to reexamine your curriculum?

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4 Ways to Create Equitable Virtual Learning Environments

By Dr. Karen Henery

During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Little Rock School District stepped up to meet the unprecedented educational challenges it faced, in part by providing equitable access to proven technology-based solutions across the district.

When students left our classrooms just over one year ago, we had to quickly figure out how to provide an equitable learning approach for all of our students. Knowing that not all of our students would have access to the right learning resources at home, for example, we had to ensure that every one of them could access the remote learning that we were providing.

We also needed to know what experiences they had leading up to the pandemic, and how to scaffold them in a way that would support them as at-home learners. It wasn't a perfect set of circumstances. We put a lot of thought into how this would look and how to make the learning accessible for everyone once we reopened our schools. Here are four steps that helped us achieve those goals:

1. Get parents involved We reached out to parents and educated them on how to leverage for their kids. It wasn't enough to say, "Okay, we're going to get hotspots. We're going to get devices. We're going to have systems where the parents can sign up to get the device. We're going to make sure the information is provided to the parents in a language they understand." We couldn't presume anything. We had to reach back into some of those systems, make the phone calls, and send the text messages, knowing that some parents wouldn’t be online and checking the messaging platforms. So, we had to go back and do it “old school,” and teach parents how to use the online learning platforms.

2. Find a program that supports equity in remote learning We were already using literacy program on select campuses, and this school year the district committed to using it on every elementary campus (as well as a selection of secondary campuses). Schools have had to pivot to virtual learning for everyone, knowing that there could be an entire campus in quarantine because someone had COVID-19 and due to the potential for exposure. With Lexia Core5 Reading for elementary students and Lexia PowerUp for our middle and high school programs, we're able to assign lessons for students when they're home “virtual” days (be it for a quarantine or just a regular “Virtual Friday”). Having the platform has been a great tool in helping us support equity in remote learning.

3. Rethink the meaning of equity This past year, I’ve had to rethink my vision around what was equitable, what would be fair, and what would be right. I had to make this shift because I was looking at it in the context of “normal.” Well, we have a new normal now; nothing is as it was and I don't think we'll ever get back to where we were. As a result, I've had to grow in my own thinking and expectation of how equity is going to work, how we can meet the needs of our families, and how we can help them feel supported and encouraged in the face of so much loss.

4. Don’t ignore the socioemotional impacts One of top equity challenges, we’re also trying to tackle the socioemotional impact of the pandemic, and what it has done to the lives of

some of our kids. It's really hard to tap into this because some of it is still unknown. It's not so much that we can't figure out how to respond, but some of our kids have almost gone silent in the face of the stress of dealing with the pandemic. Whether it’s been due to a family member's illness, a death, or a job loss, a lot of these stories run deep and need to be factored into the overall equity in education picture.

Managing Uncertainty In these uncertain times, it's the children that I'm most concerned about. I’m concerned about what the pandemic has done to their emotional wellbeing, and how it’s impacting their emotional growth. As educators, we need to carefully examine how to support them as learners, and how to not be so stringent and rigid in our expectations for what we want them to be able to do. The bottom line is that we just don't know everything that our students are going through and experiencing when they’re away from us, and the pandemic really amplified that divide.

Dr. Karen Henery is the director of the English for Speakers of Other Languages program at the Little Rock School District in Arkansas.

VIEWPOINT FROM NAGC (National Association for Gifted Children)

Automatic Enrollment is a No-Brainer

By Jonathan A. Plucker

This column represents my last contribution to Equity & Access: PreK-12 as NAGC president. I’ve enjoyed sharing the equity work being done in the field of advanced education, and I hope you have found these articles to be helpful as you tackle your own district’s equity challenges. I would like to express my appreciation to Maia Appleby and Larry Jacobs, who are delightful colleagues and passionate advocates for equity and access for our students.

Rather than rehash my previous columns, I would like to dive into a new advanced education intervention that is gaining attention: Automatic enrollment. It is a key feature of the Advanced Coursework Equity Act that was recently re-introduced by Sen. Booker and Rep. Castro, and several states have approved or are considering new policies to promote automatic enrollment (also referred to as auto-enrollment or mandatory enrollment).

Auto-enrollment is a simple idea: Students who show evidence of advanced achievement are automatically placed in advanced coursework.

No referrals, no additional testing, no mandatory info sessions – if you show evidence of advanced learning, you are enrolled in the advanced course. Such a practice removes requirements that often act as barriers to advanced learning, such as the need for teacher recommendations. There are variations for what auto-enrollment looks like in practice

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(e.g., how advanced achievement is determined, the degree to which students can opt out of the placement, whether district participation is optional or mandatory), but it boils down to high achieving students being placed in advanced courses.

This probably strikes most people as common sense, but it is far from common practice. One of the most important research findings in recent years is that advanced students are present in the vast majority of schools in this country, even high-poverty, low-performing schools (Peters et al., 2017). Yet White, Asian, and upper-income students end up enrolling in advanced coursework at much higher rates than other students. This phenomenon, among other factors, leads to the growth of excellence gaps – achievement gaps at advanced levels of student achievement.

As a case in point, see the recent article by Donald Thompson, a math teacher at Anacostia High School in Washington, DC, in the previous issue of Equity & Access: PreK-12.

Only 15% of Anacostia students are proficient in reading, 10% in math. Yet when he and his colleagues looked at their student data, they found, “7-14% of our students qualified as gifted based on national norms … In a school where the vast majority of students are struggling, giftedness wasn’t even on our radar” (emphases in original). He notes that, “Our students can be the best and brightest if

American Consortium for Equity in Education

we can just get past their zip code and provide the opportunities they deserve.”

Mr. Thompson’s account matches my experience working with districts around the country, in that committed educators are often conditioned not to see the academic excellence occurring right in front of them.

The deficit focus of many of our schools creates contexts in which exceptional performance becomes invisible. A major hurdle to improving equity is the widespread belief that low-income, Black, Hispanic, and Native American students only rarely exhibit advanced performance. This simply is not the case, and automatic enrollment directly addresses this problem.

There are many reasons to believe auto-enrollment will work, but few studies provide convincing evidence. That’s to be expected given the relative novelty of this intervention, and the effects need to be studied much more comprehensively. That said, auto-enrollment is a form of universal screening – and possibly universal screening with local norms, depending on implementation – strategies with considerable research support for improving equity (Peters et al., 2019).

Several colleagues are concerned about these policies and their unintended consequences.

Given the dearth of research, those concerns are not unfounded. But I believe auto-enrollment should be embraced as both an equity strategy and an advanced learning intervention. In districts around the country, there is a growing tendency to address equity in advanced education by eliminating those services (for example, San Francisco, Vancouver, recent proposals in California, Virginia, and New York). That’s a strange approach – removing opportunity is always a poor path to equity – but it is becoming common.

In contrast, automatic enrollment implicitly endorses the value of advanced education, choosing to remove barriers to those services rather than eliminate them. For that reason alone, advocates for both equity and advanced learning should embrace auto-enrollment and help districts implement it as part of a comprehensive set of strategies for eliminating excellence gaps.

An important caveat: As I’ve noted in previous columns, no single intervention will address a district’s equity concerns, and auto-enrollment is no different. Students who have not previously experienced rigorous coursework may need additional support to take advantage of their advanced opportunities (Plucker et al., 2017), much in the way that increasing access to AP courses for Black and Hispanic students does not immediately translate into improved AP test performance.

In addition, auto-enrollment probably helps students already performing at high levels, but it does little to help students with potential who are not yet working at advanced levels.

Improving opportunity is a mile marker on a much longer journey.

Jonathan A. Plucker is the Julian C. Stanley Professor of Talent Development at the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins University, where he is also a Professor of Education. He currently serves as President of the National Association for Gifted Children. He can be followed on Twitter at @JonathanPlucker or reached at jplucker@jhu.edu.

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Reading Can Grow Students’ Brains: Neuroplasticity, Literacy, and Hope for Struggling Readers

By Maria Finaro Cleary, Ed.D.

They’ve Stopped Reading! Now What?

“I think I’ll go and read a book!” is not something parents or teachers of the learning disabled often hear. Why? It’s just not fun for them, especially as they grow older. In fact, adolescent to young adult challenged readers have limited choices of books that have age-respectful storylines at accessible reading levels. And very few have illustrations which these readers need to help create word pictures in their minds. Those that do are generally for juvenile readers.

So, for lack of resources, the learning disabled often lose their motivation to read once they get past the primary grades. Sadly, we have learned that the consequences are lifelong. Students with learning disabilities experience course failure at a much higher rate than their non-disabled peers. Sixty-nine percent of

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students with LD have failed one or more graded courses in secondary school, compared to 47 percent of students in the general population. One third of students with LD have been held back in a grade at least once.

In terms of jobs, only 54% of working-age LD adults are employed, and 67% earned $25,000 or less per year within eight years of leaving high school (National Center for Learning Disabilities, 2017).

Our Brains Can Change!

However, if we change our brains, much of this can change. Dr. Norman Doidge, a scientist, medical doctor and psychiatrist, has written extensively on the subject of neuroplasticity.

This is a growing understanding that the human brain can be stimulated by conscious habits of thought and action, by teaching the brain to

American Consortium for Equity in Education

“rewire itself” (Doidge, 2007, 2015). The circuits of the brain can, through mental experience and activity, form, reform or even unform in new ways.

The concept of neuroplasticity has already been shaping our mental activities. Witness all the “brain games” that senior citizens are playing to keep themselves cognitively sharp. "There are a few broad principles that we can state come out of neuroscience," says Kurt Fischer, education professor and director of the Mind, Brain, and Education Program at Harvard University.

“Number one? The brain is remarkably plastic," Fischer explains. "Even in middle or old age, it's still adapting very actively to its environment" (Bernard, 2010).

The implications of neuroplasticity for the learning disabled can be very encouraging, but only if they actually engage in activities that will stimulate their neural connections. However, the opposite is also true. If adolescents give up on reading once they get to middle school, the brain’s reading network will cease to develop.

“When we reach adolescence, a massive ‘pruning back’ operation begins in the brain and synaptic connections and neurons that have not been used extensively suddenly die off—a classic case of ‘use it or lose it’” (Doidge, 2007). Scary indeed.

What Can We Do? But all is not lost if we act quickly. There are interventions that can improve learner outcomes, re-engage LD students in the reading process and create the neural connections that expand brain capacity. In fact, the good news is that in cases where struggling readers have learned that their brain capacity can expand, the results have been positive, not only in their improved performance, but in their attitudes and self-image. A study found that both morale and grade points took a leap

forward when students understood the idea that intelligence is pliable (Blackwell, Trzesniewski & Dweck, 2007). Imagine being able to tell our young people that our brains can improve! Of course they’ll feel better about themselves and perhaps become more willing to actively contribute to that improvement.

That is one way to motivate our delayed learners to read more. There are two other promising resources to explore and develop further in order to address this issue: illustrations and digital media.

Pictures ARE Worth a Thousand Words One theory for the diminishing interest in reading among LD students is the general absence of illustrations in their reading materials. Younger children with reading difficulties often find support in books with pictures that reinforce the text. Illustrations help young readers create mental images of simple story lines and well-defined characters. In many ways, pictures serve as the key to reading enjoyment for children who have difficulty turning abstract concepts into concrete thoughts.

However, there are scant resources for older readers in the form of the picture book. This audience has long outgrown the juvenile storylines and characters that mark many of the choices in this category. Illustrated books for older readers, although they do exist in the form of “Hi-Lo” stories (high interest, low reading level), are limited in number and scope. Graphic novels offer illustrations, but sometimes in a frenzied format with multiple panels on one page and dialogue bubbles advancing the story, which some learning disabled readers find confusing.

Innovative teachers (and there are so many!) can foster comprehension by finding graphic

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Digital media is attractive to most young people, no matter their reading level. This is an area that is ripe for improvement when it comes to older readers. That’s why we’ve created Readeezy specifically for adolescent through young adult challenged readers. Right now, it’s one book that’s illustrated, animated and interactive with age-appropriate storylines and accessible reading levels. The plan is to create an entire library so this special group of readers can visit one place to enjoy a good book. Visit readeezy.com to see a book sample and research that’s shown remarkable results.

representations to “illustrate” parts of a story.

Simple drawings or photos like a city, a forest, animals, a football game or a school dance can help create word pictures in the minds of students as they read. They can be projected on a white board or simply held up by the reading leader. Secondary schools with an art department can also collaborate by having art students create simple graphics, on paper or digitally, to accompany different stories. A win-win for both groups of students!

Digital Resources Can Be Our Friends And what about creating our own “text to speech” versions of favorite books? Record the narration beforehand and have the reader follow along with the recording. Or, use some of the software that is available, often for free, on the internet. Search for “best text-to-speech software” and you’ll come up with a lot of options.

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We now know that reading can, in fact, grow our brains which has enormous implications for our struggling readers. Publishers and developers must explore innovative changes to their offerings for older, delayed readers. Educators and parents will serve these teens and young adults well by seeking out and requesting resources that are age-appropriate in an illustrated, interactive digital format. Those with learning disabilities continue to require intelligent and informed advocates to increase their opportunities for life success.

Dr. Maria Finaro Cleary is a parent of a learning disabled young adult and works as an interim school superintendent. She is the President of Readeezy, a company that produces reading resources that are illustrated, animated, interactive and age-appropriate, designed for adolescent, teen and young adult challenged readers. She plans to create an entire Readeezy library so these learners will have a choice of engaging stories to read and a chance to improve their live outcomes. See readeezy.com for more information and to see a sample of the book.

American Consortium for Equity in Education

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Enhancing Equity Through a Better Approach to Personal Finance

By Andy Davidson

“When am I going to use this?”

Mathematics teachers are frequently confronted with this challenge from students. There are connections between the math curriculum and how a student may eventually use the knowledge in “real life,” but how often is the relevance explicitly defined for students to comprehend? From bisecting an angle with a compass and straight edge, to the strange “±” sign in the quadratic formula, these concepts without context make it difficult for students to understand how the math applies to the life they are living.

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“I wish I learned this in high school.”

Since I work in finance, friends often ask me financial questions, such as, “Should I buy bitcoin?” or “Are interest rates going up or down?” Seldom do people ask me about the questions that I think are important: “How much do I need to save for retirement?” “How much insurance do I need?” When I discuss the principles involved in evaluating financial decisions, they often wonder why they didn’t learn those concepts in school.

Student Engagement is a Gateway to Equity In considering the scenarios presented above, the challenge is this: ensuring students learn relevant personal finance skills in school and, later in life, retain that knowledge along with the requisite mathematical knowledge to make the best use of personal finance.

For all students to succeed in their schooling, it’s best for them to understand the relevance of the content before and while they are learning it. I’m sure we’ve all had the experience, at one time or another, of thinking “if I knew then what I know now…” about some lesson or opportunity we didn’t fully engage with because we missed the relevance in the moment. Conversely, when we understand from the start how and why we will need to use certain skills in our life, we make sure to pay attention so we’re prepared for future success.

Fortunately, we’re starting at an advantage when it comes to student engagement with integrated math and personal finance students inherently understand the value of this application of math, according to research.

When compared to other common mathematical applications, such as sports, engineering, and computer science, students

rate personal finance as both the most important and most interesting application.

Given that evidence, we are set up for success if we combine mathematics and finance and make sure students can see the connections.

The mathematics course we have developed at the Financial Life Cycle Education Corp, called FiCycle for short, addresses this directly. It is aligned to high school mathematics standards (related to Algebra II, Probability, Statistics, and Modeling) while providing students with an understanding of the principles of personal finance and the mathematical tools they need to apply those principles to real decisions throughout their life.

The course is organized around understanding the ideas of wealth and consumption. Drawing on the “Life Cycle Hypothesis” of Nobel Prize winner Franco Modigliani, we focus on how people can transfer wealth across time: borrowing to transfer wealth from the future to the present to fund consumption now, and investing to transfer wealth to the future for retirement and other needs we may have later in life. We also show how the transfer of wealth across time creates risk and describe how to measure and manage that risk.

All of This Takes Mathematics Starting with basic numeracy and understanding percentages, fractions, and decimals, and extending to exponents and logarithms, probability, and regression. When students see this math in the context of finance, they never ask “when will I use this?” In fact, students find that they even enjoy mathematics, including students who have historically struggled in math class.

“Everyone is interested, and I find that any skill prerequisite or skill gap is easy to handle once that happens because the students care about

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getting the answer,” said NYC teacher Eva Hachikian, who teaches the course. That perspective powerfully illustrates the role of engagement, fostered by presenting relevant materials, on enhancing equity and improving outcomes when students believe in what they are learning, they will fully apply themselves and do their best.

Supporting Positive Lifelong Outcomes “The students become very proficient at understanding the math behind what contributes to wealth growth and wealth loss,” shares Erik Scott, a math educator in Oklahoma.

“So they’re able to utilize their case scenarios or case studies presented in the curriculum. They work the problems, approaching them with whether it’s a good decision or a poor decision.”

This first-person perspective on our particular course is backed up by research on mathematics and personal finance education, and how such knowledge contributes to positive and negative financial behaviors over a lifetime. In short, the research shows that while both personal finance education and mathematics are associated with an increased likelihood of engaging in positive behaviors, only mathematics is associated with a decreased likelihood of engaging in negative financial behaviors. Therefore, we find that only through the combination of math and personal finance education can individuals reliable increase positive financial behaviors while simultaneously decreasing negative behaviors.

intended goals. And if our understanding of equity includes a lifelong pursuit of positive outcomes for all, it is essential that we ensure students are equipped with the necessary mathematical knowledge to productively participate in financial life.

These are skills that not only benefit the learner, but transfer into positive impact for each learner’s community; and truly, they are skills that every family needs and deserves. If we start now by ensuring students learn a deeper understanding of the mathematics of personal finance while in school, we have an opportunity to deliver generational benefits to communities nationwide. With that in mind, let’s work together to combine math and personal finance for all of our students.

Andy Davidson is the Founder of Financial Life Cycle Education Corp (FiCycle), a not-for-profit that works with educators and organizations to equip all students with the mathematical and financial skills and understanding necessary to navigate their financial life cycle and meet and exceed state requirements in mathematics. Learn about FiCycle’s curriculum, lessons, research, and resources at https://ficycle.org

This is a critical finding to provide context for current K-12 approaches. While many schools have adopted standalone personal finance courses, we can see that these courses, without a math component, may not be achieving 38

American Consortium for Equity in Education

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Comprehension Check Results Subject

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Multiply by Two-Digit Numbers

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A comprehensive core Grades K–8 mathematics program that makes math accessible to all students Kovac, Valarie

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VIEWPOINT FROM NSPRA (National School Public Relations Association) Leveraging School Communications to Show the Importance of Equity

By Yolanda Stephen

The spotlight is on us.

When attending a musical held in your local school fine arts hall or Broadway there is something the set designer uses to communicate – light. They alter the color to magnify a mood. For example, when the character is happy, all the lights shine brightly. When something brooding is about to transpire, the lights grow dimmer and dimmer. And when they want to highlight a particular character, they remove all light particles except one that is forced focus on the main character of interest. That’s the spotlight.

The spotlight seems forever cast on school communicators. As school doors across the country consecutively open and close, depending on the pandemic rates, the spotlight is on communications. Meetings are littered with rhetoric of:

Equity travels beyond what we see before our eyes, it’s not just black, brown, and white. Similar to our communications, it must reach beyond the routine tenants of employees, students and parents. It must resonate with those who have vision impairments, those who do not have internet access at home, and those who may not even have kids in our school system. All of these individuals have a stake in the game and can be major stand-ins on our communications theatre.

We need to communicate that…

How are we going to get the message out…

How quickly can we get the message out…

We need a video to explain that…

Make this pretty so we can send it out…

Too often, school district personnel work in unintentional silos which stymie conversations that communicators depend on to provide effective outreach to the community. That’s not a good thing, because by default, the school system is a power player in communities across the country. People look to us for leadership in the community. That is why everything we do communicates and how we do it can make or break our stage presence.

With the continued pandemic, equity and inclusion conversations, and critical race theory drifting on and off the stage, the importance of

Following are some tips on how to show the importance of equity in school communications:

• • • • •

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equity in school communications is in the spotlight.

American Consortium for Equity in Education

1. Lead by listening: Stepping into a parent advisory meeting or hosting a strategic planning session can provide some insight into community expectations as it relates to communication. It can also create an avenue to share information across the table face-to-face or Zoom-to-Zoom. Make sure to invite a varied audience to the table so you can be aware of differing perspectives.

Performing musicals through our work takes practice. We use visual elements on paper and through photography, like designing a set. We generate content and share social media posts, like writing a script. Every day the curtain goes up as we create equitable, timely and honest communications. The spotlight is definitely on us. Now it’s time to sing!

2. Acknowledge inequities exist: Not necessarily in the classroom, but in your communication efforts. Before making a swath of changes, complete an inventory of your communication messages and mediums. Like a SWOT analysis. If you recognize gaps, adjust your communication plan to close those gaps.

3. Eliminate language barriers: I know, you may be thinking if a family or student speaks a language other than the dominate language then it needs to be translated. Yes, that is important. You also need to eliminate the education-ease communicators easily slip into.

Think along the lines of synchronous/ asynchronous vs. in person and on demand.

Remove the jargon so the receiver of the message can feel confident in what you want them to do next.

Yolanda Stephen is the Director of Public Relations for Troup County School System (Ga.) and Vice President of Diversity Engagement for National School Public Relations Association. For over 15 years she has worked in communications for Fortune 500 companies, non-profits, and now public education. You can find her blogging at prisking.com or combing through Linkedin or Twitter @noordinaryrose.

4. Visuals are key: The average reader takes less than five seconds to decide if they are going to read more information into a communication piece. That’s brochures, websites and social media pages. A good play must have good lighting so the audience can feel the characters emotions. If they don’t like it, they leave at intermission. We want the readers to stay past intermission, so add some visual elements that draw them in. Use a variety of faces and designs.

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Prioritizing SEL During the Hiring Process Navigating Trauma in a Post-Covid World How SEL Can Transform Alternative Schools Three Predictions for Special Education

10 Questions Principals Should Ask Teachers During the Hiring Process to Prioritize Social-Emotional Learning

By Joshua Bobrow & Brandon Frame

During these challenging times in which gross racial injustice and a pandemic have contributed to our collective trauma, one thing is increasingly clear: high-quality SEL is needed inside our classrooms.

SEL articulates asset-based developmental outcomes central to advancing equity and trauma-informed work when implemented intentionally and through an anti-racist lens.

Therefore, it is critical and prudent for school leaders to ensure that newly hired teachers are

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invested in the social-emotional skills they will need in order to grow as educators, can model it themselves, and integrate it in the classroom.

For a number of reasons, many teachers are not formally exposed to SEL (e.g. not every graduate school program for education prioritizes SEL or a teacher might be coming from a school that didn’t prioritize it)- however, teachers must at least have a willingness to learn about SEL and demonstrate the capacity to teach with SEL in mind.

American Consortium for Equity in Education

Here are 10 questions that school leaders can ask potential new teachers to ensure that their community fosters resiliency and integrates SEL in all school spaces.

10. How does your pedagogical philosophy relate to our school’s belief that all learning is social and emotional?

Inquiring about a teacher’s pedagogical philosophy will let you better understand their instructional mindsets and to what extent they have integrated SEL into those mindsets.

9. How do you consistently model social and emotional skills in and out of the classroom?

Provide examples in both instructional and non-instructional spaces.

By posing this question, you can gauge the degree to which a teacher sees themselves as a role model and member of the community in all school spaces.

8. How do you center relationships with students in your classroom? Provide examples.

Asking this question can help you see how a teacher prioritizes forming trusting relationships, which is the foundation of learning partnerships.

7. How do you concretely develop social-emotional skills like problem-solving and effective collaboration through your content?

By asking this question, you are better able to gauge the likelihood that higher order thinking and interpersonal skills will be developed in a teacher’s classroom.

6. How do you view the role of social and emotional skills in your classroom?

By asking a teacher about their view of social and emotional skills and how that impacts the classroom, you’re better able to infer what their teaching and interactions will and won’t include.

5. What does social-emotional learning mean to you and your teaching?

You want to learn a teacher’s general grasp of SEL and how past experiences have shaped their understanding of the relationship between social-emotional development, teaching, and academic outcomes.

4. Equity roots more deeply in our school by developing related social-emotional skills like respecting difference and constructive problem-solving. How do social-emotional skills serve equity in your opinion?

Equity and SEL go hand-in-hand, so you should inquire about a teacher’s familiarity with and commitment to equity and SEL, and how the two relate and show up in their classroom.

3. Take a look at the adult layers of these social-emotional indicators. What are your two strengths and which is your greatest area of development? Tell us about them.

Asking a teacher to respond to specific indicators can illuminate their ability to be

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reflective and can serve to determine if a teacher’s skills will complement the team’s social-emotional areas of strength and growth.

2. How do you respond to another teacher who says it’s not their job to teach social and emotional skills through their content?

By asking this question, you can gauge a teacher’s interpersonal skills, persuasive abilities, and to what extent a teacher will be an advocate for SEL integration.

1. What is your level of comfort to give and receive feedback around social and emotional strengths and areas for growth? Please provide examples of when you’ve effectively given and received feedback.

Feedback is essential to SEL. By asking about it, you can learn about a teacher’s ability to internalize feedback and provide supportive feedback to others around SEL. School leaders across the country are increasingly prioritizing SEL in the interviewing process. Johanie Hernandez, Principal of the

Urban Assembly Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice integrates direct SEL questioning into her interview process to ensure that potential hires have a desire to advance the social-emotional development of students and themselves. Working with the Urban Assembly SEL Team’s Resilient Scholars Program, Principal Hernandez has built a flexible school community where adults genuinely and vulnerably model SEL and harness these skills in young people. This focus has allowed for the school’s climate to flourish and for the law-themed school to advance academic outcomes.

Exploring these 10 questions with potential teacher hires (and adapting them when hiring non-instructional staff) increases your ability to hire someone who is willing to develop their social-emotional skills while implementing them in their classroom.

To advance SEL in schools, school leaders should hire staff that is open to feedback, values collaboration, sees opportunities in and beyond the classroom to nurture relationships and be part of a community, and understands that adults have to be willing to evolve alongside our students. We can’t ask our students to do what we ourselves are not willing to do.

Brandon Frame is Director of Social-Emotional Learning at the Urban Assembly.

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American Consortium for Equity in Education

Joshua Bobrow is Deputy Director of Social-Emotional Learning at the Urban Assembly.

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NAVIGATING TRAUMA IN A POST-COVID WORLD How SEL Can Help Students Cope

By Jill McVey, PhD, research scientist, ACT

WHAT IS TRAUMA? Given the disruptions that we have all experienced due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us are becoming more aware of the effect that trauma can have on school, work, and home life. Any experience that causes intense physical or psychological stress reactions can be considered trauma. Traumatic events can be isolated, like the loss of a loved one, or things that happen over time, such as bullying or poverty. It’s important to note that while there are certain events that most of us would find to be traumatic, ultimately, it’s the person’s perceptions of the event that matter.

Additionally, it is also possible for a person to experience what’s known as secondary trauma – a reaction from witnessing a traumatic event or learning about it happening to someone else.

TRAUMA-INFORMED PRACTICES As we grapple as a society with systemic racism, the COVID-19 pandemic, and ongoing political unrest, we need to have a way to help our students cope with these events and any other hardships they may be experiencing.

Trauma-informed practices in schools provide a framework for understanding and responding to different types of trauma. Despite the perception that trauma is rare, it is estimated that at least half to two-thirds of children have experienced trauma in their lives.

Past (or present) trauma can affect students by making it more likely for their fight or flight response to be activated, since experiencing trauma has an effect on the brain.

This means that students may often be in a heightened state of watchfulness (“on alert”) without realizing it. In addition to reacting to things that others may not notice, students who are constantly on alert may struggle to focus on schoolwork. Trauma has been associated with difficulties in emotional regulation; difficulty forming or maintaining social relationships; and difficulties in school.

Fortunately, you do not need to know the details about a student’s trauma – or even if they have experienced it – in order to provide a foundation to help them cope. Understanding how trauma can affect students and having strategies to provide a safe and positive environment are important pieces of trauma-informed practices. As part of Mosaic™

by ACT® SEL professional development program, Powerful Educator, we focus on three main tenets of trauma-informed practice: safety, relationships, and coping skills.

SAFETY A safe environment is one in which students can depend upon consistency, which includes a predictable schedule along with adults on whom the student can rely. A feeling of safety at school is important for all students, but additional supports may be needed for students who have experienced trauma, such as advanced warnings about transitions or changes to routines. A focus on positive student behaviors, instead of negative ones, can also help foster a sense of safety.

RELATIONSHIPS Relationships are likewise critical to building a safe environment and helping students who have experienced trauma. Positive and supportive teacher-student relationships are important in myriad student outcomes. To name a few, strong teacher-student relationships are associated with increased student engagement, inclusion, and belonging, as well as increased attendance and achievement. For the student with trauma, strong relationships can help them feel secure and be less likely to be “on alert,” freeing up space for them to focus on learning.

COPING SKILLS Finally, helping students develop coping skills for managing thoughts and emotions can help lay the groundwork for developing healthy behaviors in response to stress. In addition to teaching students healthy coping strategies (which can be as simple as pausing and taking a deep breath, like this song from the TV series “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” introduces), model these behaviors in the classroom. For example, naming feelings and appropriately dealing with them: “I’m feeling really frustrated that I can’t get my computer to connect to the projector! I’m going to take a deep breath, and I’ll try again a little later.”

TRAUMA-INFORMED PRACTICES CAN HELP The COVID-19 pandemic has created a tumultuous time for all of us, and as a result, many of us are considering the role of trauma for the first time. Creating a safe environment, building positive relationships, and equipping students with skills needed to navigate uncomfortable emotions will go a long way toward a healthy learning environment for all students, regardless of their personal experiences with trauma.

For additional resources & information about trauma-informed practices, please visit our website or register to view a recording of our webinar.

SEL Can be Transformational for Alternative Schools

Here’s how our 50-student alternative high school in Wyoming is building trust, graduating more students, and cultivating more collegeand workforce-ready youngsters with the 7 Mindsets SEL curriculum.

By Ceatriss Wall and Elisa Harrison Students come to our school for many differentreasons, but mostly it’s because traditional high school just isn’t a good fit for them. A Title I school (based on socioeconomic status), Pathfinder High School serves about 50 students in grades 9-12 and has four core teachers and one special education teacher.

Our district borders the Wind River Indian Reservation and we have Native American students who attend our school and/or our district.

Five years ago, when we joined the Pathfinder team, we knew we had our work cut out for us.

For many of our students, school has always been thought as something that the law requires—and not something that they really want to do or partake in. Many of these children 52

think there’s just no good reason to be here.

Knowing this, we spent a year figuring out our school’s goals, who our students were, and what their needs were.

Our students come to school with big shoulders, and a lot of times they're carrying the weight of the world on those shoulders.

Academically speaking, many of them had difficulties functioning and focusing on their work. They just had too much going on in their personal, family, and social lives to be able to concentrate on school and academics took the back burner in their lives.

Wanting to help turn that tide, we learned about the 7 Mindsets social emotional learning (SEL) curriculum at a community event. We

American Consortium for Equity in Education

immediately saw it as a resource that could give our kids a chance to not be victims, and to have both voice and choice in their learning and life in general. We started using the 7 Mindsets curriculum that year and started to see instant benefits. Over time, that list of “wins” has only continued to grow.

Here are the top four ways the 7 Mindsets curriculum has changed our school: 1. Higher graduation rates Our graduation rates have gone from 58% to 77% since we started using our SEL curriculum just 30 minutes per week for every student in grades 9-12. The first year that we used 7 Mindsets, we did our surveys and research and learned that students had the most growth with the “Live to Give” mindset, which teaches us that abundance in one’s life is a cycle, and that to get love, respect, and financial security, we must learn to give those things. This year, we’ve seen

the most growth within the “100% Accountable,” mindset, which states that we are not victims of our past, our future is not predetermined, and our lives are what we choose from this moment onward. At the beginning of the school year students take a pretest and then take the same test at the end of the year regarding the 7 Mindsets and how the mindsets apply to their lives. 93% of the students reported that they had a positive experience and 60% said that they absolutely loved it and learned from it. It’s helping our kids assume accountability for their lives, graduate from high school, and go on to be successful in college and/or the workforce.

2. Creating new opportunities for students The payoff for that 30 minutes a week of SEL has been significant. It's led to us being able to do all sorts of very cool things, like building relationships with teachers and project-based learning in the classrooms. Our kids are going to college, attending summer camps, and exploring opportunities that they never would

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have dreamed of applying for previously. For our class of 2021, 10 out of our 14 graduates were enrolled in college by graduation. They had their class schedules selected, their FAFSA forms filled out, and they were ready to rock and roll. Another four students were ready to hit the workforce out of a class that previously would have only posted a 58% graduation rate.

3. Building trust in the classroom We use our SEL curriculum for 30 minutes a week with every student. We don’t teach everyone at once. Instead, we break the sessions into classes and allow the kids to build trust with the specific group of students that they're interacting with. This helps them be vulnerable because the conversations that they have after discussing the mindsets can be both tough and emotional. If you have it with a group of 50 students in a gym, it's just not going to have the same impact as having that group of kids you're with each week sharing with each other and being vulnerable. Even the student who initially sat at the back of the class with his

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or her arms crossed, determined not to participate, is taking part in those vulnerable, trust-based conversations by the end of the school year.

4. No one thinks of it as a place where the “bad kids” go In our little town, Pathfinder High School was always looked upon as the place where the “bad kids” go when they can no longer attend traditional high schools. That sentiment has totally changed. When we’re out in the community, people say, "Oh, I see that you're from Pathfinder." It's a source of pride and strength for our staff and for the students. This year we've incorporated, "You’ve graduated” to the Main Street banners that we hang for our kids and their families. We're now included in everything the traditional high school does, including a large billboard telling our students how grateful they were that they graduated or congratulating them. These are things that would have never happened just five years ago.

In conjunction with the 7 Mindsets, our students

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are taught how to self-regulate emotions and feelings that can interfere with their daily academic learning. 100% of the students who attend our weekly Brain Change group, report that they understand why they can’t think clearly and how to change that. They use the regulation tools they have been taught, including the regulation room. 71% of the students who use the regulation room are ready to return to class after ten minutes and be productive in their academic classwork.

All students and their families experienced hardships during the COVID-19 pandemic, a traumatic event that made the social emotional welfare of our students more important than ever. With the 7 Mindsets’ focus on positivity and focus in our corner, we were able to keep helping students focus on what they can do and how they can positively change their lives. The fact that 95% have told us that they love the SEL curriculum and think we should keep using it is proof enough for us.

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Ceatriss Wall, principal at Pathfinder High School in Lander, Wyoming.

Elisa Harrison, counselor at Pathfinder High School in Lander, Wyoming.

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Three Predictions for Special Education Note: A reliable therapy platform (not videoconferencing) is key

The pandemic has catalyzed likes being on the computer, so talking Integrating Technology to me through the computer and using a rethinking of how we do headphones at home really broke down Support into the Classroom school, and some of the pos- those hurdles.”

The online modality can be integrated sibilities bring opportunities seamlessly into the classroom, and Schools will need to diversify their serIRU VWXGHQWV DQG VWD΍ WR JHW vice delivery model in order to meet that matters. Today’s children are digital learners, and technology can open the most out of a school day. students where they are—which includes meeting each individual’s needs up personalized experiences with ΖQ WKH ȴHOG RI VSHFLDO HGXSRZHUIXO EHQHȴWV 5HVHDUFK KDV DOVR and putting in place a sustainable and shown there is stigma associated with cation and related services, nimble solution for school days that “pulling” students for therapy sessions.

ORRN GL΍HUHQW an online therapy solution is a key piece for solving the But the type of technology matters.

Designing for Today’ s Maine School Administrative District complex puzzle—and many 75 found that a simple video conferWorkforce are embracing it. encing tool was not enough.

“Our skepticism for using an online platform to serve students quickly turned into appreciation,” said Ellen Biller, director of special education for Page County Public Schools in Virginia.

Looking ahead, the needs will be bigger, PRUH YDULHG DQG UHTXLUH JUHDWHU ȵH[Lbility. Here are the three predictions on the future of special education:

Diversifying Services

One of the key learnings during the pandemic was in how technology brings HɝFLHQFLHV :LWK DQ RQOLQH WKHUDS\ solution, some members of the schoolbased team no longer need to travel from home to school or from school to school. Instead they can spend more time working with students.

“Teletherapy can help to ensure that clinicians are “He was always very spending their time in clinically-directed resistant to working activities, which is together in class,” she really the best use of said. “When we started the district’s budget,” said Kristim Martinez, working this year with M.A., CCC-SLP, clinical PresenceLearning, he was director, SLP & OT, able to attend. He likes PresenceLearning.

According to a 2020 RAND Corp study, two in 10 districts have already adopted being on the computer, or are considering a Remote work can virtual school model. so talking to me through also be a solution for Others are embracthe computer and using mitigating personnel ing hybrid learning. shortages, which have headphones at home Among various long plagued special reasons, district really broke down those education programs. leaders cite growing hurdles.” demand—and for “We’ve always good reason. DeboVWUXJJOHG ZLWK VWD΍ rah Daugherty, lead speech-language leaving our rural area to work in the pathologist (SLP) in Chatham County Schools, described some students who metropolitan parts of the state,” said Mike Lowers, executive director of the ȵRXULVKHG XVLQJ RQOLQH WKHUDS\ 2QH Central Kansas Coop in Education. student who has autism spectrum “But having the PresenceLearning disorder (ASD) stood out. therapy platform has allowed us to “He was always very resistant to working retain those clinicians by converting them to remote employees.“ together in class,” she said. “When we

“There is a huge variety of interactive games and tools on the PresenceLearning platform, all of which keep the students eager to participate in therapy,” said Karen Totman, a schoolbased speech-language pathologist (SLP) for the district. $ ȴQDO DUHD WR NHHS DQ H\H RQ LV GHploying technology to bridge public/ private partnerships. With evaluations and equitable services conducted online, a public school team can meet their requirements to support private school students in their district.

“Innovation is happening in special education,” said Kate Eberle Walker, CEO of PresenceLearning. “We’ve talked to a lot of school leaders, and many of them are adding technology into their services with equity and access in mind. Schools have seen clearly how an online therapy solution can personalize WKH H[SHULHQFH IRU VWXGHQWV DQG VWD΍ ȋ

Learn More

If your school district is considering adding online services into your school model, schedule a free consultation today.

started working this year with PresenceLearning, he was able to attend. He

presencelearning.com

We’re excited to announce the launch of

As our equity work has evolved during (and now continuing through) the pandemic, more and more we’re seeing how SEL and equity are tied together. School districts are increasingly requiring every product to take student and faculty SEL needs into consideration, and companies are responding to this important need.

Hence, our new website: SELtoday.org.

Our goals are simple: • To provide a place where thought leaders and researchers in the industry have a voice—a loud one—about the critical work they’re doing in SEL to meet the needs of school districts across the country.

• To continually highlight the good work of PreK-12 educators who are making SEL a key part of a holistic educational process in every subject for every student at every school, every day. s the experts at E said, E is relevant for all students in all schools and affirms diverse cultures and backgrounds. All students bring to school their identities, strengths, values, lived experiences, and culture. SEL ... uplifts and promotes understanding of the assets of diverse individuals and communities."

You just can't have one without the other. Equity and SEL. We will include an SEL Today section in every issue of the journal going forward. We hope you’ll also stop by and visit the new website. And, of course, if you’d like to get involved in any way, we’d love to hear from you!

Thank you, Larry & Maia

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How to Motivate Students Who Act Like They Don’t Care

By Dr. Allen N. Mendler Nobody is Born Unmotivated Parents of toddlers know something is very wrong developmentally if they aren’t constantly chasing their tiny explorer all over the house, erecting barriers along the way to try and keep their little learner safe. It is the rare child who isn’t filled with enthusiasm when that first day of kindergarten arrives. Yet little by little, the excitement wanes until more than half of all students in grades 5-12 are reportedly either not engaged or actively disengaged in school.

Since it is natural for humans to want to learn and explore and if school is a place that facilitates learning and exploration, why do many students develop a negative attitude during their school careers, with some getting so disillusioned that they seem to not care at all?

What happens to change the eager kindergartner into a cynical and disengaged teen? Can this downward spiral be prevented or reversed?

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Post-Pandemic Challenges & Strategies Poor student motivation and dealing with behavior problems has been at or near the top of classroom concerns expressed by educators throughout my forty plus year career. Since the desire to explore is intrinsically motivating, the challenge we face as educators is to identify and eliminate as many of the obstacles as we can that get in the way.

By far and away unfulfilled basic needs are at the core of virtually all behavior problems.

Physical needs for food, shelter and safety are obvious. Psychological needs for attention, connection, competence, control and joy also seek fulfillment. When any of these needs are unsatisfied, some students act out; some become depressed or filled with anxiety; some give up.

Given the increase in child visits to emergency rooms during the pandemic for mental health issues, there is likely to be a corresponding uptick in challenging behaviors as students return to school. Literally overnight kids lost contact with their teachers, friends, playgrounds, celebrations, after-school activities and grandparents. Some had no respite from witnessing or experiencing some form of abuse. Several teachers expressed concerns about many virtual learners who either irregularly attended class or completely stopped coming.

Addressing our students’ heightened social-emotional needs, must be the top priority. As well, there are three other issues we explore that are often triggers for student 60

disengagement followed by a few suggested strategies for addressing each.

Social Emotional Factors Some students shut down to school because they feel disconnected and see being unproductive as a pathway towards acceptance.

Others are focused on more basic needs like having a roof over their heads, getting enough to eat and/or feeling safe at home or in the neighborhood. Unless school becomes a welcome distraction from these concerns or provides support to cope with these out-of-school issues, there may be too little mental energy available to handle the challenges of school. Our kids need courageous teachers who are unafraid of making themselves vulnerable by genuinely sharing their thoughts and feelings and listening to those of their students.

SUGGESTIONS: 1. Emphasize relationship. Kids withdraw when they think nobody cares. For at least the first few weeks, make it a priority to discover your students’ interests, ideas and concerns. Have lunch with small groups a few times each week.

Start the week by inviting students to share weekend highlights and disappointments.

Share things about yourself.

3. Get and stay personally connected without taking offensive behavior personally. You might expect students with a short fuse to have an

American Consortium for Equity in Education

even shorter one for a while. Rather than being quick to go to a consequence when there is inappropriate behavior, think first about connecting with the student. For example, “Wow, using those words tells me you are very frustrated and upset. I really want to understand what’s going on. I’ll be right here after class and we will figure this out.” It is best to follow up later with the student privately to explore in more depth and to possibly discuss consequences if needed.

Lack of Perceived Success Some students find learning difficult and may resist working to hide feelings of inadequacy.

Many students with an, ‘I don’t care’ exterior are actually afraid to care because they don’t believe they can succeed. Since they fear being viewed as “stupid” by their peers or the teacher, they instead either act either “bad” or “indifferent.” Others lack confidence that they will not be able to sustain success so they may stop trying. Students who lagged behind before the pandemic are likely to be even further behind and may resort even more frequently to these forms of coping.

Post-pandemic may be a good time for a re-set of what it means to be successful.

improvement within each individual. When it comes to school achievement, “getting better at” should be the primary standard by which we judge rather than “being as good as or better than” other students or predetermined criteria.

Consider presenting two grades: one for achieving mastery at grade level and another that reports individual progress. Have a daily or weekly class ‘honor roll’ that recognizes effort and improvement. Call it ‘on-a-roll.

3. Let students know they can always choose to show progress and improve their grades by using any of the 3R’s (Redo-Retake-Revise)(3).

Boredom/Lack of Interest & Enthusiasm Students may become bored if they see little connection between school and life. In later grades, it is not unusual for many to ask, “When will we ever use this”? In actuality most of what we teach will never be used by most students and quickly forgotten after the test.

SUGGESTIONS:

1. Make it really hard for kids to fail: Build an “APPPP” for success (Appear (show up) – Prepare (be ready with attitude and supplies) – Practice (work at getting better at learning)Persist (Keep at it or ask for help) – Progress – (demonstrate steady growth).

1. Triggering curiosity and interest can motivate even the most unmotivated students. Blend real-world events that students are experiencing or are aware of with academic curricula. Don’t fear bringing real world issues of the day (the pandemic; lack of civility) into the classroom (i.e. ‘Let’s talk about how the pandemic has made life harder or easier?”; “Which pandemic do you think was worse and why: COVID-19 or the 1918 flu?” Topics that generate news and grab students’ attention are disasters, food, money and sports.

2. Refrain from comparing students to each other and rather focus on defining success as

2. Connect video games and song lyrics to lessons whenever possible. A creative middle

SUGGESTIONS:

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school math teacher dramatically increased attendance by starting each virtual class playing the ‘fortnite’ video game and tied components of the game into her lessons.

3. Throughout lessons, use language to arouse student interest. For example: “This is going to be a great lesson because . . .”

“Here’s a really cool fact that not too many people know . . .”

“I am pumped to get at today’s lesson because . . .”

“I love this topic because . . .”

Need to Feel in Control

Some students are quietly oppositional by acting unmotivated. These are often kids who do well enough on tests but won’t ever do their homework. Since they know that parents and teachers get very frustrated when they put forth little effort, they may use this strategy to feel empowered.

SUGGESTIONS 1. Involve students in classroom decisions such as developing rules and consequences. Look for opportunities to put them in charge (i.e. by helping others; having a high status classroom job).

you too much to expect anything less than your best. I want to be a good teacher for you and when you don’t produce it makes it impossible for me to know if I am. If you get all four of these problems done, that would be awesome but I can live with any two of the four. Your choice. ” 3. Patience and a changed mind-set can be really helpful. For example, re-define ‘stubborn’ to ‘strong-willed. Change is like a roller coaster ride. Every climb to the top leads to a drop. So buckle up and never give up!

Allen Mendler, Ph.D. is an educator and school psychologist who has extensive experience working with children of all ages in regular education and special education settings. Dr. Mendler has given many workshops and seminars to professionals and parents, and is highly acclaimed as a motivational speaker and trainer for numerous educational organizations on topics pertaining to challenging students.

He is the author or co-author of many publications including ASCD's iconic Discipline with Dignity, and both editions of the best seller Motivating Students Who Don’t Care.

A slightly different version of this article appeared on the SOLUTION TREE website and is adapted from content in the second edition of Motivating Students Who Don’t Care.

2. Own the problem. For example, “I know I hassle you a lot about not doing your work and I’ll probably keep doing that because I respect 62

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Accelerate writing proficiency Motivate your students to write like never before.

WriQ is a writing achievement tool that helps teachers easily produce fast, simple and consistent writing assessment, whilst providing meaningful feedback and motivation directly to students - helping to increase and improve their writing skills.

Save valuable time with technologyassisted marking. WriQ allows you to quickly assess, track and analyze student writing, meaning you can spend less time marking and more time teaching!

WriQ provides a standardized benchmark for writing which allows you to assess learning loss due to COVID and the summer slide. You can chart writing progress over time and compare achievement year on year, not just within a class, but through a year band or an entire school.

Find out more at: text.help/ACE-WRIQ

VIEWPOINT FROM AESA (Association of Educational Service Agencies) Ohio’s Educational Service Center Network Helps Re-Imagine Education In the Wake of COVID-19 Pandemic

By Joan Wade

When the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools almost overnight, educators everywhere had practically no time to prepare for the requisite operational and instructional changes that followed. Most schools had little experience with virtual instruction and many had limited technology and infrastructure to deliver high quality education remotely.

Despite the challenges, educators in Ohio pivoted quickly with the support of the state education agency and regional partners like Educational Service Centers (ESCs) and Information Technology Centers (ITCs). Ohio’s ESCs realized that responding to the pandemic presented a rare opportunity to re-imagine and reshape education for the future. They also recognized the effort could not take place in a vacuum.

As such, in spring of 2020, the Ohio ESC Association (OESCA) membership launched a statewide project, the Reframing Education Initiative, which was a direct response to the pandemic, and in support of the work of the state’s High School Redesign Taskforce and the statewide strategic plan for education, Each Child, Our Future. Education professionals from 31 of the state’s 51 ESCs collaborated to create a decision-making framework to support districts as they considered best practices that have emerged as a result of school closures, had authentic conversations about instructional expectations, and made plans to reframe and

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rethink the delivery of high-quality educational opportunities for all students and schools in the 20202021 school year and beyond.

The intent of the “Reframing Education Initiative” is to support Ohio school districts in planning to meet the needs of all students in a multifaceted and multilayered manner and connect them to evidence-based resources and best practices.

“The time is right for Ohio to begin reframing its education model so that learning can become the constant and time and place can become the variables,” said Craig Burford, executive director of the Ohio Educational Service Center Association (OESCA).

The result was a website that contained a wealth of resources and guidelines to help districts prepare their individual plans for moving forward. The framework contained guiding questions and information about gathering data, creating a team, and areas to consider including instructional resources and expectations, non-building based learning opportunities, the needs of exceptional and at-risk students, the delivery of remote and blended instruction, technology needs, communication planning, professional learning for educators, climate and culture and the mental health of students and staff.

The initiative also created resources and a

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planning template to help districts develop a Remote Learning Plan that was required to be submitted to state officials last summer before the start of the 2020-21 school year. In February of 2021, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine asked state districts and schools to work with their communities to assess and address the needs of students whose learning may have been lost or disrupted by the pandemic. Specifically, he asked districts and schools to develop plans that address learning recovery and extended learning opportunities. Such plans could include options including but not limited to extending the current school year, beginning the new year early, extending the school day or instituting summer programs, tutoring, remote options, and other remedial or supplemental activities. As part of the Reframing Education Initiative, OESCA responded to the Governor’s request by developing resources and a planning tool that districts could use to develop their extended learning plans and continue instructional planning going forward.

Ultimately, the Reframing Education initiative has served as the foundation for OESCA and its membership to engage in a collaborative, co-design process with the state education agency and other implementation partners in several state-wide initiatives including the Remote Learning Alliance and RemotEDx, which seek to help districts establish and maintain their virtual instruction programs.

groundwork was already laid by our state education agency, state board of education and the work of the High School Redesign Task Force,” stated Burford. “Ultimately, the key to its success and sustainability, however, will be a commitment to a collaborative, co-designed approach and our ability to leverage the existing networks of experienced education professionals at ESCs, ITCs and other regional support organizations.”

Dr. Joan Wade is the Executive Director for the Association of Educational Service Agencies (AESA). Dr. Wade also led CESA 6 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin for 15 years. She was elected and served as a State Representative in the Wisconsin State Legislature from 1998 – 2001. Prior experiences include Distance Learning Director, Technology Coordinator, Library Media Specialist and Elementary Teacher in Wisconsin.

Educational Service Centers have also partnered with the Ohio Department of Education on a number of other initiatives to address the continuing needs of districts as they address the impact of the pandemic during the 2021-22 school year and beyond including prevention education, family and community engagement liaisons and more.

“The Reframing Education Initiative may have been born out of the need to quickly respond to COVID-19 related challenges, but the

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The Role of Foundational Reading in Academic Success Long before students begin their formal education, they are learners. The home is their first classroom, and as families support their cognitive, motor, and socialemotional skill development, the first building blocks are being laid that prepare each child to take their place as a student in our nation’s schools.

Unfortunately, not all students begin with the same strong foundation. Many students start kindergarten far behind their peers in various areas, and some are significantly behind in acquired vocabulary and reading readiness. The inequities that have long been known have recently come into greater focus as our nation has been forced to pivot quickly to “distance learning” in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is unknown how long schools will be closed or if there will be additional closures in the upcoming school year due to the pandemic, but we do know that the 2019–2020 academic year continued amid COVID-19. When learning went home, and educators tried their best to continue the business of education remotely, some of our most vulnerable populations were at risk of dropping even further behind. Golinkoff et al. refers to this as the “COVID-19 slump” (2020). During these closures, it has been widely reported that many parents are challenged to support or encourage their children’s continued engagement in academics. These barriers include the lack of technology to connect remotely to what is being taught (Huffman, 2020), language barriers of parents that prevented successful family participation (Garcia Cano & Thompson, 2020), and the lack of resources for students who need accommodations or modifications to allow them to learn at their own pace and in their own way (Leone & Cullotta, 2020).

Studies have shown that students who fall behind and fail to read on grade level by third grade are at a greater risk of academic failure than their peers. “Academic success, as defined by high school graduation, can be predicted with reasonable accuracy by knowing someone’s reading skill at the end of third grade. A person who is not at least a moderately skilled reader by that time is unlikely to graduate from high school” (National Reading Panel, 2000).

Excerpted from “Accelerating Literacy Growth with Digital and Print Resources: Implementing Rosen LevelUp”

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LEVELUP INCLUDES: • Access to more than 2,400 PreK-3 high-interest digital books

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“Rosen’s LevelUp is a smooth, reader-friendly eBook platform…coupled with a broad set of instructional tools for teachers and utilities for classroom management and data reporting.” —School Library Journal “Rosen LevelUp is the perfect solution for districts struggling with meeting literacy goals by the end of third grade. Rosen LevelUp is the next generation of adaptive reading platforms.”

—Liz Philippi, School Program Coordinator, Texas State Library “Our school’s Title I Program has incorporated Rosen LevelUp into their curriculum with great success.”

—Justin Fye, Principal of Philipsburg Elementary School, PA

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Disproportionate Discipline Referrals for Students of Color & Students with Disabilities Rethinking Changes in Policy & Restorative Justice Programs & Practices

By Howie Knoff, Ph.D.

For decades, school discipline, classroom management, and student behavior has been a dominant national concern for educators—a concern similarly expressed by students and parents, community organizations and leaders, and state departments of education and the U.S. Department of Education.

And while positive school and classroom climates and students’ effective social, emotional, and behavioral interactions strongly correlate with academic engagement and achievement (and fewer school or classroom discipline problems), many educators still haven’t fully embraced the fact that: Prevention is the key, but multi-tiered services, supports, and interventions must still be available for non-responsive students with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges; 68

Students need to be directly and explicitly taught (like academic skills) the interpersonal, social problem-solving, con ict prevention and resolution, and emotional control, communication, and coping (i.e., social, emotional, and behavioral self-management) skills—from preschool through high school—that they need to be successful; and Schools are not effectively teaching these skills to all students in an integrated, scaffolded way and, instead, many are using policies and unvalidated programs not scientifically-proven, field-tested practices to address school discipline and student behavior.

Compounding the school discipline landscape is the fact that, for decades, students of color and/or with disabilities are disproportionately referred to their school principal’s office for

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disciplinary infractions, and they are similarly disproportionately suspended, referred by and to law enforcement, put in alternative school programs, and expelled. Critically, many of these students’ original behavioral offenses are minor disruptions like “disrespect,” “defiance,” “talking back,” and “refusal to comply”—disruptions that result in student-teacher conferences for White students, but office discipline referrals for students of color and/or with disabilities.

Hence, many students are not receiving the services, supports, strategies, or interventions they need to eliminate their challenging behavior when it continues. Moreover, teachers and other school personnel are not receiving the training, classroom management consultation, or coaching they need when their disproportionate office referrals of students of color and/or with disabilities are due to implicit bias, lack of multiculturaland disability-sensitive skills, or outright prejudice.

To address this disproportionality, many states and districts have made policy changes, while others have advocated school-wide programs.

These “fixes,” however, have often been implemented without field-testing them across different student ages, grade levels, geographic settings, and economic and racial demographics (Gordon, 2018; Knoff, 2018; U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2018; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 2019).

Critically, relative to the students, there are many different reasons why they present with social, emotional, or behaviorally challenges in a school or classroom. To decrease, eliminate, or treat these challenges, different reasons must be connected to the right services, supports, or interventions.

Changes in Policy do not Change the Presence of Disproportionality In the first area of disproportionality “remediation,” many states (e.g., California, Maryland), urban districts (e.g., Minneapolis, Dallas), and individual schools have passed policies whereby students at specific age levels cannot be suspended for minor disruptions.

While this has decreased office discipline referrals overall, this has not decreased disproportionality, and it has increased teachers’ dissatisfaction with their district/school discipline systems (Knoff, 2018, 2019a).

More compelling is the fact that these policy changes have inherently discouraged schools from identifying the root causes of the disproportionate office referrals that persist.

Some of the primary reasons include that some students: Have biological, physiological, biochemical, neurological, or other physically- or medically-related conditions or factors that are unknown, undiagnosed, untreated, or unaccounted for.

Do not have positive relationships with teachers and/or peers in the school, and/or the school or classroom climate is so negative (or negative for them) that it is toxic.

Are either academically frustrated (thus, for example, they emotionally act out, become anxious, or withdraw) or academically unsuccessful (thus, they are behaviorally motivated to escape further failure and frustration).

Have not learned how to demonstrate and apply effective interpersonal, social

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problem-solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and/or emotional control, communication, or coping skills to specific (school-based or home-based) situations in their lives.

Do not have the skills or motivation to work with peers—for example, in the cooperative or project-based learning groups that are more prevalent in today’s classrooms.

Do not have access to consistent, meaningful incentives (to motivate appropriate behavior) or consequences (to discourage future inappropriate behavior).

Are not held accountable for appropriate behavior by, for example, requiring them (a) to apologize for and correct the results of their inappropriate behavior; and (b) role play, practice, or demonstrate the appropriate behavior that they should have done originally.

Are responding to inconsistency—across people, settings, situations, or other circumstances.

For example, when teachers’ classroom management is inconsistent, some students will manipulate different situations to see how much they can "get away with."

Or, when peers reinforce inappropriate student behavior while the adults are reinforcing appropriate behavior, students often will behave inappropriately because they value the peer attention more than the teacher/adult attention.

Are experiencing extenuating, traumatic, or crisis-related circumstances outside of school, and they need emotional support (sometimes including mental health) to cope with these situations and be more successful at school.

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Once again, it’s not all about the students. Some inappropriate office referrals occur, for example, when teachers (a) do not have effective classroom management skills; (b) at the same grade or instructional levels do not use consistent classroom management approaches; (c) are demonstrating implicit bias, insensitivity, or outright prejudice; or (d) are not held accountable by their principals or supervisors for appropriate professional and pedagogical behavior.

Restorative Justice Programs & Practices: The Research Just Doesn’t Add Up In the second area of disproportionality remediation, many districts and schools have adopted an assortment of school-wide discipline programs—often advocated by the U.S. Department of Education and/or Justice (and their federally-funded National Technical Assistance Centers), state departments of education, or as reported in the popular education press. None of them (e.g., PBIS or SEL) has had any significant, objective, sustained, or demonstrable effect on disproportionality.

This includes Restorative Justice, which uses inclusive, equity-responsive messaging to encourage its adoption, even as it has also engendered a cottage industry of “knock-off” companies, consultants, and capitalizing entrepreneurs.

Unfortunately, many districts have invested significant amounts of time, staff, resources, and money to implement Restorative Justice programs, and yet they often do not review their research and sustained outcomes and, hence, their (low) probability of long-term success. And well-intended in their desire to decrease

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disproportionate discipline referrals and actions, the implementation of ineffective approaches simply wastes resources, delays more effective strategies, and gives staff the impression that the task at-hand may be out-of-reach.

children (e.g., Losen, 2014). More recently, it has also been embraced as a preventative intervention for building an interconnected school community and healthy school climate in which punishable transgressions are less common (e.g., Brown, 2017).

Below are three areas that summarize the current Restorative Justice “state of affairs.” The “spoiler alert” is that Restorative Justice programs have not objectively and empirically proven their utility, and they should not be considered—much less adopted—by districts and schools across the country.

Within school settings, RJ encompasses many different program types. An RJ program can involve the whole school, including universal training of staff and students in RJ principles, or it can be used as an add-on to existing discipline approaches and philosophies. It also has been combined with other non-punitive discipline approaches, such as Social and Emotional Learning and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports.

No Consensus on What a Restorative Justice Program Is or Consists Of The WestEd Justice & Prevention Research Center has published an ongoing comprehensive review of the Restorative Justice research. In the Overview of its most-recent version, its authors (Fronius, et al., 2019) state: Restorative justice (RJ) is a broad term that encompasses a growing social movement to institutionalize non-punitive, relationshipcentered approaches for avoiding and addressing harm, responding to violations of legal and human rights, and collaboratively solving problems. RJ has been used extensively both as a means to divert people from traditional justice systems and as a program for convicted offenders already supervised by the adult or juvenile justice system.

In the school setting, RJ often serves as an alternative to traditional discipline, particularly exclusionary disciplinary actions such as suspension or expulsion. RJ proponents often turn to restorative practices out of concern that exclusionary disciplinary actions may be associated with harmful consequences for

THERE’S A LOT MORE TO THIS ARTICLE

CLICK HERE TO KEEP READING Howie Knoff, PhD, NCSP, is an international consultant, speaker, and author specializing in school improvement and strategic planning, social-emotional learning and social skills training, multi-tiered systems of support, and interventions with behaviorally challenging students. He is a practitioner who has also been a university professor (22 years), and State Department of Education federal grant director (13 years).

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EQUITY AND ACCESS IN CANADIAN EDUCATION From MindShare Learning

Back to School Special with EdTech Industry Legends Lisa Schmucki, CEO, edweb.net & Kathy Hurley, Industry Consultant, Hurley and Associates

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EVENTS & OPPORTUNITIES FOR CANADIAN EDUCATORS

ENTER MARKETPLACE

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Curriculum that honors all learners

High Quality Instruction + Positively Representing All Learners + Family Engagement Resources = Universal Literacy To learn more visit: Waterford.org/reading-academy

Expanding Walls & Increasing Equity iLearnNH’s Vision for the Future

By Becca Van Horn In September 2020, as schools were scrambling to figure out how to safely help students learn, a new team called i earn H was meeting one another for the first time in urham, ew Hampshire. n eclectic mix of teachers, technologists, program managers, and professional development enthusiasts, the team had one common mission to provide a free learning management system to ew Hampshire schools that would support the work of teachers and ensure e uity and learning continuity for students.

We knew it wouldn’t be easy, says Rachel opko, i earn H’s Educational echnologist. I was teaching sophomore English in a itle I school when the world shut down, so I experienced first-hand how hard it was to move classes online, figure out how to teach over oom, and manage student anxiety all while uggling a toddler. he last thing I needed was a new tool, but over the course of the last year I ve 76

seen how ed tech can make things like grading and feedback easier and help me better personalize learning for my students.

Rachel and the rest of the i earn H team were up for the challenge. ocated at the niversity of ew Hampshire H and grant funded by the ew Hampshire epartment of Education H E , i earn H took a three-pronged approach to carrying out its mission provide free ed tech tools to ew Hampshire schools, offer the training and support needed to ensure effective implementation and adoption, and build a community of educators to support one another along the way. he tools include the anvas earning anagement ystem, altura ideo haring, and oom ideo onferencing. anvas provides a single hub for teachers to organize and manage student learning, oom facilitates live and recorded classroom material, and

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Kaltura allows teachers to safely create and share media. Together, the three tools provide a one-stop-shop for schools to organize course learning, manage student data, and communicate consistently with teachers, students, and parents.

“We really can’t overstate the value of a learning management system,” says Andrew Kelley, iLearnNH’s Director. “An LMS allows teachers to extend the in-person classroom while helping navigate interruptions like snow days and absences. It helps teachers deliver personalized instruction, students manage their learning, and parents and guardians track student progress.

The possibilities are really endless.”

The benefits go beyond the K-12 environment as well. Because the University System of New Hampshire (USNH) also uses Canvas, Kaltura, and Zoom, students who stay in-state would have a leg-up in the transition to college. And if enough K-12 schools adopted Canvas in New Hampshire, students would be able to take courses outside of their regions and districts. “A student in Berlin could take French from a teacher in Portsmouth, and a teacher in Portsmouth could use French lessons created by a teacher in Henniker. It would open doors for both teachers and students,” Kelley says.

Now iLearnNH is adding another free tool to help support student learning: Discovery Education. While Canvas, Zoom, and Kaltura work together to provide a single platform that extends the in-person classroom, Discovery Education provides a rich repository of content that teachers can pull directly into Canvas.

Curious students can search Discovery Education for anything from videos on shark attacks to lessons on preparing steak, and teachers can find the professional support, inspiration, and content needed to expand their lessons and continue personalizing learning.

Together, the iLearnNH suite of tools provide a

safe, secure digital environment for students to learn and for teachers to create engaging lessons while tracking student progress.

“I used Discovery Ed for a year as a teacher before the pandemic, and it was incredible,” Sopko says. “We are just so excited by how these four tools can work together to help schools reimagine the classroom. iLearnNH formed during the pandemic, but the power of ed tech reaches far beyond COVID-19, and we’re committed to showing how.”

As another year begins and schools again face the decision of how to help students learn safely, iLearnNH is continuing its mission to combine the strength of online learning with the power of an in-person classroom. Eventually students will return to brick-and-mortar schools full time, but that doesn’t mean that they will be able to transition to a world without learning management systems and ed tech tools—or that they should.

For more information on iLearnNH, please check out the website or write info@ilearnnh.org. Follow iLearnNH on Facebook and Instagram.

Rebecca Van Horn is a writer and instructional designer living in Seacoast, New Hampshire. She brings more than 10 years of experience in education-based nonprofit and public sector teaching, instructional design, and communications. She is delighted to support New Hampshire K-12 educators as the Learning Designer for iLearnNH.

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Schools & Libraries Should Seek ECF Remote Learning Support

By John Harrington, CEO Funds for Learning K-12 schools and public libraries are urged to apply for ECF now. The ECF filing window opened June 29 and will close August 13, 2021. The program will provide 100% reimbursement for Wi-Fi hotspots and laptop computers for students, staff, and library patrons who lack home Internet connectivity.

There is $7.1 billion available, and the initial filing period will pay for goods and services delivered July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022. This is a historic event, that opens up the possibility to close the homework gap and improve digital equity for all.

It will take everyone’s participation to make that a reality.

A strange dichotomy exists related to internet connectivity. We all seem to struggle with it, but the nature of the struggle is very different for certain groups. Many of us (i.e., most anyone reading this article) struggle with the need to disconnect, or “unplug,” from the internet. We talk about getting away from our devices and how important it is to take a break from being online… But, for most of us, being online too much is not a problem in the traditional sense of the word. It is a problem like having too much ice cream is a problem. It is not healthy, but it is not really a problem in and of itself.

However, there is a real problem that plagues millions of Americans: a lack of sufficient internet access. Many people struggle to get online. They lack the basic connections and devices necessary to fully participate in our modern world. They cannot access online resources, and thus, miss out on the benefits enjoyed by all of us who do have access. This is sometimes referred to as “digital equity.” In the land of opportunity, does everyone have the

same digital potential? Sadly, for millions of people, the answer is ‘no’.

Over the past year, we have all witnessed this phenomenon play out in our communities, particularly in our K-12 schools and libraries.

Millions could stay connected and plugged in, but there were others who could not.

Recently, the Federal Communications Commission took steps to close this gap by establishing the rules for the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF). This is welcome relief to help millions of K-12 students, teachers, and library patrons get online when they are at home and not at school or the library.

After a year of input by education leaders across the country, the funding is now available. The guidelines were released in May and the filing window opened June 29th. It is not up to you. The success of this program relies on schools and libraries planning and preparing their funding applications. With the filing window is 45 days in the middle of the summer, so it isn’t ideal. It is incumbent on school boards, superintendents, librarians, and other leaders to move swiftly. This is a one-time opportunity to bridge the Homework Gap for the next year, and it is critical for those who lack connectivity that the rest of us step up and do all that we can to help.

Now is the time to support our schools and libraries as they help connect our communities.

More information about the Emergency Connectivity Fund is available here.

VIEWPOINT FROM NATIONAL VIRTUAL TEACHER ASSOCIATION Empowering Students to Become Remarkable Digital Citizens

By April Willis

The technology shift in our culture has been on a steady incline for about the past 25 years. Not only has technology become more abundant, but the targeted users are younger than ever before. Infants are programmed to find entertainment on tablets, toddlers are taught to communicate using apps, and now we have five-year-olds attending full-day kindergarten via web conferencing.

Components of Digitial Citizenship

With schools loaning devices and corporations providing free wifi, the issue of tech access for students seems to be a dwindling issue.

However, as educators, we have a new concern to address: how to ensure our students not only understand digital citizenship, but feel empowered to become remarkable digital citizens.

While there are several generally agreed-upon components of digital citizenship, there doesn’t seem to be one authoritative source on the absolute factors of digital citizenship. In general, educators can start creating awareness around the following pillars of digital citizenship:

What Is Digital Citizenship?

Digital Etiquette

Digital citizenship involves how a person utilizes technology to engage with the rest of society. From being a digital consumer to creator, we must first explain to students the responsibility that comes with accessing technology.

However, as evidenced by much of the toxicity on social media pages, many adults struggle with being good digital citizens- perhaps, because they were allowed to interact with others on digital platforms without any guidance on how to responsibly engage.

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It is critical that we attempt to end the negative consequences of poor digital citizenship (e.g., cyberbullying, censorship, identity theft, etc.) by teaching, modeling, empowering, and holding students accountable for behavior in the digital world.

How to be a polite and respectful individual by using devices at appropriate times, using them for appropriate purposes, and engaging with others using appropriate behavior & language Digital Health Knowing when to turn off devices and engage in real-life Digital Integrity Examing sources of digital content and also being deliberate about what you repost/share/promote

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Digital Security Understanding what is publicly available, protecting yourself with online purchases, and avoiding catfishing situations/scams Digital Responsibility Reporting cyberbullying, threats, abusive content, etc.

Empowering Students by Informing Them We want to protect children from what they don’t know. However, when we hand over passwords and devices, not every filter will work every time. Rather than relying on firewalls, start having conversations with children about how incredible the internet can be, but using the internet comes with responsibility.

We must model responsible digital behavior.

When you’re using the internet, narrate steps

you take to stay safe and responsible.

Demonstrate how to report misuse of platforms. Explain how to create secure passwords and how to use discernment when shopping online. Explore with children how to research facts by using sources which are reliable and unbiased. Show children how to unplug. Empower them to be remarkable digital citizens.

Dr. April Willis is Director of Business Operations & Development for the National Virtual Teacher Association.

April has a doctorate and three master's degrees and has worked at the campus, district, and state levels of education. She holds certifications in the Superintendency, Principalship, and in eight teaching roles.

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ADVERTISERS ACT/American College Application Campaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50-51 Achieve3000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Benetech/Bookshare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Boxlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 CenterPoint Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20-21 ClearMask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32-33 Curriculum Associates/iReady . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40-41 Discovery Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10-11 Education Talk Radio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 edWeb.net . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Fielding International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-3 Funds for Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78-79 izzit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26-27 Landmark College . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34-35 Lexia Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Mindshare Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72-73 NAEYC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Pearson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Presence Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56-57 ProctorU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Rosen Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66-67 Texthelp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 VS America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82-83 Waterford Institute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74-75

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