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"content": "\n\u003cp>MARYLAND — On a hot summer day earlier this year, a mother left a troubling voice message on this reporter’s WhatsApp. “My child woke up this morning feeling like he was suffocating. I am worried,” she said in Spanish. The boy had a history of asthma, she added.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The woman asked to be referred to by her first initial, M, because although her son is a U.S. citizen, she and her husband are undocumented. In response to being told she should seek professional medical help, M said she had been debating whether to take him to the local clinic, worried that she could be detained by immigration enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s a troubling pattern that has emerged in immigrant communities: staying away from medical care due to fear.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“All the roads northbound have had ICE operations on them,” she said in another voice message. She was worried about getting detained.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>She decided to wait it out.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>M’s situation is increasingly common. \u003ca href=\"https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/doi/10.1542/peds.2026-078069/209438/Pediatricians-Perceptions-Regarding-Immigrant?searchresult=1\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>A new national survey\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, conducted between April and June 2026 by the American Academy of Pediatrics, found that 40% of pediatricians have noticed families staying away from care due to immigration concerns. Thirty percent said they’ve seen families who are hesitant to apply for public health services and support, such as Medicaid. They also noted that there are families in their practice who are avoiding sending their children to school.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Dr. Lee Beers, the academy’s chief medical officer, says keeping children away from school has health implications. “They can receive health services within the school. They can receive mental health services. It’s a place where caring and supportive adults can help identify if there’s an emerging health issue or mental health issue.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>“His lips were turning blue”\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Back in southern Maryland, the boy was taking a turn for the worse. M recalled how pale he was. “His lips were turning blue.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They took the bus to the local clinic. It was nighttime, and when they got there, the doctor told her the child was in serious condition. He was given oxygen.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In another voice message, she says, her son has been medevaced to Washington, D.C. “Please,” she says. “Let him be ok.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There wasn’t room for her on the helicopter. She was told to meet them at the hospital. “And now I’m wondering whether I will be safe in an Uber. If my whole family drives, what happens if we get stopped. Do ICE agents board public transportation?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A nurse at the Maryland clinic paid for an Uber.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I just passed by the Washington Monument,” she says in another message. She called it the needle. “And the White House. This feels dangerous.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As she got closer to the hospital, another fear: that she might be asked for her immigration papers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>A quiet shift in immigration enforcement\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Legally, hospitals can ask for immigration status — \u003ca href=\"https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/florida-law-requiring-hospitals-to-ask-about-immigration-status-leads-to-big-drop-in-medicaid-spending/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>in Florida \u003c/u>\u003c/a>and \u003ca href=\"https://www.aclutx.org/know-your-rights/know-your-rights-texas-hospitals-decline-answer-immigration-status-questions/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>Texas\u003c/u>\u003c/a> they are required to in order to report on healthcare costs of undocumented patients. In both states, patients have the right to \u003ca href=\"https://www.aclutx.org/know-your-rights/know-your-rights-texas-hospitals-decline-answer-immigration-status-questions/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>refuse to answer\u003c/u>\u003c/a> questions about immigration status. But\u003ca href=\"https://www.cms.gov/medicare/regulations-guidance/legislation/emergency-medical-treatment-labor-act\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu> across the U.S.\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, hospitals cannot deny emergency care because of immigration status.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There have, however, been \u003ca href=\"https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/01/14/ice-agents-at-twin-cities-hospitals-alarm-medical-staff\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>reports of ICE agents\u003c/u>\u003c/a> at \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletter/ice-hospitals-newsletter/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>medical facilities\u003c/u>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Recently, there’s been another reason for immigrants — including those here legally — to be apprehensive about seeking medical care. \u003ca href=\"https://stateline.org/2026/09/14/states-cities-sue-trump-administration-over-new-green-card-restrictions/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>As of this week\u003c/u>\u003c/a>,\u003ca href=\"https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/uscis-issues-guidance-on-making-public-charge-inadmissibility-determination\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu> immigration officials\u003c/u>\u003c/a> deciding whether people can enter the U.S. or get legal residency will consider a wider range of public benefits that a person receives. They will also consider what benefits family members get — that could include Medicare and food assistance, like SNAP. Previous administrations had specifically excluded certain benefits from ever being considered in immigration applications.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is part of a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/08/29/nx-s1-5946880/ice-arrests-are-surging-as-the-administration-targets-more-immigrants\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>larger shift\u003c/u>\u003c/a> in how the Trump administration is approaching immigration enforcement. Earlier this year, there were loud, bombastic ICE raids in Minneapolis. Last year they took place \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/03/24/nx-s1-5739701/ice-surge-trump-finance-cost-cities\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>in Los Angeles and Chicago\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. Those operations drew heavy backlash; the new strategy is quieter. There are still raids and detentions — \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/08/26/nx-s1-5945127/immigration-arrests-record\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>the number skyrocketed this summer\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. But increasingly, enforcement also means cutting off access to services and benefits — pushing people to self deport.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Twenty-two states and D.C., are jointly \u003ca href=\"https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2026/attorney-general-james-leads-major-challenge-trump-administrations-attack\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>suing the Department of Homeland Security\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, saying the new Trump administration interpretation about considering public benefits in immigration decisions could keep people away from basic health services.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Hardworking families should not be forced to go without the support they need because they fear asking for assistance will get them deported,” said Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James in a news release.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In an email to NPR, DHS responded: “This is the ideological contortion required by left-wing leaders to justify their defrauding of the American taxpayer at the hands of illegal criminals.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>A delay that could have had serious consequences\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“A visit with your pediatrician is an opportunity to catch acute issues before they get worse,” says Dr. Beers, from the American Academy of Pediatrics. If those concerns are not identified early and addressed promptly, they can have really long term and serious health impacts on children and ultimately, you know, place a greater burden, not just on the family and the child, but also on the health system as a whole.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A doctor at one health clinic in Maryland requested NPR not use her name for fear of her patients (who are largely immigrants) being targeted. She said she suspects the health effects will soon become apparent. “We’re seeing patients who aren’t coming in not just for routine screening, but their diabetes checkup, their blood work done. Maybe in a year we’ll see a bump in heart attacks and strokes in this population. We know that people are afraid. We know right now the immediate effect is worsening mental health.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Ultimately, she says it’s an issue that should concern people beyond immigrant families. “If we have patients who are afraid to go get vaccines, that affects everybody. And that’s just one example. We’ve already seen what’s happened with measles in this country in the last few years. It hurts the whole community.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As for M, the morning after her son was hospitalized, she wrote again. The boy had a respiratory infection, which had triggered a severe asthma attack.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The hospital told her she should have brought him in sooner.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>On a recent hot summer day, NPR immigration correspondent Jasmine Garsd was walking into a soccer game when she got an alarming message on WhatsApp – a mother saying her child’s life was in danger. Jasmine reports it’s part of a worrying pattern emerging in immigrant communities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: The heat was sweltering that day. In Maryland, a 6-year-old boy was having trouble breathing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) M: (Non-English language spoken).\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>GARSD: “My child woke up this morning feeling like he was suffocating.” the woman says in the voice message. “I’m worried.” The boy had a history of asthma. She had my number because I hand it out to a lot of people in the course of my reporting. And I told her, I’m not a medical professional or a lawyer. This sounds like an emergency. She told me she’d been debating whether to take him to the local clinic. She asked that we use her first initial, M, because although her son is a U.S. citizen, M and her husband are undocumented. That’s why they were worried.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) M: (Non-English language spoken).\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>GARSD: “All northbound roads have had ICE operations on them,” she says in another audio message. She was worried about getting detained. She decided to wait it out. M’s situation is increasingly common. A new report by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that 40% of pediatricians have noticed families staying away from care due to immigration concerns. In addition, Dr. Lee Beers, chief medical officer of the Association, says…\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>LEE BEERS: They have seen families in their practice who are hesitant to apply for public health services and support such as Medicaid. And they also noted that there are families in their practice who are avoiding sending their children to school.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>GARSD: Back in Maryland, the boy was taking a turn for the worse. M later told me he was very pale. His lips were turning blue. They took the bus to the local clinic. It was nighttime. By the time they got there, the doctor told her the kid was in serious condition. He was given oxygen.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) M: (Non-English language spoken).\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>GARSD: In another voice message, she says her son has been medivaced to Washington, D.C. God, let him be OK. There wasn’t room for her on the helicopter. She was told to meet them at the hospital in D.C. Here she is again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) M: (Non-English language spoken).\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>GARSD: “I’m wondering,” she says, “will I be safer in an Uber? If my whole family drives, what if we get stopped? Do ICE agents get on public transportation?” A nurse at the Maryland Clinic paid for the Uber.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) M: (Non-English language spoken).\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>GARSD: “I just passed by the Washington Monument,” she says – she calls it the needle – “and the White House.” She said she was scared. Would the hospital ask for immigration papers?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So legally, hospitals can ask for immigration status, but they can’t deny emergency care over it. There have, however, been reports of ICE agents at medical facilities. And now there’s another reason for immigrants, including those here legally, to worry about medical care. As of this week, when deciding whether to admit people into the U.S. or grant a path to legal residency, Immigration officials will now consider a wider range of public benefits that person receives. They will also consider what benefits family members get. Medicaid and food benefits could be considered. And this is part of a shift in how the Trump administration is approaching immigration enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, we saw these loud, bombastic ICE raids in Minneapolis, last year in LA and Chicago. Those operations drew heavy backlash. Now the strategy is quieter. The number of detentions has skyrocketed, but increasingly, enforcement also means cutting off access to services and benefits, pushing people to self deport. Twenty-two states and D.C. are jointly suing the Department of Homeland Security, saying this could keep people away from hospitals and medical services. In an email to NPR, DHS responded, quote, “this is the ideological contortion required by left wing leaders to justify their defrauding of the American taxpayer at the hands of illegal criminals.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) M: (Non-English language spoken).\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>GARSD: This is M and her son the morning after, speaking from the ICU. He was there for several days.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) M: (Non-English language spoken).\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>GARSD: Turns out the boy had a respiratory infection which triggered a severe asthma attack. The hospital told her she should have brought him in sooner.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>MARYLAND — On a hot summer day earlier this year, a mother left a troubling voice message on this reporter’s WhatsApp. “My child woke up this morning feeling like he was suffocating. I am worried,” she said in Spanish. The boy had a history of asthma, she added.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>MARYLAND — On a hot summer day earlier this year, a mother left a troubling voice message on this reporter’s WhatsApp. “My child woke up this morning feeling like he was suffocating. I am worried,” she said in Spanish. The boy had a history of asthma, she added.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The woman asked to be referred to by her first initial, M, because although her son is a U.S. citizen, she and her husband are undocumented. In response to being told she should seek professional medical help, M said she had been debating whether to take him to the local clinic, worried that she could be detained by immigration enforcement.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The woman asked to be referred to by her first initial, M, because although her son is a U.S. citizen, she and her husband are undocumented. In response to being told she should seek professional medical help, M said she had been debating whether to take him to the local clinic, worried that she could be detained by immigration enforcement.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s a troubling pattern that has emerged in immigrant communities: staying away from medical care due to fear.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“All the roads northbound have had ICE operations on them,” she said in another voice message. She was worried about getting detained.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“All the roads northbound have had ICE operations on them,” she said in another voice message. She was worried about getting detained.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>She decided to wait it out.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>She decided to wait it out.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>M’s situation is increasingly common. \u003ca href=\"https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/doi/10.1542/peds.2026-078069/209438/Pediatricians-Perceptions-Regarding-Immigrant?searchresult=1\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>A new national survey\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, conducted between April and June 2026 by the American Academy of Pediatrics, found that 40% of pediatricians have noticed families staying away from care due to immigration concerns. Thirty percent said they’ve seen families who are hesitant to apply for public health services and support, such as Medicaid. They also noted that there are families in their practice who are avoiding sending their children to school.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>M’s situation is increasingly common. \u003ca href=\"https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/doi/10.1542/peds.2026-078069/209438/Pediatricians-Perceptions-Regarding-Immigrant?searchresult=1\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>A new national survey\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, conducted between April and June 2026 by the American Academy of Pediatrics, found that 40% of pediatricians have noticed families staying away from care due to immigration concerns. Thirty percent said they’ve seen families who are hesitant to apply for public health services and support, such as Medicaid. They also noted that there are families in their practice who are avoiding sending their children to school.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Dr. Lee Beers, the academy’s chief medical officer, says keeping children away from school has health implications. “They can receive health services within the school. They can receive mental health services. It’s a place where caring and supportive adults can help identify if there’s an emerging health issue or mental health issue.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Dr. Lee Beers, the academy’s chief medical officer, says keeping children away from school has health implications. “They can receive health services within the school. They can receive mental health services. It’s a place where caring and supportive adults can help identify if there’s an emerging health issue or mental health issue.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"text": "“His lips were turning blue”"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003ch3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>“His lips were turning blue”\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n",
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"\n\u003ch3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>“His lips were turning blue”\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Back in southern Maryland, the boy was taking a turn for the worse. M recalled how pale he was. “His lips were turning blue.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Back in southern Maryland, the boy was taking a turn for the worse. M recalled how pale he was. “His lips were turning blue.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They took the bus to the local clinic. It was nighttime, and when they got there, the doctor told her the child was in serious condition. He was given oxygen.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>They took the bus to the local clinic. It was nighttime, and when they got there, the doctor told her the child was in serious condition. He was given oxygen.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In another voice message, she says, her son has been medevaced to Washington, D.C. “Please,” she says. “Let him be ok.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In another voice message, she says, her son has been medevaced to Washington, D.C. “Please,” she says. “Let him be ok.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There wasn’t room for her on the helicopter. She was told to meet them at the hospital. “And now I’m wondering whether I will be safe in an Uber. If my whole family drives, what happens if we get stopped. Do ICE agents board public transportation?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There wasn’t room for her on the helicopter. She was told to meet them at the hospital. “And now I’m wondering whether I will be safe in an Uber. If my whole family drives, what happens if we get stopped. Do ICE agents board public transportation?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>A nurse at the Maryland clinic paid for an Uber.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>A nurse at the Maryland clinic paid for an Uber.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“I just passed by the Washington Monument,” she says in another message. She called it the needle. “And the White House. This feels dangerous.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“I just passed by the Washington Monument,” she says in another message. She called it the needle. “And the White House. This feels dangerous.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>As she got closer to the hospital, another fear: that she might be asked for her immigration papers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>As she got closer to the hospital, another fear: that she might be asked for her immigration papers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"attrs": {
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"text": "A quiet shift in immigration enforcement"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003ch3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>A quiet shift in immigration enforcement\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n",
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"\n\u003ch3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>A quiet shift in immigration enforcement\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Legally, hospitals can ask for immigration status — \u003ca href=\"https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/florida-law-requiring-hospitals-to-ask-about-immigration-status-leads-to-big-drop-in-medicaid-spending/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>in Florida \u003c/u>\u003c/a>and \u003ca href=\"https://www.aclutx.org/know-your-rights/know-your-rights-texas-hospitals-decline-answer-immigration-status-questions/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>Texas\u003c/u>\u003c/a> they are required to in order to report on healthcare costs of undocumented patients. In both states, patients have the right to \u003ca href=\"https://www.aclutx.org/know-your-rights/know-your-rights-texas-hospitals-decline-answer-immigration-status-questions/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>refuse to answer\u003c/u>\u003c/a> questions about immigration status. But\u003ca href=\"https://www.cms.gov/medicare/regulations-guidance/legislation/emergency-medical-treatment-labor-act\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu> across the U.S.\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, hospitals cannot deny emergency care because of immigration status.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Legally, hospitals can ask for immigration status — \u003ca href=\"https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/florida-law-requiring-hospitals-to-ask-about-immigration-status-leads-to-big-drop-in-medicaid-spending/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>in Florida \u003c/u>\u003c/a>and \u003ca href=\"https://www.aclutx.org/know-your-rights/know-your-rights-texas-hospitals-decline-answer-immigration-status-questions/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>Texas\u003c/u>\u003c/a> they are required to in order to report on healthcare costs of undocumented patients. In both states, patients have the right to \u003ca href=\"https://www.aclutx.org/know-your-rights/know-your-rights-texas-hospitals-decline-answer-immigration-status-questions/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>refuse to answer\u003c/u>\u003c/a> questions about immigration status. But\u003ca href=\"https://www.cms.gov/medicare/regulations-guidance/legislation/emergency-medical-treatment-labor-act\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu> across the U.S.\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, hospitals cannot deny emergency care because of immigration status.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There have, however, been \u003ca href=\"https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/01/14/ice-agents-at-twin-cities-hospitals-alarm-medical-staff\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>reports of ICE agents\u003c/u>\u003c/a> at \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletter/ice-hospitals-newsletter/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>medical facilities\u003c/u>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There have, however, been \u003ca href=\"https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/01/14/ice-agents-at-twin-cities-hospitals-alarm-medical-staff\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>reports of ICE agents\u003c/u>\u003c/a> at \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletter/ice-hospitals-newsletter/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>medical facilities\u003c/u>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Recently, there’s been another reason for immigrants — including those here legally — to be apprehensive about seeking medical care. \u003ca href=\"https://stateline.org/2026/09/14/states-cities-sue-trump-administration-over-new-green-card-restrictions/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>As of this week\u003c/u>\u003c/a>,\u003ca href=\"https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/uscis-issues-guidance-on-making-public-charge-inadmissibility-determination\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu> immigration officials\u003c/u>\u003c/a> deciding whether people can enter the U.S. or get legal residency will consider a wider range of public benefits that a person receives. They will also consider what benefits family members get — that could include Medicare and food assistance, like SNAP. Previous administrations had specifically excluded certain benefits from ever being considered in immigration applications.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Recently, there’s been another reason for immigrants — including those here legally — to be apprehensive about seeking medical care. \u003ca href=\"https://stateline.org/2026/09/14/states-cities-sue-trump-administration-over-new-green-card-restrictions/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>As of this week\u003c/u>\u003c/a>,\u003ca href=\"https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/uscis-issues-guidance-on-making-public-charge-inadmissibility-determination\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu> immigration officials\u003c/u>\u003c/a> deciding whether people can enter the U.S. or get legal residency will consider a wider range of public benefits that a person receives. They will also consider what benefits family members get — that could include Medicare and food assistance, like SNAP. Previous administrations had specifically excluded certain benefits from ever being considered in immigration applications.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This is part of a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/08/29/nx-s1-5946880/ice-arrests-are-surging-as-the-administration-targets-more-immigrants\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>larger shift\u003c/u>\u003c/a> in how the Trump administration is approaching immigration enforcement. Earlier this year, there were loud, bombastic ICE raids in Minneapolis. Last year they took place \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/03/24/nx-s1-5739701/ice-surge-trump-finance-cost-cities\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>in Los Angeles and Chicago\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. Those operations drew heavy backlash; the new strategy is quieter. There are still raids and detentions — \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/08/26/nx-s1-5945127/immigration-arrests-record\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>the number skyrocketed this summer\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. But increasingly, enforcement also means cutting off access to services and benefits — pushing people to self deport.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>This is part of a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/08/29/nx-s1-5946880/ice-arrests-are-surging-as-the-administration-targets-more-immigrants\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>larger shift\u003c/u>\u003c/a> in how the Trump administration is approaching immigration enforcement. Earlier this year, there were loud, bombastic ICE raids in Minneapolis. Last year they took place \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/03/24/nx-s1-5739701/ice-surge-trump-finance-cost-cities\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>in Los Angeles and Chicago\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. Those operations drew heavy backlash; the new strategy is quieter. There are still raids and detentions — \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/08/26/nx-s1-5945127/immigration-arrests-record\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>the number skyrocketed this summer\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. But increasingly, enforcement also means cutting off access to services and benefits — pushing people to self deport.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Twenty-two states and D.C., are jointly \u003ca href=\"https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2026/attorney-general-james-leads-major-challenge-trump-administrations-attack\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>suing the Department of Homeland Security\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, saying the new Trump administration interpretation about considering public benefits in immigration decisions could keep people away from basic health services.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Twenty-two states and D.C., are jointly \u003ca href=\"https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2026/attorney-general-james-leads-major-challenge-trump-administrations-attack\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>suing the Department of Homeland Security\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, saying the new Trump administration interpretation about considering public benefits in immigration decisions could keep people away from basic health services.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Hardworking families should not be forced to go without the support they need because they fear asking for assistance will get them deported,” said Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James in a news release.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“Hardworking families should not be forced to go without the support they need because they fear asking for assistance will get them deported,” said Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James in a news release.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In an email to NPR, DHS responded: “This is the ideological contortion required by left-wing leaders to justify their defrauding of the American taxpayer at the hands of illegal criminals.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In an email to NPR, DHS responded: “This is the ideological contortion required by left-wing leaders to justify their defrauding of the American taxpayer at the hands of illegal criminals.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"text": "A delay that could have had serious consequences"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003ch3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>A delay that could have had serious consequences\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n",
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"\n\u003ch3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>A delay that could have had serious consequences\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“A visit with your pediatrician is an opportunity to catch acute issues before they get worse,” says Dr. Beers, from the American Academy of Pediatrics. If those concerns are not identified early and addressed promptly, they can have really long term and serious health impacts on children and ultimately, you know, place a greater burden, not just on the family and the child, but also on the health system as a whole.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“A visit with your pediatrician is an opportunity to catch acute issues before they get worse,” says Dr. Beers, from the American Academy of Pediatrics. If those concerns are not identified early and addressed promptly, they can have really long term and serious health impacts on children and ultimately, you know, place a greater burden, not just on the family and the child, but also on the health system as a whole.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>A doctor at one health clinic in Maryland requested NPR not use her name for fear of her patients (who are largely immigrants) being targeted. She said she suspects the health effects will soon become apparent. “We’re seeing patients who aren’t coming in not just for routine screening, but their diabetes checkup, their blood work done. Maybe in a year we’ll see a bump in heart attacks and strokes in this population. We know that people are afraid. We know right now the immediate effect is worsening mental health.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>A doctor at one health clinic in Maryland requested NPR not use her name for fear of her patients (who are largely immigrants) being targeted. She said she suspects the health effects will soon become apparent. “We’re seeing patients who aren’t coming in not just for routine screening, but their diabetes checkup, their blood work done. Maybe in a year we’ll see a bump in heart attacks and strokes in this population. We know that people are afraid. We know right now the immediate effect is worsening mental health.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Ultimately, she says it’s an issue that should concern people beyond immigrant families. “If we have patients who are afraid to go get vaccines, that affects everybody. And that’s just one example. We’ve already seen what’s happened with measles in this country in the last few years. It hurts the whole community.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Ultimately, she says it’s an issue that should concern people beyond immigrant families. “If we have patients who are afraid to go get vaccines, that affects everybody. And that’s just one example. We’ve already seen what’s happened with measles in this country in the last few years. It hurts the whole community.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>As for M, the morning after her son was hospitalized, she wrote again. The boy had a respiratory infection, which had triggered a severe asthma attack.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>As for M, the morning after her son was hospitalized, she wrote again. The boy had a respiratory infection, which had triggered a severe asthma attack.\u003c/p>\n"
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"attrs": {
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The hospital told her she should have brought him in sooner.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>The hospital told her she should have brought him in sooner.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>On a recent hot summer day, NPR immigration correspondent Jasmine Garsd was walking into a soccer game when she got an alarming message on WhatsApp – a mother saying her child’s life was in danger. Jasmine reports it’s part of a worrying pattern emerging in immigrant communities.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>On a recent hot summer day, NPR immigration correspondent Jasmine Garsd was walking into a soccer game when she got an alarming message on WhatsApp – a mother saying her child’s life was in danger. Jasmine reports it’s part of a worrying pattern emerging in immigrant communities.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: The heat was sweltering that day. In Maryland, a 6-year-old boy was having trouble breathing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: The heat was sweltering that day. In Maryland, a 6-year-old boy was having trouble breathing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) M: (Non-English language spoken).\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>GARSD: “My child woke up this morning feeling like he was suffocating.” the woman says in the voice message. “I’m worried.” The boy had a history of asthma. She had my number because I hand it out to a lot of people in the course of my reporting. And I told her, I’m not a medical professional or a lawyer. This sounds like an emergency. She told me she’d been debating whether to take him to the local clinic. She asked that we use her first initial, M, because although her son is a U.S. citizen, M and her husband are undocumented. That’s why they were worried.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>GARSD: “My child woke up this morning feeling like he was suffocating.” the woman says in the voice message. “I’m worried.” The boy had a history of asthma. She had my number because I hand it out to a lot of people in the course of my reporting. And I told her, I’m not a medical professional or a lawyer. This sounds like an emergency. She told me she’d been debating whether to take him to the local clinic. She asked that we use her first initial, M, because although her son is a U.S. citizen, M and her husband are undocumented. That’s why they were worried.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) M: (Non-English language spoken).\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>GARSD: “All northbound roads have had ICE operations on them,” she says in another audio message. She was worried about getting detained. She decided to wait it out. M’s situation is increasingly common. A new report by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that 40% of pediatricians have noticed families staying away from care due to immigration concerns. In addition, Dr. Lee Beers, chief medical officer of the Association, says…\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>GARSD: “All northbound roads have had ICE operations on them,” she says in another audio message. She was worried about getting detained. She decided to wait it out. M’s situation is increasingly common. A new report by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that 40% of pediatricians have noticed families staying away from care due to immigration concerns. In addition, Dr. Lee Beers, chief medical officer of the Association, says…\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>LEE BEERS: They have seen families in their practice who are hesitant to apply for public health services and support such as Medicaid. And they also noted that there are families in their practice who are avoiding sending their children to school.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>LEE BEERS: They have seen families in their practice who are hesitant to apply for public health services and support such as Medicaid. And they also noted that there are families in their practice who are avoiding sending their children to school.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>GARSD: Back in Maryland, the boy was taking a turn for the worse. M later told me he was very pale. His lips were turning blue. They took the bus to the local clinic. It was nighttime. By the time they got there, the doctor told her the kid was in serious condition. He was given oxygen.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>GARSD: Back in Maryland, the boy was taking a turn for the worse. M later told me he was very pale. His lips were turning blue. They took the bus to the local clinic. It was nighttime. By the time they got there, the doctor told her the kid was in serious condition. He was given oxygen.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>GARSD: In another voice message, she says her son has been medivaced to Washington, D.C. God, let him be OK. There wasn’t room for her on the helicopter. She was told to meet them at the hospital in D.C. Here she is again.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>GARSD: In another voice message, she says her son has been medivaced to Washington, D.C. God, let him be OK. There wasn’t room for her on the helicopter. She was told to meet them at the hospital in D.C. Here she is again.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>GARSD: “I’m wondering,” she says, “will I be safer in an Uber? If my whole family drives, what if we get stopped? Do ICE agents get on public transportation?” A nurse at the Maryland Clinic paid for the Uber.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>GARSD: “I’m wondering,” she says, “will I be safer in an Uber? If my whole family drives, what if we get stopped? Do ICE agents get on public transportation?” A nurse at the Maryland Clinic paid for the Uber.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>GARSD: “I just passed by the Washington Monument,” she says – she calls it the needle – “and the White House.” She said she was scared. Would the hospital ask for immigration papers?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>GARSD: “I just passed by the Washington Monument,” she says – she calls it the needle – “and the White House.” She said she was scared. Would the hospital ask for immigration papers?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So legally, hospitals can ask for immigration status, but they can’t deny emergency care over it. There have, however, been reports of ICE agents at medical facilities. And now there’s another reason for immigrants, including those here legally, to worry about medical care. As of this week, when deciding whether to admit people into the U.S. or grant a path to legal residency, Immigration officials will now consider a wider range of public benefits that person receives. They will also consider what benefits family members get. Medicaid and food benefits could be considered. And this is part of a shift in how the Trump administration is approaching immigration enforcement.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So legally, hospitals can ask for immigration status, but they can’t deny emergency care over it. There have, however, been reports of ICE agents at medical facilities. And now there’s another reason for immigrants, including those here legally, to worry about medical care. As of this week, when deciding whether to admit people into the U.S. or grant a path to legal residency, Immigration officials will now consider a wider range of public benefits that person receives. They will also consider what benefits family members get. Medicaid and food benefits could be considered. And this is part of a shift in how the Trump administration is approaching immigration enforcement.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, we saw these loud, bombastic ICE raids in Minneapolis, last year in LA and Chicago. Those operations drew heavy backlash. Now the strategy is quieter. The number of detentions has skyrocketed, but increasingly, enforcement also means cutting off access to services and benefits, pushing people to self deport. Twenty-two states and D.C. are jointly suing the Department of Homeland Security, saying this could keep people away from hospitals and medical services. In an email to NPR, DHS responded, quote, “this is the ideological contortion required by left wing leaders to justify their defrauding of the American taxpayer at the hands of illegal criminals.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, we saw these loud, bombastic ICE raids in Minneapolis, last year in LA and Chicago. Those operations drew heavy backlash. Now the strategy is quieter. The number of detentions has skyrocketed, but increasingly, enforcement also means cutting off access to services and benefits, pushing people to self deport. Twenty-two states and D.C. are jointly suing the Department of Homeland Security, saying this could keep people away from hospitals and medical services. In an email to NPR, DHS responded, quote, “this is the ideological contortion required by left wing leaders to justify their defrauding of the American taxpayer at the hands of illegal criminals.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>GARSD: This is M and her son the morning after, speaking from the ICU. He was there for several days.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>GARSD: Turns out the boy had a respiratory infection which triggered a severe asthma attack. The hospital told her she should have brought him in sooner.\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The Trump administration has been pursuing a quiet immigration crackdown strategy: limiting access to health care and public services. The American Academy of Pediatrics is sounding the alarm about the impact on children.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>MARYLAND — On a hot summer day earlier this year, a mother left a troubling voice message on this reporter’s WhatsApp. “My child woke up this morning feeling like he was suffocating. I am worried,” she said in Spanish. The boy had a history of asthma, she added.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The woman asked to be referred to by her first initial, M, because although her son is a U.S. citizen, she and her husband are undocumented. In response to being told she should seek professional medical help, M said she had been debating whether to take him to the local clinic, worried that she could be detained by immigration enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s a troubling pattern that has emerged in immigrant communities: staying away from medical care due to fear.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“All the roads northbound have had ICE operations on them,” she said in another voice message. She was worried about getting detained.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>She decided to wait it out.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>M’s situation is increasingly common. \u003ca href=\"https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/doi/10.1542/peds.2026-078069/209438/Pediatricians-Perceptions-Regarding-Immigrant?searchresult=1\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>A new national survey\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, conducted between April and June 2026 by the American Academy of Pediatrics, found that 40% of pediatricians have noticed families staying away from care due to immigration concerns. Thirty percent said they’ve seen families who are hesitant to apply for public health services and support, such as Medicaid. They also noted that there are families in their practice who are avoiding sending their children to school.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Dr. Lee Beers, the academy’s chief medical officer, says keeping children away from school has health implications. “They can receive health services within the school. They can receive mental health services. It’s a place where caring and supportive adults can help identify if there’s an emerging health issue or mental health issue.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>“His lips were turning blue”\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Back in southern Maryland, the boy was taking a turn for the worse. M recalled how pale he was. “His lips were turning blue.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They took the bus to the local clinic. It was nighttime, and when they got there, the doctor told her the child was in serious condition. He was given oxygen.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In another voice message, she says, her son has been medevaced to Washington, D.C. “Please,” she says. “Let him be ok.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There wasn’t room for her on the helicopter. She was told to meet them at the hospital. “And now I’m wondering whether I will be safe in an Uber. If my whole family drives, what happens if we get stopped. Do ICE agents board public transportation?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A nurse at the Maryland clinic paid for an Uber.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I just passed by the Washington Monument,” she says in another message. She called it the needle. “And the White House. This feels dangerous.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As she got closer to the hospital, another fear: that she might be asked for her immigration papers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>A quiet shift in immigration enforcement\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Legally, hospitals can ask for immigration status — \u003ca href=\"https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/florida-law-requiring-hospitals-to-ask-about-immigration-status-leads-to-big-drop-in-medicaid-spending/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>in Florida \u003c/u>\u003c/a>and \u003ca href=\"https://www.aclutx.org/know-your-rights/know-your-rights-texas-hospitals-decline-answer-immigration-status-questions/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>Texas\u003c/u>\u003c/a> they are required to in order to report on healthcare costs of undocumented patients. In both states, patients have the right to \u003ca href=\"https://www.aclutx.org/know-your-rights/know-your-rights-texas-hospitals-decline-answer-immigration-status-questions/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>refuse to answer\u003c/u>\u003c/a> questions about immigration status. But\u003ca href=\"https://www.cms.gov/medicare/regulations-guidance/legislation/emergency-medical-treatment-labor-act\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu> across the U.S.\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, hospitals cannot deny emergency care because of immigration status.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There have, however, been \u003ca href=\"https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/01/14/ice-agents-at-twin-cities-hospitals-alarm-medical-staff\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>reports of ICE agents\u003c/u>\u003c/a> at \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletter/ice-hospitals-newsletter/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>medical facilities\u003c/u>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Recently, there’s been another reason for immigrants — including those here legally — to be apprehensive about seeking medical care. \u003ca href=\"https://stateline.org/2026/09/14/states-cities-sue-trump-administration-over-new-green-card-restrictions/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>As of this week\u003c/u>\u003c/a>,\u003ca href=\"https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/uscis-issues-guidance-on-making-public-charge-inadmissibility-determination\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu> immigration officials\u003c/u>\u003c/a> deciding whether people can enter the U.S. or get legal residency will consider a wider range of public benefits that a person receives. They will also consider what benefits family members get — that could include Medicare and food assistance, like SNAP. Previous administrations had specifically excluded certain benefits from ever being considered in immigration applications.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is part of a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/08/29/nx-s1-5946880/ice-arrests-are-surging-as-the-administration-targets-more-immigrants\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>larger shift\u003c/u>\u003c/a> in how the Trump administration is approaching immigration enforcement. Earlier this year, there were loud, bombastic ICE raids in Minneapolis. Last year they took place \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/03/24/nx-s1-5739701/ice-surge-trump-finance-cost-cities\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>in Los Angeles and Chicago\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. Those operations drew heavy backlash; the new strategy is quieter. There are still raids and detentions — \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/08/26/nx-s1-5945127/immigration-arrests-record\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>the number skyrocketed this summer\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. But increasingly, enforcement also means cutting off access to services and benefits — pushing people to self deport.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Twenty-two states and D.C., are jointly \u003ca href=\"https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2026/attorney-general-james-leads-major-challenge-trump-administrations-attack\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cu>suing the Department of Homeland Security\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, saying the new Trump administration interpretation about considering public benefits in immigration decisions could keep people away from basic health services.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Hardworking families should not be forced to go without the support they need because they fear asking for assistance will get them deported,” said Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James in a news release.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In an email to NPR, DHS responded: “This is the ideological contortion required by left-wing leaders to justify their defrauding of the American taxpayer at the hands of illegal criminals.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>A delay that could have had serious consequences\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“A visit with your pediatrician is an opportunity to catch acute issues before they get worse,” says Dr. Beers, from the American Academy of Pediatrics. If those concerns are not identified early and addressed promptly, they can have really long term and serious health impacts on children and ultimately, you know, place a greater burden, not just on the family and the child, but also on the health system as a whole.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A doctor at one health clinic in Maryland requested NPR not use her name for fear of her patients (who are largely immigrants) being targeted. She said she suspects the health effects will soon become apparent. “We’re seeing patients who aren’t coming in not just for routine screening, but their diabetes checkup, their blood work done. Maybe in a year we’ll see a bump in heart attacks and strokes in this population. We know that people are afraid. We know right now the immediate effect is worsening mental health.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Ultimately, she says it’s an issue that should concern people beyond immigrant families. “If we have patients who are afraid to go get vaccines, that affects everybody. And that’s just one example. We’ve already seen what’s happened with measles in this country in the last few years. It hurts the whole community.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As for M, the morning after her son was hospitalized, she wrote again. The boy had a respiratory infection, which had triggered a severe asthma attack.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The hospital told her she should have brought him in sooner.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>On a recent hot summer day, NPR immigration correspondent Jasmine Garsd was walking into a soccer game when she got an alarming message on WhatsApp – a mother saying her child’s life was in danger. Jasmine reports it’s part of a worrying pattern emerging in immigrant communities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: The heat was sweltering that day. In Maryland, a 6-year-old boy was having trouble breathing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) M: (Non-English language spoken).\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>GARSD: “My child woke up this morning feeling like he was suffocating.” the woman says in the voice message. “I’m worried.” The boy had a history of asthma. She had my number because I hand it out to a lot of people in the course of my reporting. And I told her, I’m not a medical professional or a lawyer. This sounds like an emergency. She told me she’d been debating whether to take him to the local clinic. She asked that we use her first initial, M, because although her son is a U.S. citizen, M and her husband are undocumented. That’s why they were worried.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) M: (Non-English language spoken).\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>GARSD: “All northbound roads have had ICE operations on them,” she says in another audio message. She was worried about getting detained. She decided to wait it out. M’s situation is increasingly common. A new report by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that 40% of pediatricians have noticed families staying away from care due to immigration concerns. In addition, Dr. Lee Beers, chief medical officer of the Association, says…\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>LEE BEERS: They have seen families in their practice who are hesitant to apply for public health services and support such as Medicaid. And they also noted that there are families in their practice who are avoiding sending their children to school.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>GARSD: Back in Maryland, the boy was taking a turn for the worse. M later told me he was very pale. His lips were turning blue. They took the bus to the local clinic. It was nighttime. By the time they got there, the doctor told her the kid was in serious condition. He was given oxygen.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) M: (Non-English language spoken).\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>GARSD: In another voice message, she says her son has been medivaced to Washington, D.C. God, let him be OK. There wasn’t room for her on the helicopter. She was told to meet them at the hospital in D.C. Here she is again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) M: (Non-English language spoken).\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>GARSD: “I’m wondering,” she says, “will I be safer in an Uber? If my whole family drives, what if we get stopped? Do ICE agents get on public transportation?” A nurse at the Maryland Clinic paid for the Uber.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) M: (Non-English language spoken).\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>GARSD: “I just passed by the Washington Monument,” she says – she calls it the needle – “and the White House.” She said she was scared. Would the hospital ask for immigration papers?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So legally, hospitals can ask for immigration status, but they can’t deny emergency care over it. There have, however, been reports of ICE agents at medical facilities. And now there’s another reason for immigrants, including those here legally, to worry about medical care. As of this week, when deciding whether to admit people into the U.S. or grant a path to legal residency, Immigration officials will now consider a wider range of public benefits that person receives. They will also consider what benefits family members get. Medicaid and food benefits could be considered. And this is part of a shift in how the Trump administration is approaching immigration enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, we saw these loud, bombastic ICE raids in Minneapolis, last year in LA and Chicago. Those operations drew heavy backlash. Now the strategy is quieter. The number of detentions has skyrocketed, but increasingly, enforcement also means cutting off access to services and benefits, pushing people to self deport. Twenty-two states and D.C. are jointly suing the Department of Homeland Security, saying this could keep people away from hospitals and medical services. In an email to NPR, DHS responded, quote, “this is the ideological contortion required by left wing leaders to justify their defrauding of the American taxpayer at the hands of illegal criminals.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) M: (Non-English language spoken).\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>GARSD: This is M and her son the morning after, speaking from the ICU. He was there for several days.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) M: (Non-English language spoken).\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>GARSD: Turns out the boy had a respiratory infection which triggered a severe asthma attack. The hospital told her she should have brought him in sooner.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "As Millions of Kids Lose SNAP Food Benefits, Free School Meals Are Also At Risk",
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"headTitle": "As Millions of Kids Lose SNAP Food Benefits, Free School Meals Are Also At Risk | KQED",
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"content": "\n\u003cp>When Republican lawmakers secured cuts to the United States’ largest food assistance program last year, Paige Shoemaker DeMio wasn’t worried about children going hungry just at home — but at school.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Anytime we’re hearing about cuts to SNAP or Medicaid, we’re worried about what’s going to be the domino effect of this,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Shoemaker DeMio is a senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. She usually focuses on K-12 education, but in recent months, she has been following the changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s because SNAP connects children with other critical resources, such as free breakfast and lunch at school. So when a family loses access to food assistance, the family’s child may stop automatically receiving free food at school. And when scores of families fall off SNAP, universal free meal programs at tens of thousands of schools fall into jeopardy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbpp.org/blog/number-of-children-receiving-snap-continues-to-drop-under-harmful-2025-republican\" target=\"_blank\">over a million children\u003c/a> have lost food benefits since July 2025, when the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed into law. Among the changes, the legislation \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/03/10/nx-s1-5737476/snap-trump-work-requirements-families\" target=\"_blank\">led to stricter work requirements\u003c/a> to receive food assistance.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Going into this academic year, dozens of schools nationwide have ended their universal free meal programs — including schools in San Antonio, \u003ca href=\"https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/education/2026/06/02/553471/hisd-free-meal-changes-houston-schools/\" target=\"_blank\">Houston\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.wlrn.org/education/2026-07-23/free-school-lunch-meals-miami-dade-schools\" target=\"_blank\">Miami-Dade County\u003c/a>. School nutrition experts say it’s unclear to what extent a decline in SNAP participation played a role. But Diane Pratt-Heavner, a spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association, which represents about 50,000 school nutrition professionals in the U.S., says that the full impact on free school meals will emerge in the coming years as SNAP changes take effect.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“This moment in time could potentially be a tip-of-an-iceberg situation,” she says “It could get much, much worse.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In a statement, the U.S. Agriculture Department, which administers SNAP and school meals on the federal level, said it invests $385 million for low-income communities and people in need of nutrition assistance.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“School meal programs have varying income limits, and while SNAP participation may ease the application process, a family not on SNAP is not automatically disallowed participation,” the department stated.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">School districts will have to reassess whether they can afford free meals \u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Agriculture Department’s Community Eligibility Provision helps pay for universal free meals at a school or district if at least a quarter of students participate in assistance programs like SNAP. (If it’s 62.5% or more, the federal government covers the full tab.) More than 49,000 public schools participated as of the 2024-2025 school year, \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/article/congressional-republicans-big-beautiful-bill-threatens-access-to-free-school-meals/\" target=\"_blank\">according to the Center for American Progress\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Federal reimbursement fluctuates based on the percentage of families receiving assistance. A decline in food stamp participation can lead to a decrease in federal funding, forcing schools to pay more for universal free food when their budgets are already stretched thin, according to Pratt-Heavner.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This could push schools to shift funds away from classroom needs or decide to stop offering universal free meals altogether, she adds. If districts decide to do away with their free food programs, they may still incur costs in the form of debt from unpaid meals.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s what happened in 2023. When the U.S. ended a federal pandemic waiver allowing schools nationwide to offer free meals, districts reported accruing meal debt as high as $1.7 million, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://schoolnutrition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2023-School-Nutrition-Trends-Report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">report\u003c/a> by the School Nutrition Association.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The White House pushes healthy eating. It cut a landmark nutrition education program\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/07/29/nx-s1-5896280-e1/the-white-house-pushes-healthy-eating-it-cut-a-landmark-nutrition-education-program\">Nutrition advocates and public health experts are mystified by the decision to eliminate the landmark nutrition education program SNAP-Ed.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Unpaid meal debt becomes an issue not only for the school meal program, but for the school district budget, which has to pay teachers and for textbooks,” Pratt-Heavner says. “It’s just a no-win situation for anyone.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Erin Bronner is the director of child nutrition and wellness for a small school district in central Phoenix that participates in the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). Arizona has seen the most dramatic decline in SNAP participation in the country, with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kjzz.org/politics/2026-04-09/study-arizona-snap-recipients-dropped-47-since-big-beautiful-bill-more-than-any-other-state\" target=\"_blank\">more than 400,000 people\u003c/a> — including about 180,000 children — losing food assistance over the past year.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Now, Bronner’s district is due to reapply for the provision next year. She says she’s worried whether her district can afford to keep offering universal free meals.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Due to the dramatic decline in SNAP assistance, the percentage of eligible families [is] not high enough for us to be able to financially sustain operating this provision,” she says. “So we would actually lose money if we were to continue to operate CEP.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The kids in the “danger zone”\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Students qualify for free food at school if their family earns at or below 130% of the poverty line, which is \u003ca href=\"https://schoolnutrition.org/about-school-meals/school-meal-statistics/#eligibility\" target=\"_blank\">$42,900 for a family of four\u003c/a> in 2026. Reduced-price meals are offered to such families making $61,050 or less.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>To access free or reduced-price meals, students can fill out a school meal application. But the form tends to be a source of confusion and administrative burden, according to Shoemaker DeMio.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“It’s easier and faster for children to get fed when meals are universally given rather than individually applied for,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How the new dietary guidelines could impact school meals\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/02/05/nx-s1-5691598/school-lunch-food-pyramid-usda-dietary-guidelines\">Cutting back on ready-to-eat meals won’t be easy, and whole milk may make a comeback. One thing that’s certain: It’ll be a while before the new guidelines trickle down to schools.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Another issue with the application is that it factors in only income and doesn’t take into account a family’s expenses or unique hardships, according to Pratt-Heavner. There are no exceptions or waivers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“So, a family that’s struggling with a recent rent increase or has a family [member] undergoing cancer treatment may be spending more than they’re taking in and might not be eligible for any help at all,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Bronner, in Arizona, calls it the “danger zone”: when a student’s family makes just above the income threshold but is still cash-strapped.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“They do fall through the cracks,” she says. “And because of where they fall income-wise, it doesn’t leave us too many options to try and provide an alternative for them.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>School policy experts say they’re also concerned for children of noncitizens, even though free or reduced-price meals are available to all students regardless of immigration status. They’re concerned because such children’s parents may be afraid to share personal information in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fna.usda.gov/schoolmeals/model-application/prototype\" target=\"_blank\">school meal application\u003c/a> — such as the last four digits of their Social Security number — amid a nationwide immigration crackdown.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Losing access to free meals could require families to spend on average nearly $1,000 per student each school year, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/article/congressional-republicans-big-beautiful-bill-threatens-access-to-free-school-meals/\" target=\"_blank\">Center for American Progress\u003c/a>. Shoemaker DeMio says that cost burden comes as many families are already grappling with high living costs and steep gas prices.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“ That’s a lot of money,” she says. “Especially when we’re talking about these families who are on the cusp of eligibility and who are also facing an affordability crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Concerns about growing hunger \u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Currently, nine states offer \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/05/14/nx-s1-5688946/school-lunches-dietary-guidelines-maha\" target=\"_blank\">permanent universal free school meals\u003c/a>: California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York and Vermont. In recent years, other states have introduced legislation to move toward this direction.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But those universal free meal programs also have been a topic of debate. Opponents \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/08/30/nx-s1-5092432/the-indicator-from-planet-money-a-food-fight-over-free-school-lunch\" target=\"_blank\">say that they’re costly\u003c/a> and that the government shouldn’t pay for students whose families can afford school meals. Meanwhile, advocates argue that school meals tend to be healthier and promote \u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/articles/schoolwide-free-meal-programs-fuel-better-classroom-outcomes-for-students/\" target=\"_blank\">better education outcomes\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“ Schools provide books, they provide pencils, they even provide laptops these days to help students be ready to learn, and nutrition is no different,” Shoemaker DeMio says. “ Nutrition is a foundational ingredient to student success.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sharon Glosson, the executive director of school nutrition at North East Independent School District in San Antonio, supports universal free school meals. Glosson says she has seen it remove stigma and shame for low-income students in the lunch line.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“ It’s open to everyone, and there’s no differentiation between those that qualify for free and reduced price and those that don’t,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But this school year, her district announced that it would have to stop offering universal free meals at nearly half its campuses. Glosson believes the biggest factor was a decline in the number of families receiving food assistance — though the need to help ease hunger is still there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We know that within our families in our school district, their economic status between now and four years ago, they don’t feel that it has improved to the point where they are now able to pay for school meals,” she says.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Shoemaker DeMio is a senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. She usually focuses on K-12 education, but in recent months, she has been following the changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Going into this academic year, dozens of schools nationwide have ended their universal free meal programs — including schools in San Antonio, \u003ca href=\"https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/education/2026/06/02/553471/hisd-free-meal-changes-houston-schools/\" target=\"_blank\">Houston\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.wlrn.org/education/2026-07-23/free-school-lunch-meals-miami-dade-schools\" target=\"_blank\">Miami-Dade County\u003c/a>. School nutrition experts say it’s unclear to what extent a decline in SNAP participation played a role. But Diane Pratt-Heavner, a spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association, which represents about 50,000 school nutrition professionals in the U.S., says that the full impact on free school meals will emerge in the coming years as SNAP changes take effect.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Going into this academic year, dozens of schools nationwide have ended their universal free meal programs — including schools in San Antonio, \u003ca href=\"https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/education/2026/06/02/553471/hisd-free-meal-changes-houston-schools/\" target=\"_blank\">Houston\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.wlrn.org/education/2026-07-23/free-school-lunch-meals-miami-dade-schools\" target=\"_blank\">Miami-Dade County\u003c/a>. School nutrition experts say it’s unclear to what extent a decline in SNAP participation played a role. But Diane Pratt-Heavner, a spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association, which represents about 50,000 school nutrition professionals in the U.S., says that the full impact on free school meals will emerge in the coming years as SNAP changes take effect.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“This moment in time could potentially be a tip-of-an-iceberg situation,” she says “It could get much, much worse.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“School meal programs have varying income limits, and while SNAP participation may ease the application process, a family not on SNAP is not automatically disallowed participation,” the department stated.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">School districts will have to reassess whether they can afford free meals \u003c/h2>\n",
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"\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">School districts will have to reassess whether they can afford free meals \u003c/h2>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The Agriculture Department’s Community Eligibility Provision helps pay for universal free meals at a school or district if at least a quarter of students participate in assistance programs like SNAP. (If it’s 62.5% or more, the federal government covers the full tab.) More than 49,000 public schools participated as of the 2024-2025 school year, \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/article/congressional-republicans-big-beautiful-bill-threatens-access-to-free-school-meals/\" target=\"_blank\">according to the Center for American Progress\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The Agriculture Department’s Community Eligibility Provision helps pay for universal free meals at a school or district if at least a quarter of students participate in assistance programs like SNAP. (If it’s 62.5% or more, the federal government covers the full tab.) More than 49,000 public schools participated as of the 2024-2025 school year, \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/article/congressional-republicans-big-beautiful-bill-threatens-access-to-free-school-meals/\" target=\"_blank\">according to the Center for American Progress\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Federal reimbursement fluctuates based on the percentage of families receiving assistance. A decline in food stamp participation can lead to a decrease in federal funding, forcing schools to pay more for universal free food when their budgets are already stretched thin, according to Pratt-Heavner.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Federal reimbursement fluctuates based on the percentage of families receiving assistance. A decline in food stamp participation can lead to a decrease in federal funding, forcing schools to pay more for universal free food when their budgets are already stretched thin, according to Pratt-Heavner.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This could push schools to shift funds away from classroom needs or decide to stop offering universal free meals altogether, she adds. If districts decide to do away with their free food programs, they may still incur costs in the form of debt from unpaid meals.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This could push schools to shift funds away from classroom needs or decide to stop offering universal free meals altogether, she adds. If districts decide to do away with their free food programs, they may still incur costs in the form of debt from unpaid meals.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That’s what happened in 2023. When the U.S. ended a federal pandemic waiver allowing schools nationwide to offer free meals, districts reported accruing meal debt as high as $1.7 million, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://schoolnutrition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2023-School-Nutrition-Trends-Report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">report\u003c/a> by the School Nutrition Association.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>That’s what happened in 2023. When the U.S. ended a federal pandemic waiver allowing schools nationwide to offer free meals, districts reported accruing meal debt as high as $1.7 million, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://schoolnutrition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2023-School-Nutrition-Trends-Report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">report\u003c/a> by the School Nutrition Association.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/heading",
"attrs": {
"text": "The White House pushes healthy eating. It cut a landmark nutrition education program",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The White House pushes healthy eating. It cut a landmark nutrition education program\u003c/h2>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The White House pushes healthy eating. It cut a landmark nutrition education program\u003c/h2>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/07/29/nx-s1-5896280-e1/the-white-house-pushes-healthy-eating-it-cut-a-landmark-nutrition-education-program\">Nutrition advocates and public health experts are mystified by the decision to eliminate the landmark nutrition education program SNAP-Ed.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/07/29/nx-s1-5896280-e1/the-white-house-pushes-healthy-eating-it-cut-a-landmark-nutrition-education-program\">Nutrition advocates and public health experts are mystified by the decision to eliminate the landmark nutrition education program SNAP-Ed.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Unpaid meal debt becomes an issue not only for the school meal program, but for the school district budget, which has to pay teachers and for textbooks,” Pratt-Heavner says. “It’s just a no-win situation for anyone.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“Unpaid meal debt becomes an issue not only for the school meal program, but for the school district budget, which has to pay teachers and for textbooks,” Pratt-Heavner says. “It’s just a no-win situation for anyone.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Erin Bronner is the director of child nutrition and wellness for a small school district in central Phoenix that participates in the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). Arizona has seen the most dramatic decline in SNAP participation in the country, with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kjzz.org/politics/2026-04-09/study-arizona-snap-recipients-dropped-47-since-big-beautiful-bill-more-than-any-other-state\" target=\"_blank\">more than 400,000 people\u003c/a> — including about 180,000 children — losing food assistance over the past year.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Erin Bronner is the director of child nutrition and wellness for a small school district in central Phoenix that participates in the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). Arizona has seen the most dramatic decline in SNAP participation in the country, with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kjzz.org/politics/2026-04-09/study-arizona-snap-recipients-dropped-47-since-big-beautiful-bill-more-than-any-other-state\" target=\"_blank\">more than 400,000 people\u003c/a> — including about 180,000 children — losing food assistance over the past year.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Now, Bronner’s district is due to reapply for the provision next year. She says she’s worried whether her district can afford to keep offering universal free meals.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Now, Bronner’s district is due to reapply for the provision next year. She says she’s worried whether her district can afford to keep offering universal free meals.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Due to the dramatic decline in SNAP assistance, the percentage of eligible families [is] not high enough for us to be able to financially sustain operating this provision,” she says. “So we would actually lose money if we were to continue to operate CEP.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“Due to the dramatic decline in SNAP assistance, the percentage of eligible families [is] not high enough for us to be able to financially sustain operating this provision,” she says. “So we would actually lose money if we were to continue to operate CEP.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"attrs": {
"text": "The kids in the “danger zone”",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The kids in the “danger zone”\u003c/h2>\n",
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"\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The kids in the “danger zone”\u003c/h2>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Students qualify for free food at school if their family earns at or below 130% of the poverty line, which is \u003ca href=\"https://schoolnutrition.org/about-school-meals/school-meal-statistics/#eligibility\" target=\"_blank\">$42,900 for a family of four\u003c/a> in 2026. Reduced-price meals are offered to such families making $61,050 or less.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Students qualify for free food at school if their family earns at or below 130% of the poverty line, which is \u003ca href=\"https://schoolnutrition.org/about-school-meals/school-meal-statistics/#eligibility\" target=\"_blank\">$42,900 for a family of four\u003c/a> in 2026. Reduced-price meals are offered to such families making $61,050 or less.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>To access free or reduced-price meals, students can fill out a school meal application. But the form tends to be a source of confusion and administrative burden, according to Shoemaker DeMio.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>To access free or reduced-price meals, students can fill out a school meal application. But the form tends to be a source of confusion and administrative burden, according to Shoemaker DeMio.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“It’s easier and faster for children to get fed when meals are universally given rather than individually applied for,” she says.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“It’s easier and faster for children to get fed when meals are universally given rather than individually applied for,” she says.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/heading",
"attrs": {
"text": "How the new dietary guidelines could impact school meals",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How the new dietary guidelines could impact school meals\u003c/h2>\n",
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"\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How the new dietary guidelines could impact school meals\u003c/h2>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/02/05/nx-s1-5691598/school-lunch-food-pyramid-usda-dietary-guidelines\">Cutting back on ready-to-eat meals won’t be easy, and whole milk may make a comeback. One thing that’s certain: It’ll be a while before the new guidelines trickle down to schools.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/02/05/nx-s1-5691598/school-lunch-food-pyramid-usda-dietary-guidelines\">Cutting back on ready-to-eat meals won’t be easy, and whole milk may make a comeback. One thing that’s certain: It’ll be a while before the new guidelines trickle down to schools.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Another issue with the application is that it factors in only income and doesn’t take into account a family’s expenses or unique hardships, according to Pratt-Heavner. There are no exceptions or waivers.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Another issue with the application is that it factors in only income and doesn’t take into account a family’s expenses or unique hardships, according to Pratt-Heavner. There are no exceptions or waivers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“So, a family that’s struggling with a recent rent increase or has a family [member] undergoing cancer treatment may be spending more than they’re taking in and might not be eligible for any help at all,” she says.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>“So, a family that’s struggling with a recent rent increase or has a family [member] undergoing cancer treatment may be spending more than they’re taking in and might not be eligible for any help at all,” she says.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Bronner, in Arizona, calls it the “danger zone”: when a student’s family makes just above the income threshold but is still cash-strapped.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Bronner, in Arizona, calls it the “danger zone”: when a student’s family makes just above the income threshold but is still cash-strapped.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“They do fall through the cracks,” she says. “And because of where they fall income-wise, it doesn’t leave us too many options to try and provide an alternative for them.”\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>“They do fall through the cracks,” she says. “And because of where they fall income-wise, it doesn’t leave us too many options to try and provide an alternative for them.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>School policy experts say they’re also concerned for children of noncitizens, even though free or reduced-price meals are available to all students regardless of immigration status. They’re concerned because such children’s parents may be afraid to share personal information in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fna.usda.gov/schoolmeals/model-application/prototype\" target=\"_blank\">school meal application\u003c/a> — such as the last four digits of their Social Security number — amid a nationwide immigration crackdown.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>School policy experts say they’re also concerned for children of noncitizens, even though free or reduced-price meals are available to all students regardless of immigration status. They’re concerned because such children’s parents may be afraid to share personal information in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fna.usda.gov/schoolmeals/model-application/prototype\" target=\"_blank\">school meal application\u003c/a> — such as the last four digits of their Social Security number — amid a nationwide immigration crackdown.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Losing access to free meals could require families to spend on average nearly $1,000 per student each school year, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/article/congressional-republicans-big-beautiful-bill-threatens-access-to-free-school-meals/\" target=\"_blank\">Center for American Progress\u003c/a>. Shoemaker DeMio says that cost burden comes as many families are already grappling with high living costs and steep gas prices.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Losing access to free meals could require families to spend on average nearly $1,000 per student each school year, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/article/congressional-republicans-big-beautiful-bill-threatens-access-to-free-school-meals/\" target=\"_blank\">Center for American Progress\u003c/a>. Shoemaker DeMio says that cost burden comes as many families are already grappling with high living costs and steep gas prices.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“ That’s a lot of money,” she says. “Especially when we’re talking about these families who are on the cusp of eligibility and who are also facing an affordability crisis.”\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>“ That’s a lot of money,” she says. “Especially when we’re talking about these families who are on the cusp of eligibility and who are also facing an affordability crisis.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"text": "Concerns about growing hunger ",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Concerns about growing hunger \u003c/h2>\n",
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"\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Concerns about growing hunger \u003c/h2>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Currently, nine states offer \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/05/14/nx-s1-5688946/school-lunches-dietary-guidelines-maha\" target=\"_blank\">permanent universal free school meals\u003c/a>: California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York and Vermont. In recent years, other states have introduced legislation to move toward this direction.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Currently, nine states offer \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/05/14/nx-s1-5688946/school-lunches-dietary-guidelines-maha\" target=\"_blank\">permanent universal free school meals\u003c/a>: California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York and Vermont. In recent years, other states have introduced legislation to move toward this direction.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But those universal free meal programs also have been a topic of debate. Opponents \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/08/30/nx-s1-5092432/the-indicator-from-planet-money-a-food-fight-over-free-school-lunch\" target=\"_blank\">say that they’re costly\u003c/a> and that the government shouldn’t pay for students whose families can afford school meals. Meanwhile, advocates argue that school meals tend to be healthier and promote \u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/articles/schoolwide-free-meal-programs-fuel-better-classroom-outcomes-for-students/\" target=\"_blank\">better education outcomes\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But those universal free meal programs also have been a topic of debate. Opponents \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/08/30/nx-s1-5092432/the-indicator-from-planet-money-a-food-fight-over-free-school-lunch\" target=\"_blank\">say that they’re costly\u003c/a> and that the government shouldn’t pay for students whose families can afford school meals. Meanwhile, advocates argue that school meals tend to be healthier and promote \u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/articles/schoolwide-free-meal-programs-fuel-better-classroom-outcomes-for-students/\" target=\"_blank\">better education outcomes\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“ Schools provide books, they provide pencils, they even provide laptops these days to help students be ready to learn, and nutrition is no different,” Shoemaker DeMio says. “ Nutrition is a foundational ingredient to student success.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“ Schools provide books, they provide pencils, they even provide laptops these days to help students be ready to learn, and nutrition is no different,” Shoemaker DeMio says. “ Nutrition is a foundational ingredient to student success.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Sharon Glosson, the executive director of school nutrition at North East Independent School District in San Antonio, supports universal free school meals. Glosson says she has seen it remove stigma and shame for low-income students in the lunch line.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Sharon Glosson, the executive director of school nutrition at North East Independent School District in San Antonio, supports universal free school meals. Glosson says she has seen it remove stigma and shame for low-income students in the lunch line.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“ It’s open to everyone, and there’s no differentiation between those that qualify for free and reduced price and those that don’t,” she says.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“ It’s open to everyone, and there’s no differentiation between those that qualify for free and reduced price and those that don’t,” she says.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But this school year, her district announced that it would have to stop offering universal free meals at nearly half its campuses. Glosson believes the biggest factor was a decline in the number of families receiving food assistance — though the need to help ease hunger is still there.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But this school year, her district announced that it would have to stop offering universal free meals at nearly half its campuses. Glosson believes the biggest factor was a decline in the number of families receiving food assistance — though the need to help ease hunger is still there.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“We know that within our families in our school district, their economic status between now and four years ago, they don’t feel that it has improved to the point where they are now able to pay for school meals,” she says.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“We know that within our families in our school district, their economic status between now and four years ago, they don’t feel that it has improved to the point where they are now able to pay for school meals,” she says.\u003c/p>\n"
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"excerpt": "Food stamps have a direct link to other critical resources, such as free breakfast and lunch at school. Now, experts say they're starting to see that link break.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>When Republican lawmakers secured cuts to the United States’ largest food assistance program last year, Paige Shoemaker DeMio wasn’t worried about children going hungry just at home — but at school.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Anytime we’re hearing about cuts to SNAP or Medicaid, we’re worried about what’s going to be the domino effect of this,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Shoemaker DeMio is a senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. She usually focuses on K-12 education, but in recent months, she has been following the changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s because SNAP connects children with other critical resources, such as free breakfast and lunch at school. So when a family loses access to food assistance, the family’s child may stop automatically receiving free food at school. And when scores of families fall off SNAP, universal free meal programs at tens of thousands of schools fall into jeopardy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbpp.org/blog/number-of-children-receiving-snap-continues-to-drop-under-harmful-2025-republican\" target=\"_blank\">over a million children\u003c/a> have lost food benefits since July 2025, when the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed into law. Among the changes, the legislation \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/03/10/nx-s1-5737476/snap-trump-work-requirements-families\" target=\"_blank\">led to stricter work requirements\u003c/a> to receive food assistance.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Going into this academic year, dozens of schools nationwide have ended their universal free meal programs — including schools in San Antonio, \u003ca href=\"https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/education/2026/06/02/553471/hisd-free-meal-changes-houston-schools/\" target=\"_blank\">Houston\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.wlrn.org/education/2026-07-23/free-school-lunch-meals-miami-dade-schools\" target=\"_blank\">Miami-Dade County\u003c/a>. School nutrition experts say it’s unclear to what extent a decline in SNAP participation played a role. But Diane Pratt-Heavner, a spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association, which represents about 50,000 school nutrition professionals in the U.S., says that the full impact on free school meals will emerge in the coming years as SNAP changes take effect.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“This moment in time could potentially be a tip-of-an-iceberg situation,” she says “It could get much, much worse.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In a statement, the U.S. Agriculture Department, which administers SNAP and school meals on the federal level, said it invests $385 million for low-income communities and people in need of nutrition assistance.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“School meal programs have varying income limits, and while SNAP participation may ease the application process, a family not on SNAP is not automatically disallowed participation,” the department stated.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">School districts will have to reassess whether they can afford free meals \u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Agriculture Department’s Community Eligibility Provision helps pay for universal free meals at a school or district if at least a quarter of students participate in assistance programs like SNAP. (If it’s 62.5% or more, the federal government covers the full tab.) More than 49,000 public schools participated as of the 2024-2025 school year, \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/article/congressional-republicans-big-beautiful-bill-threatens-access-to-free-school-meals/\" target=\"_blank\">according to the Center for American Progress\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Federal reimbursement fluctuates based on the percentage of families receiving assistance. A decline in food stamp participation can lead to a decrease in federal funding, forcing schools to pay more for universal free food when their budgets are already stretched thin, according to Pratt-Heavner.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This could push schools to shift funds away from classroom needs or decide to stop offering universal free meals altogether, she adds. If districts decide to do away with their free food programs, they may still incur costs in the form of debt from unpaid meals.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s what happened in 2023. When the U.S. ended a federal pandemic waiver allowing schools nationwide to offer free meals, districts reported accruing meal debt as high as $1.7 million, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://schoolnutrition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2023-School-Nutrition-Trends-Report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">report\u003c/a> by the School Nutrition Association.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The White House pushes healthy eating. It cut a landmark nutrition education program\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/07/29/nx-s1-5896280-e1/the-white-house-pushes-healthy-eating-it-cut-a-landmark-nutrition-education-program\">Nutrition advocates and public health experts are mystified by the decision to eliminate the landmark nutrition education program SNAP-Ed.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Unpaid meal debt becomes an issue not only for the school meal program, but for the school district budget, which has to pay teachers and for textbooks,” Pratt-Heavner says. “It’s just a no-win situation for anyone.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Erin Bronner is the director of child nutrition and wellness for a small school district in central Phoenix that participates in the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). Arizona has seen the most dramatic decline in SNAP participation in the country, with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kjzz.org/politics/2026-04-09/study-arizona-snap-recipients-dropped-47-since-big-beautiful-bill-more-than-any-other-state\" target=\"_blank\">more than 400,000 people\u003c/a> — including about 180,000 children — losing food assistance over the past year.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Now, Bronner’s district is due to reapply for the provision next year. She says she’s worried whether her district can afford to keep offering universal free meals.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Due to the dramatic decline in SNAP assistance, the percentage of eligible families [is] not high enough for us to be able to financially sustain operating this provision,” she says. “So we would actually lose money if we were to continue to operate CEP.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The kids in the “danger zone”\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Students qualify for free food at school if their family earns at or below 130% of the poverty line, which is \u003ca href=\"https://schoolnutrition.org/about-school-meals/school-meal-statistics/#eligibility\" target=\"_blank\">$42,900 for a family of four\u003c/a> in 2026. Reduced-price meals are offered to such families making $61,050 or less.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>To access free or reduced-price meals, students can fill out a school meal application. But the form tends to be a source of confusion and administrative burden, according to Shoemaker DeMio.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“It’s easier and faster for children to get fed when meals are universally given rather than individually applied for,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How the new dietary guidelines could impact school meals\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/02/05/nx-s1-5691598/school-lunch-food-pyramid-usda-dietary-guidelines\">Cutting back on ready-to-eat meals won’t be easy, and whole milk may make a comeback. One thing that’s certain: It’ll be a while before the new guidelines trickle down to schools.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Another issue with the application is that it factors in only income and doesn’t take into account a family’s expenses or unique hardships, according to Pratt-Heavner. There are no exceptions or waivers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“So, a family that’s struggling with a recent rent increase or has a family [member] undergoing cancer treatment may be spending more than they’re taking in and might not be eligible for any help at all,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Bronner, in Arizona, calls it the “danger zone”: when a student’s family makes just above the income threshold but is still cash-strapped.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“They do fall through the cracks,” she says. “And because of where they fall income-wise, it doesn’t leave us too many options to try and provide an alternative for them.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>School policy experts say they’re also concerned for children of noncitizens, even though free or reduced-price meals are available to all students regardless of immigration status. They’re concerned because such children’s parents may be afraid to share personal information in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.fna.usda.gov/schoolmeals/model-application/prototype\" target=\"_blank\">school meal application\u003c/a> — such as the last four digits of their Social Security number — amid a nationwide immigration crackdown.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Losing access to free meals could require families to spend on average nearly $1,000 per student each school year, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/article/congressional-republicans-big-beautiful-bill-threatens-access-to-free-school-meals/\" target=\"_blank\">Center for American Progress\u003c/a>. Shoemaker DeMio says that cost burden comes as many families are already grappling with high living costs and steep gas prices.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“ That’s a lot of money,” she says. “Especially when we’re talking about these families who are on the cusp of eligibility and who are also facing an affordability crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Concerns about growing hunger \u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Currently, nine states offer \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/05/14/nx-s1-5688946/school-lunches-dietary-guidelines-maha\" target=\"_blank\">permanent universal free school meals\u003c/a>: California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York and Vermont. In recent years, other states have introduced legislation to move toward this direction.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But those universal free meal programs also have been a topic of debate. Opponents \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/08/30/nx-s1-5092432/the-indicator-from-planet-money-a-food-fight-over-free-school-lunch\" target=\"_blank\">say that they’re costly\u003c/a> and that the government shouldn’t pay for students whose families can afford school meals. Meanwhile, advocates argue that school meals tend to be healthier and promote \u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/articles/schoolwide-free-meal-programs-fuel-better-classroom-outcomes-for-students/\" target=\"_blank\">better education outcomes\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“ Schools provide books, they provide pencils, they even provide laptops these days to help students be ready to learn, and nutrition is no different,” Shoemaker DeMio says. “ Nutrition is a foundational ingredient to student success.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sharon Glosson, the executive director of school nutrition at North East Independent School District in San Antonio, supports universal free school meals. Glosson says she has seen it remove stigma and shame for low-income students in the lunch line.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“ It’s open to everyone, and there’s no differentiation between those that qualify for free and reduced price and those that don’t,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But this school year, her district announced that it would have to stop offering universal free meals at nearly half its campuses. Glosson believes the biggest factor was a decline in the number of families receiving food assistance — though the need to help ease hunger is still there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We know that within our families in our school district, their economic status between now and four years ago, they don’t feel that it has improved to the point where they are now able to pay for school meals,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "when-is-suspending-students-discrimination-education-department-renews-an-old-fight",
"title": "When Is Suspending Students Discrimination? Education Department Renews an Old Fight",
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"headTitle": "When Is Suspending Students Discrimination? Education Department Renews an Old Fight | KQED",
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"content": "\n\u003cp>The U.S. Department of Education recently announced it was investigating Fayetteville Public Schools in Arkansas, much to the district’s surprise.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The reason, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-directs-schools-stop-racial-balancing-student-discipline-policies-investigates-two-school-districts\" target=\"_blank\">a department press release\u003c/a>: Teachers there “were directed to take students’ racial identities into account when issuing discipline as part of an effort to bring about ‘restorative justice’ to address ‘the disproportionality of discipline on students of color.'”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Superintendent John Mulford says the district received notice of the investigation roughly two hours before the department publicly named Fayetteville as a target in its national release.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We’re a little shocked at this point and completely in the dark as to what this is even about,” Mulford says.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In the same announcement, the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/media/document/dear-colleague-letter-guidance-pupil-discipline-and-compliance-title-vi-august-18-2026-114385.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">new federal guidance\u003c/a> warning school leaders that they should not consider a student’s race in discipline matters or they would risk being investigated.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“The hardest part to swallow,” Mulford says, is that “ever since I’ve been here, we’ve done extensive work around the consistency of our discipline policy … so that it takes away any ambiguity at all.” And that, Mulford says, “aligns very well with [federal civil rights law].”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s why, he says, he’s “a little taken aback.” For now, he’s left to wait for clarity from the department.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The new guidance and the Fayetteville investigation reopen an old and bitter civil rights fight over discipline in the nation’s K-12 schools — and what qualifies as discrimination.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>The potential for discrimination in school discipline\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Multiple \u003ca href=\"https://ocrcas.ed.gov/sites/default/files/ocr-letters-and-agreements/05221177-a.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">federal\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://ocrcas.ed.gov/sites/default/files/ocr-letters-and-agreements/08231007-a.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">investigations\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://ocrcas.ed.gov/sites/default/files/ocr-letters-and-agreements/11221530-a.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">have found\u003c/a> that discrimination still plagues America’s schools, even as it’s been illegal for decades, thanks to federal civil rights law.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But what if a school policy \u003cem>seems\u003c/em> neutral — until you dig into its impact on students? What if data shows that the policy is disproportionately hurting one group? Is that also discrimination?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In 2014, the Obama administration issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/laws-and-policy/civil-rights-laws/race-color-and-national-origin-discrimination/dear-colleague-letter-nondiscriminatory-administration-of-school-discipline-rescinded\" target=\"_blank\">guidance\u003c/a> to the nation’s schools arguing that discipline data — showing who was being suspended or expelled, for how long and how frequently — often revealed large, potentially discriminatory impacts on students of color.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>According to federal data at the time, the guidance said, African American students represented just 15% of students overall but 35% of students suspended once and 44% of students suspended more than once. (NPR has reported that this trend actually \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/06/20/482472535/why-preschool-suspensions-still-happen-and-how-to-stop-them\" target=\"_blank\">begins in preschool\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>An American Psychological Association \u003ca href=\"https://www.apa.org/pubs/reports/zero-tolerance.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">task force\u003c/a> found no evidence that these disparities reflected differences in student behavior; instead, the APA said they “may be due to lack of teacher preparation in classroom management, lack of training in culturally competent practices, or racial stereotypes.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Reflecting on why she sent that 2014 memo, Catherine Lhamon, who ran OCR under Presidents Obama and Biden, tells NPR that given our nation’s history, not looking carefully at school discipline rates through the lens of race would have been an abdication.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“The very first desegregation agreements that [OCR] was created by Congress to enforce included requirements that discriminatory discipline practices end,” Lhamon says. These practices, she says, are “a feature of discrimination. And it’s something that we have seen persist in schools over decades.” And so, as head of the department’s civil rights enforcement unit, Lhamon warned school leaders that these disparities were not acceptable and “give rise to concerns that schools may be engaging in racial discrimination that violates the Federal civil rights laws.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In other words, they needed to look hard at their data to see if the numbers revealed meaningful racial disparities. If so, they could be investigated by the U.S. government.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Schools got the message.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In the years after that 2014 guidance, NPR reported that many school districts mounted a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/03/23/521070924/school-suspensions-have-plunged-we-don-t-yet-know-if-that-s-good-news\" target=\"_blank\">dramatic shift\u003c/a> away from suspension and expulsion and toward the use of policies that kept students in school, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/series/557324733/a-year-at-ron-brown-high-school\" target=\"_blank\">restorative justice\u003c/a>, which emphasizes dialogue and mediation over punishment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>By 2018, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/12/17/677508707/suspensions-are-down-in-u-s-schools-but-large-racial-gaps-remain\" target=\"_blank\">NPR reported\u003c/a> that the share of students suspended at least once had dropped from 5.6% to 4.7%, with Hispanic students seeing a 30% drop. Black students and students with disabilities also saw big drops, though suspension rates for both groups remained high.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Enforcement of this policy continued even into the first Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In late 2018, OCR reached \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/media/document/11101311-apdf-31083.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">an agreement\u003c/a> with Wake County Public School System in North Carolina after finding that, among other things, Black students being disciplined for their first offense were more likely to be suspended than similarly situated white students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>The backlash\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After the 2014 guidance, conservative critics accused Lhamon of heavy-handedness, arguing that districts began going easy on disruptive, perhaps dangerous students out of a fear that any difference in their discipline rates between student groups would be considered discrimination.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In 2018, conservative commentator Max Eden, who would go on to work in the second Trump administration, \u003ca href=\"https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/disparate-impact-school-discipline-never-has-been-never-should-be\" target=\"_blank\">wrote that\u003c/a> “school districts must never again be presumed guilty and unable to prove their innocence, and kids should never again be put in danger because of statistics.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Eden argued that these relaxed discipline policies may also have made classrooms \u003ca href=\"https://www.the74million.org/article/eden-studies-and-teachers-nationwide-say-school-discipline-reform-is-harming-students-academic-achievement-and-safety/\" target=\"_blank\">more disruptive\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In December 2018, a game of ping-pong began: The first Trump administration issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/media/document/colleague-201812pdf-35093.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">new guidance\u003c/a> formally rescinding Lhamon’s.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In 2023, after returning to lead the Biden-era OCR, Lhamon \u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/press-release/file/1585291/dl?inline\" target=\"_blank\">again advised schools\u003c/a> that they could be held accountable if their discipline data revealed concerning disparities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But the backlash also continued, fueled by a COVID-driven \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/20/nyregion/safety-incidents-nyc-schools-police-discipline.html\" target=\"_blank\">spike in student misbehavior\u003c/a>, which led to more \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/schoolsurvey/spp/\" target=\"_blank\">classroom disruptions\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/03/17/1087137571/school-violence-teachers-covid\" target=\"_blank\">stories\u003c/a> of teachers feeling victimized by students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Classroom discipline even became a talking point in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/how-did-school-discipline-get-dragged-into-the-presidential-election/2024/09\" target=\"_blank\">2024 presidential campaign\u003c/a>. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-party-platform\" target=\"_blank\">Republican platform\u003c/a> pledged that candidates “will support overhauling standards on school discipline [and] advocate for immediate suspension of violent students.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In April 2025, after Trump’s return to the White House, he made good on that pledge and signed \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/reinstating-common-sense-school-discipline-policies/\" target=\"_blank\">an executive order\u003c/a> titled “Reinstating Common Sense School Discipline Policies.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And finally, there’s this month’s guidance, signed by Kimberly Richey, the current head of OCR. In an interview with NPR, Richey says that, today, “classrooms are less safe, they are more disruptive, and that is all a fruit of this policy. And that’s why we’re ending it.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>The new guidance\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The latest guidance from the Trump administration argues that, under the previous policy, “schools ignored or covered up — rather than disciplined — student misconduct to avoid any purported racial disparity in discipline numbers that might catch the eye of the federal government. As a result, students who should have been suspended, expelled, or otherwise held accountable for dangerous or disruptive behavior remained in the classroom.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Richey argues that the goal of OCR’s previous approach was what she calls “racial balance”: “To make sure that the number of African-American students [being disciplined], the number of Hispanic students, the number of white students, the number of Asian students — that it was equal across the board.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But, Richey says, this idea that any difference in discipline rates is a sign of discrimination — “that everything has to be equal and, if it’s not, it’s inherently discriminatory… That’s false.\u003cem>“\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In the new guidance, Richey doesn’t just warn schools against this kind of balancing. She advises schools that weighing discipline policies with any consideration of race, even if it’s in the name of identifying and addressing disparities, is itself discriminatory and illegal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As the new guidance puts it: “The consideration of race in student discipline is race discrimination.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Civil rights groups, including EdTrust, which focuses on education equity, reject this view.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Schools must be able to examine who is being suspended, expelled, or referred to law enforcement, why those decisions are being made, and whether students are being treated differently for similar behavior,” EdTrust’s Eric Duncan \u003ca href=\"https://edtrust.org/press-room/guidance-restricting-race-disparities-in-school-discipline/\" target=\"_blank\">said in a statement\u003c/a>. “That is not preferential treatment. It is basic accountability to ensure all students are valued.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And Lhamon argues that by telling schools they cannot consider race, disparities won’t go away. They’ll simply become invisible to everyone except the students who are being hurt.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>She says this new guidance “is a scare tactic… designed to ensure that some of our kids in school will experience extraordinary harm.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Richey argues the opposite: This consideration of race isn’t a tool of the law — it breaks the law.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“You cannot take race into account when you’re disciplining students. It can’t play a factor, and the racial balancing must end,” Richey says.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>The investigations\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Fayetteville is one of two districts the department says it is investigating — the other is Milwaukee Public Schools. Little is known about why these two were singled out beyond what was included in the department’s press release.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Of Milwaukee, the department release says, “education leaders derided facially neutral school policies as reflecting systemic ‘whiteness,’ seemingly encouraging school officials to consider race in disciplinary practices.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But, in response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for Milwaukee Public Schools said that the notice it had received from the Education Department didn’t explain the reason for the investigation, and “Once we receive more detail, we would be able to respond appropriately.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In Fayetteville, Superintendent Mulford, now in his fourth year running the district, says his team does review the district’s discipline data. But, he adds, “we never talk about, ‘Hey, go softer or harder on this particular group of people.’ That doesn’t even come into our language at all. So we preach consistency, the standard is the standard, everybody’s held to the standard.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Mulford says he welcomes the department and its investigation. If it finds something, he says, “Great. Share it with us. If we’re doing something wrong, we’ll get it fixed.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But, if they’re looking for inconsistency, Mulford says, he doubts they’ll find it in Fayetteville.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Research shows that Black, Hispanic and Native American students are more likely than their white peers to be suspended or expelled from school. And the past four presidential administrations have been battling over what to do about it. Should schools try to address racial disparities, or is that itself illegal? As NPR’s Cory Turner explains, the U.S. Education Department recently reopened that debate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>CORY TURNER, BYLINE: Superintendent John Mulford runs the public schools in Fayetteville, Arkansas.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>JOHN MULFORD: We’re a little shocked at this point and completely in the dark as to what this is even about.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>TURNER: Earlier this month, Mulford says, the Education Department announced it would be investigating his district for racial discrimination. The department press release suggested that in Fayetteville, teachers had been told to be more lenient with students of color to make up for disparities in their discipline data.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>MULFORD: Yeah, we read that in the press release. We have no idea where that claim came from.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>TURNER: Mulford says he and his staff regularly review their discipline data, and they talk about how they can support kids who are getting suspended more frequently by trying to get at the root of the problem.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>MULFORD: But we never talk about, hey, go softer or harder on this particular group of people. The standard is the standard, but depending on a kid’s background, they may need different supports to get to that standard.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>TURNER: The standard that’s changed is the Education Department’s and how it interprets federal civil rights law.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>CATHERINE LHAMON: The kinds of race discrimination that we find in schools are not subtle.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>TURNER: Catherine Lhamon ran the department’s civil rights office during both the Obama and Biden administrations, and she says the office has long pushed back against schools that discipline students of color at higher rates or more harshly compared to white students who’ve broken the same rules.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>LHAMON: The very first desegregation agreements included requirements that discriminatory discipline practices end, and it’s something that we have seen persist in schools over decades.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>TURNER: And so under both Obama and Biden, Lhamon warned schools that disparities in student discipline rates might be considered discrimination and trigger an investigation. Kimberly Richey had Lhamon’s job during the first Trump administration and is back again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>KIMBERLY RICHEY: When you tell a school that there can be no disparities, schools are going to make sure that their data look good, and they’re going to do that by either ignoring incidents or not reporting them or letting student misbehavior slide.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>TURNER: Richey says, in an effort to avoid being accused of discipline discrimination, schools have essentially been discriminating.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>RICHEY: We have heard from teachers and from school leaders for decades that they have been told either you cannot discipline African American and Hispanic students or you can only discipline white and Asian students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>TURNER: And so earlier this month, Richey sent new guidance to the nation’s schools. Her message – you cannot consider race at all when it comes to discipline. Put another way…\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>RICHEY: You cannot address discrimination by requiring more of it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>TURNER: Catherine Lhamon calls this new guidance a fundamental misreading of civil rights law. She also worries that schools will stop looking for disparities, let alone trying to address them, if they think doing so will put them at risk of an investigation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>LHAMON: Telling our school communities, look away, don’t even evaluate that question, do not even consider race – which is what this letter says – that puts our kids in danger.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>TURNER: This whipsawing in federal policy has put schools in a bind, with the federal government alternating between two very different messages – either that schools should be vigilant about disparities in their discipline to make sure they’re not discriminating, or it’s focusing too much on disparities and how to change them that will get you into trouble. Cory Turner, NPR News.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The reason, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-directs-schools-stop-racial-balancing-student-discipline-policies-investigates-two-school-districts\" target=\"_blank\">a department press release\u003c/a>: Teachers there “were directed to take students’ racial identities into account when issuing discipline as part of an effort to bring about ‘restorative justice’ to address ‘the disproportionality of discipline on students of color.'”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The reason, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-directs-schools-stop-racial-balancing-student-discipline-policies-investigates-two-school-districts\" target=\"_blank\">a department press release\u003c/a>: Teachers there “were directed to take students’ racial identities into account when issuing discipline as part of an effort to bring about ‘restorative justice’ to address ‘the disproportionality of discipline on students of color.'”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Superintendent John Mulford says the district received notice of the investigation roughly two hours before the department publicly named Fayetteville as a target in its national release.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Superintendent John Mulford says the district received notice of the investigation roughly two hours before the department publicly named Fayetteville as a target in its national release.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“We’re a little shocked at this point and completely in the dark as to what this is even about,” Mulford says.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“We’re a little shocked at this point and completely in the dark as to what this is even about,” Mulford says.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In the same announcement, the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/media/document/dear-colleague-letter-guidance-pupil-discipline-and-compliance-title-vi-august-18-2026-114385.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">new federal guidance\u003c/a> warning school leaders that they should not consider a student’s race in discipline matters or they would risk being investigated.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In the same announcement, the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/media/document/dear-colleague-letter-guidance-pupil-discipline-and-compliance-title-vi-august-18-2026-114385.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">new federal guidance\u003c/a> warning school leaders that they should not consider a student’s race in discipline matters or they would risk being investigated.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“The hardest part to swallow,” Mulford says, is that “ever since I’ve been here, we’ve done extensive work around the consistency of our discipline policy … so that it takes away any ambiguity at all.” And that, Mulford says, “aligns very well with [federal civil rights law].”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“The hardest part to swallow,” Mulford says, is that “ever since I’ve been here, we’ve done extensive work around the consistency of our discipline policy … so that it takes away any ambiguity at all.” And that, Mulford says, “aligns very well with [federal civil rights law].”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That’s why, he says, he’s “a little taken aback.” For now, he’s left to wait for clarity from the department.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>That’s why, he says, he’s “a little taken aback.” For now, he’s left to wait for clarity from the department.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The new guidance and the Fayetteville investigation reopen an old and bitter civil rights fight over discipline in the nation’s K-12 schools — and what qualifies as discrimination.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The new guidance and the Fayetteville investigation reopen an old and bitter civil rights fight over discipline in the nation’s K-12 schools — and what qualifies as discrimination.\u003c/p>\n"
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"text": "The potential for discrimination in school discipline",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>The potential for discrimination in school discipline\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n",
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"\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>The potential for discrimination in school discipline\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Multiple \u003ca href=\"https://ocrcas.ed.gov/sites/default/files/ocr-letters-and-agreements/05221177-a.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">federal\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://ocrcas.ed.gov/sites/default/files/ocr-letters-and-agreements/08231007-a.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">investigations\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://ocrcas.ed.gov/sites/default/files/ocr-letters-and-agreements/11221530-a.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">have found\u003c/a> that discrimination still plagues America’s schools, even as it’s been illegal for decades, thanks to federal civil rights law.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Multiple \u003ca href=\"https://ocrcas.ed.gov/sites/default/files/ocr-letters-and-agreements/05221177-a.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">federal\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://ocrcas.ed.gov/sites/default/files/ocr-letters-and-agreements/08231007-a.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">investigations\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://ocrcas.ed.gov/sites/default/files/ocr-letters-and-agreements/11221530-a.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">have found\u003c/a> that discrimination still plagues America’s schools, even as it’s been illegal for decades, thanks to federal civil rights law.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But what if a school policy \u003cem>seems\u003c/em> neutral — until you dig into its impact on students? What if data shows that the policy is disproportionately hurting one group? Is that also discrimination?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But what if a school policy \u003cem>seems\u003c/em> neutral — until you dig into its impact on students? What if data shows that the policy is disproportionately hurting one group? Is that also discrimination?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In 2014, the Obama administration issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/laws-and-policy/civil-rights-laws/race-color-and-national-origin-discrimination/dear-colleague-letter-nondiscriminatory-administration-of-school-discipline-rescinded\" target=\"_blank\">guidance\u003c/a> to the nation’s schools arguing that discipline data — showing who was being suspended or expelled, for how long and how frequently — often revealed large, potentially discriminatory impacts on students of color.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>In 2014, the Obama administration issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/laws-and-policy/civil-rights-laws/race-color-and-national-origin-discrimination/dear-colleague-letter-nondiscriminatory-administration-of-school-discipline-rescinded\" target=\"_blank\">guidance\u003c/a> to the nation’s schools arguing that discipline data — showing who was being suspended or expelled, for how long and how frequently — often revealed large, potentially discriminatory impacts on students of color.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>According to federal data at the time, the guidance said, African American students represented just 15% of students overall but 35% of students suspended once and 44% of students suspended more than once. (NPR has reported that this trend actually \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/06/20/482472535/why-preschool-suspensions-still-happen-and-how-to-stop-them\" target=\"_blank\">begins in preschool\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>According to federal data at the time, the guidance said, African American students represented just 15% of students overall but 35% of students suspended once and 44% of students suspended more than once. (NPR has reported that this trend actually \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/06/20/482472535/why-preschool-suspensions-still-happen-and-how-to-stop-them\" target=\"_blank\">begins in preschool\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>An American Psychological Association \u003ca href=\"https://www.apa.org/pubs/reports/zero-tolerance.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">task force\u003c/a> found no evidence that these disparities reflected differences in student behavior; instead, the APA said they “may be due to lack of teacher preparation in classroom management, lack of training in culturally competent practices, or racial stereotypes.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>An American Psychological Association \u003ca href=\"https://www.apa.org/pubs/reports/zero-tolerance.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">task force\u003c/a> found no evidence that these disparities reflected differences in student behavior; instead, the APA said they “may be due to lack of teacher preparation in classroom management, lack of training in culturally competent practices, or racial stereotypes.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Reflecting on why she sent that 2014 memo, Catherine Lhamon, who ran OCR under Presidents Obama and Biden, tells NPR that given our nation’s history, not looking carefully at school discipline rates through the lens of race would have been an abdication.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Reflecting on why she sent that 2014 memo, Catherine Lhamon, who ran OCR under Presidents Obama and Biden, tells NPR that given our nation’s history, not looking carefully at school discipline rates through the lens of race would have been an abdication.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“The very first desegregation agreements that [OCR] was created by Congress to enforce included requirements that discriminatory discipline practices end,” Lhamon says. These practices, she says, are “a feature of discrimination. And it’s something that we have seen persist in schools over decades.” And so, as head of the department’s civil rights enforcement unit, Lhamon warned school leaders that these disparities were not acceptable and “give rise to concerns that schools may be engaging in racial discrimination that violates the Federal civil rights laws.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“The very first desegregation agreements that [OCR] was created by Congress to enforce included requirements that discriminatory discipline practices end,” Lhamon says. These practices, she says, are “a feature of discrimination. And it’s something that we have seen persist in schools over decades.” And so, as head of the department’s civil rights enforcement unit, Lhamon warned school leaders that these disparities were not acceptable and “give rise to concerns that schools may be engaging in racial discrimination that violates the Federal civil rights laws.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In other words, they needed to look hard at their data to see if the numbers revealed meaningful racial disparities. If so, they could be investigated by the U.S. government.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In other words, they needed to look hard at their data to see if the numbers revealed meaningful racial disparities. If so, they could be investigated by the U.S. government.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Schools got the message.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Schools got the message.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In the years after that 2014 guidance, NPR reported that many school districts mounted a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/03/23/521070924/school-suspensions-have-plunged-we-don-t-yet-know-if-that-s-good-news\" target=\"_blank\">dramatic shift\u003c/a> away from suspension and expulsion and toward the use of policies that kept students in school, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/series/557324733/a-year-at-ron-brown-high-school\" target=\"_blank\">restorative justice\u003c/a>, which emphasizes dialogue and mediation over punishment.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>In the years after that 2014 guidance, NPR reported that many school districts mounted a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/03/23/521070924/school-suspensions-have-plunged-we-don-t-yet-know-if-that-s-good-news\" target=\"_blank\">dramatic shift\u003c/a> away from suspension and expulsion and toward the use of policies that kept students in school, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/series/557324733/a-year-at-ron-brown-high-school\" target=\"_blank\">restorative justice\u003c/a>, which emphasizes dialogue and mediation over punishment.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>By 2018, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/12/17/677508707/suspensions-are-down-in-u-s-schools-but-large-racial-gaps-remain\" target=\"_blank\">NPR reported\u003c/a> that the share of students suspended at least once had dropped from 5.6% to 4.7%, with Hispanic students seeing a 30% drop. Black students and students with disabilities also saw big drops, though suspension rates for both groups remained high.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>By 2018, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/12/17/677508707/suspensions-are-down-in-u-s-schools-but-large-racial-gaps-remain\" target=\"_blank\">NPR reported\u003c/a> that the share of students suspended at least once had dropped from 5.6% to 4.7%, with Hispanic students seeing a 30% drop. Black students and students with disabilities also saw big drops, though suspension rates for both groups remained high.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Enforcement of this policy continued even into the first Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Enforcement of this policy continued even into the first Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In late 2018, OCR reached \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/media/document/11101311-apdf-31083.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">an agreement\u003c/a> with Wake County Public School System in North Carolina after finding that, among other things, Black students being disciplined for their first offense were more likely to be suspended than similarly situated white students.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In late 2018, OCR reached \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/media/document/11101311-apdf-31083.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">an agreement\u003c/a> with Wake County Public School System in North Carolina after finding that, among other things, Black students being disciplined for their first offense were more likely to be suspended than similarly situated white students.\u003c/p>\n"
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"text": "The backlash",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>The backlash\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n",
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"\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>The backlash\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>After the 2014 guidance, conservative critics accused Lhamon of heavy-handedness, arguing that districts began going easy on disruptive, perhaps dangerous students out of a fear that any difference in their discipline rates between student groups would be considered discrimination.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>After the 2014 guidance, conservative critics accused Lhamon of heavy-handedness, arguing that districts began going easy on disruptive, perhaps dangerous students out of a fear that any difference in their discipline rates between student groups would be considered discrimination.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In 2018, conservative commentator Max Eden, who would go on to work in the second Trump administration, \u003ca href=\"https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/disparate-impact-school-discipline-never-has-been-never-should-be\" target=\"_blank\">wrote that\u003c/a> “school districts must never again be presumed guilty and unable to prove their innocence, and kids should never again be put in danger because of statistics.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In 2018, conservative commentator Max Eden, who would go on to work in the second Trump administration, \u003ca href=\"https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/disparate-impact-school-discipline-never-has-been-never-should-be\" target=\"_blank\">wrote that\u003c/a> “school districts must never again be presumed guilty and unable to prove their innocence, and kids should never again be put in danger because of statistics.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Eden argued that these relaxed discipline policies may also have made classrooms \u003ca href=\"https://www.the74million.org/article/eden-studies-and-teachers-nationwide-say-school-discipline-reform-is-harming-students-academic-achievement-and-safety/\" target=\"_blank\">more disruptive\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Eden argued that these relaxed discipline policies may also have made classrooms \u003ca href=\"https://www.the74million.org/article/eden-studies-and-teachers-nationwide-say-school-discipline-reform-is-harming-students-academic-achievement-and-safety/\" target=\"_blank\">more disruptive\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In December 2018, a game of ping-pong began: The first Trump administration issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/media/document/colleague-201812pdf-35093.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">new guidance\u003c/a> formally rescinding Lhamon’s.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In December 2018, a game of ping-pong began: The first Trump administration issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/media/document/colleague-201812pdf-35093.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">new guidance\u003c/a> formally rescinding Lhamon’s.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In 2023, after returning to lead the Biden-era OCR, Lhamon \u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/press-release/file/1585291/dl?inline\" target=\"_blank\">again advised schools\u003c/a> that they could be held accountable if their discipline data revealed concerning disparities.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>In 2023, after returning to lead the Biden-era OCR, Lhamon \u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/press-release/file/1585291/dl?inline\" target=\"_blank\">again advised schools\u003c/a> that they could be held accountable if their discipline data revealed concerning disparities.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But the backlash also continued, fueled by a COVID-driven \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/20/nyregion/safety-incidents-nyc-schools-police-discipline.html\" target=\"_blank\">spike in student misbehavior\u003c/a>, which led to more \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/schoolsurvey/spp/\" target=\"_blank\">classroom disruptions\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/03/17/1087137571/school-violence-teachers-covid\" target=\"_blank\">stories\u003c/a> of teachers feeling victimized by students.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>But the backlash also continued, fueled by a COVID-driven \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/20/nyregion/safety-incidents-nyc-schools-police-discipline.html\" target=\"_blank\">spike in student misbehavior\u003c/a>, which led to more \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/schoolsurvey/spp/\" target=\"_blank\">classroom disruptions\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/03/17/1087137571/school-violence-teachers-covid\" target=\"_blank\">stories\u003c/a> of teachers feeling victimized by students.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Classroom discipline even became a talking point in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/how-did-school-discipline-get-dragged-into-the-presidential-election/2024/09\" target=\"_blank\">2024 presidential campaign\u003c/a>. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-party-platform\" target=\"_blank\">Republican platform\u003c/a> pledged that candidates “will support overhauling standards on school discipline [and] advocate for immediate suspension of violent students.”\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Classroom discipline even became a talking point in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/how-did-school-discipline-get-dragged-into-the-presidential-election/2024/09\" target=\"_blank\">2024 presidential campaign\u003c/a>. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-party-platform\" target=\"_blank\">Republican platform\u003c/a> pledged that candidates “will support overhauling standards on school discipline [and] advocate for immediate suspension of violent students.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In April 2025, after Trump’s return to the White House, he made good on that pledge and signed \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/reinstating-common-sense-school-discipline-policies/\" target=\"_blank\">an executive order\u003c/a> titled “Reinstating Common Sense School Discipline Policies.”\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>In April 2025, after Trump’s return to the White House, he made good on that pledge and signed \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/reinstating-common-sense-school-discipline-policies/\" target=\"_blank\">an executive order\u003c/a> titled “Reinstating Common Sense School Discipline Policies.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And finally, there’s this month’s guidance, signed by Kimberly Richey, the current head of OCR. In an interview with NPR, Richey says that, today, “classrooms are less safe, they are more disruptive, and that is all a fruit of this policy. And that’s why we’re ending it.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And finally, there’s this month’s guidance, signed by Kimberly Richey, the current head of OCR. In an interview with NPR, Richey says that, today, “classrooms are less safe, they are more disruptive, and that is all a fruit of this policy. And that’s why we’re ending it.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/heading",
"attrs": {
"text": "The new guidance",
"level": 2
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>The new guidance\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n",
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"\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>The new guidance\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The latest guidance from the Trump administration argues that, under the previous policy, “schools ignored or covered up — rather than disciplined — student misconduct to avoid any purported racial disparity in discipline numbers that might catch the eye of the federal government. As a result, students who should have been suspended, expelled, or otherwise held accountable for dangerous or disruptive behavior remained in the classroom.”\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>The latest guidance from the Trump administration argues that, under the previous policy, “schools ignored or covered up — rather than disciplined — student misconduct to avoid any purported racial disparity in discipline numbers that might catch the eye of the federal government. As a result, students who should have been suspended, expelled, or otherwise held accountable for dangerous or disruptive behavior remained in the classroom.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Richey argues that the goal of OCR’s previous approach was what she calls “racial balance”: “To make sure that the number of African-American students [being disciplined], the number of Hispanic students, the number of white students, the number of Asian students — that it was equal across the board.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Richey argues that the goal of OCR’s previous approach was what she calls “racial balance”: “To make sure that the number of African-American students [being disciplined], the number of Hispanic students, the number of white students, the number of Asian students — that it was equal across the board.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But, Richey says, this idea that any difference in discipline rates is a sign of discrimination — “that everything has to be equal and, if it’s not, it’s inherently discriminatory… That’s false.\u003cem>“\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But, Richey says, this idea that any difference in discipline rates is a sign of discrimination — “that everything has to be equal and, if it’s not, it’s inherently discriminatory… That’s false.\u003cem>“\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In the new guidance, Richey doesn’t just warn schools against this kind of balancing. She advises schools that weighing discipline policies with any consideration of race, even if it’s in the name of identifying and addressing disparities, is itself discriminatory and illegal.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In the new guidance, Richey doesn’t just warn schools against this kind of balancing. She advises schools that weighing discipline policies with any consideration of race, even if it’s in the name of identifying and addressing disparities, is itself discriminatory and illegal.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>As the new guidance puts it: “The consideration of race in student discipline is race discrimination.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>As the new guidance puts it: “The consideration of race in student discipline is race discrimination.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Civil rights groups, including EdTrust, which focuses on education equity, reject this view.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Civil rights groups, including EdTrust, which focuses on education equity, reject this view.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Schools must be able to examine who is being suspended, expelled, or referred to law enforcement, why those decisions are being made, and whether students are being treated differently for similar behavior,” EdTrust’s Eric Duncan \u003ca href=\"https://edtrust.org/press-room/guidance-restricting-race-disparities-in-school-discipline/\" target=\"_blank\">said in a statement\u003c/a>. “That is not preferential treatment. It is basic accountability to ensure all students are valued.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“Schools must be able to examine who is being suspended, expelled, or referred to law enforcement, why those decisions are being made, and whether students are being treated differently for similar behavior,” EdTrust’s Eric Duncan \u003ca href=\"https://edtrust.org/press-room/guidance-restricting-race-disparities-in-school-discipline/\" target=\"_blank\">said in a statement\u003c/a>. “That is not preferential treatment. It is basic accountability to ensure all students are valued.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And Lhamon argues that by telling schools they cannot consider race, disparities won’t go away. They’ll simply become invisible to everyone except the students who are being hurt.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And Lhamon argues that by telling schools they cannot consider race, disparities won’t go away. They’ll simply become invisible to everyone except the students who are being hurt.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>She says this new guidance “is a scare tactic… designed to ensure that some of our kids in school will experience extraordinary harm.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>She says this new guidance “is a scare tactic… designed to ensure that some of our kids in school will experience extraordinary harm.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Richey argues the opposite: This consideration of race isn’t a tool of the law — it breaks the law.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Richey argues the opposite: This consideration of race isn’t a tool of the law — it breaks the law.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“You cannot take race into account when you’re disciplining students. It can’t play a factor, and the racial balancing must end,” Richey says.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>“You cannot take race into account when you’re disciplining students. It can’t play a factor, and the racial balancing must end,” Richey says.\u003c/p>\n"
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{
"blockName": "core/heading",
"attrs": {
"text": "The investigations",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>The investigations\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n",
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"\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>The investigations\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Fayetteville is one of two districts the department says it is investigating — the other is Milwaukee Public Schools. Little is known about why these two were singled out beyond what was included in the department’s press release.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Fayetteville is one of two districts the department says it is investigating — the other is Milwaukee Public Schools. Little is known about why these two were singled out beyond what was included in the department’s press release.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Of Milwaukee, the department release says, “education leaders derided facially neutral school policies as reflecting systemic ‘whiteness,’ seemingly encouraging school officials to consider race in disciplinary practices.”\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Of Milwaukee, the department release says, “education leaders derided facially neutral school policies as reflecting systemic ‘whiteness,’ seemingly encouraging school officials to consider race in disciplinary practices.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But, in response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for Milwaukee Public Schools said that the notice it had received from the Education Department didn’t explain the reason for the investigation, and “Once we receive more detail, we would be able to respond appropriately.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But, in response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for Milwaukee Public Schools said that the notice it had received from the Education Department didn’t explain the reason for the investigation, and “Once we receive more detail, we would be able to respond appropriately.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In Fayetteville, Superintendent Mulford, now in his fourth year running the district, says his team does review the district’s discipline data. But, he adds, “we never talk about, ‘Hey, go softer or harder on this particular group of people.’ That doesn’t even come into our language at all. So we preach consistency, the standard is the standard, everybody’s held to the standard.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In Fayetteville, Superintendent Mulford, now in his fourth year running the district, says his team does review the district’s discipline data. But, he adds, “we never talk about, ‘Hey, go softer or harder on this particular group of people.’ That doesn’t even come into our language at all. So we preach consistency, the standard is the standard, everybody’s held to the standard.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Mulford says he welcomes the department and its investigation. If it finds something, he says, “Great. Share it with us. If we’re doing something wrong, we’ll get it fixed.”\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Mulford says he welcomes the department and its investigation. If it finds something, he says, “Great. Share it with us. If we’re doing something wrong, we’ll get it fixed.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But, if they’re looking for inconsistency, Mulford says, he doubts they’ll find it in Fayetteville.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>But, if they’re looking for inconsistency, Mulford says, he doubts they’ll find it in Fayetteville.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n"
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"attrs": {
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"attrs": {
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Research shows that Black, Hispanic and Native American students are more likely than their white peers to be suspended or expelled from school. And the past four presidential administrations have been battling over what to do about it. Should schools try to address racial disparities, or is that itself illegal? As NPR’s Cory Turner explains, the U.S. Education Department recently reopened that debate.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Research shows that Black, Hispanic and Native American students are more likely than their white peers to be suspended or expelled from school. And the past four presidential administrations have been battling over what to do about it. Should schools try to address racial disparities, or is that itself illegal? As NPR’s Cory Turner explains, the U.S. Education Department recently reopened that debate.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>CORY TURNER, BYLINE: Superintendent John Mulford runs the public schools in Fayetteville, Arkansas.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>CORY TURNER, BYLINE: Superintendent John Mulford runs the public schools in Fayetteville, Arkansas.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>JOHN MULFORD: We’re a little shocked at this point and completely in the dark as to what this is even about.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>JOHN MULFORD: We’re a little shocked at this point and completely in the dark as to what this is even about.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>TURNER: Earlier this month, Mulford says, the Education Department announced it would be investigating his district for racial discrimination. The department press release suggested that in Fayetteville, teachers had been told to be more lenient with students of color to make up for disparities in their discipline data.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>TURNER: Earlier this month, Mulford says, the Education Department announced it would be investigating his district for racial discrimination. The department press release suggested that in Fayetteville, teachers had been told to be more lenient with students of color to make up for disparities in their discipline data.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>MULFORD: Yeah, we read that in the press release. We have no idea where that claim came from.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>MULFORD: Yeah, we read that in the press release. We have no idea where that claim came from.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>TURNER: Mulford says he and his staff regularly review their discipline data, and they talk about how they can support kids who are getting suspended more frequently by trying to get at the root of the problem.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>TURNER: Mulford says he and his staff regularly review their discipline data, and they talk about how they can support kids who are getting suspended more frequently by trying to get at the root of the problem.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>MULFORD: But we never talk about, hey, go softer or harder on this particular group of people. The standard is the standard, but depending on a kid’s background, they may need different supports to get to that standard.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>MULFORD: But we never talk about, hey, go softer or harder on this particular group of people. The standard is the standard, but depending on a kid’s background, they may need different supports to get to that standard.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>TURNER: The standard that’s changed is the Education Department’s and how it interprets federal civil rights law.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>TURNER: The standard that’s changed is the Education Department’s and how it interprets federal civil rights law.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>CATHERINE LHAMON: The kinds of race discrimination that we find in schools are not subtle.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>CATHERINE LHAMON: The kinds of race discrimination that we find in schools are not subtle.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>TURNER: Catherine Lhamon ran the department’s civil rights office during both the Obama and Biden administrations, and she says the office has long pushed back against schools that discipline students of color at higher rates or more harshly compared to white students who’ve broken the same rules.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>TURNER: Catherine Lhamon ran the department’s civil rights office during both the Obama and Biden administrations, and she says the office has long pushed back against schools that discipline students of color at higher rates or more harshly compared to white students who’ve broken the same rules.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>LHAMON: The very first desegregation agreements included requirements that discriminatory discipline practices end, and it’s something that we have seen persist in schools over decades.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>LHAMON: The very first desegregation agreements included requirements that discriminatory discipline practices end, and it’s something that we have seen persist in schools over decades.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>TURNER: And so under both Obama and Biden, Lhamon warned schools that disparities in student discipline rates might be considered discrimination and trigger an investigation. Kimberly Richey had Lhamon’s job during the first Trump administration and is back again.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>TURNER: And so under both Obama and Biden, Lhamon warned schools that disparities in student discipline rates might be considered discrimination and trigger an investigation. Kimberly Richey had Lhamon’s job during the first Trump administration and is back again.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>KIMBERLY RICHEY: When you tell a school that there can be no disparities, schools are going to make sure that their data look good, and they’re going to do that by either ignoring incidents or not reporting them or letting student misbehavior slide.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>KIMBERLY RICHEY: When you tell a school that there can be no disparities, schools are going to make sure that their data look good, and they’re going to do that by either ignoring incidents or not reporting them or letting student misbehavior slide.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>TURNER: Richey says, in an effort to avoid being accused of discipline discrimination, schools have essentially been discriminating.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>TURNER: Richey says, in an effort to avoid being accused of discipline discrimination, schools have essentially been discriminating.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>TURNER: Catherine Lhamon calls this new guidance a fundamental misreading of civil rights law. She also worries that schools will stop looking for disparities, let alone trying to address them, if they think doing so will put them at risk of an investigation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>LHAMON: Telling our school communities, look away, don’t even evaluate that question, do not even consider race – which is what this letter says – that puts our kids in danger.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>TURNER: This whipsawing in federal policy has put schools in a bind, with the federal government alternating between two very different messages – either that schools should be vigilant about disparities in their discipline to make sure they’re not discriminating, or it’s focusing too much on disparities and how to change them that will get you into trouble. Cory Turner, NPR News.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>The U.S. Department of Education recently announced it was investigating Fayetteville Public Schools in Arkansas, much to the district’s surprise.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The reason, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-directs-schools-stop-racial-balancing-student-discipline-policies-investigates-two-school-districts\" target=\"_blank\">a department press release\u003c/a>: Teachers there “were directed to take students’ racial identities into account when issuing discipline as part of an effort to bring about ‘restorative justice’ to address ‘the disproportionality of discipline on students of color.'”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Superintendent John Mulford says the district received notice of the investigation roughly two hours before the department publicly named Fayetteville as a target in its national release.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We’re a little shocked at this point and completely in the dark as to what this is even about,” Mulford says.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In the same announcement, the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/media/document/dear-colleague-letter-guidance-pupil-discipline-and-compliance-title-vi-august-18-2026-114385.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">new federal guidance\u003c/a> warning school leaders that they should not consider a student’s race in discipline matters or they would risk being investigated.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“The hardest part to swallow,” Mulford says, is that “ever since I’ve been here, we’ve done extensive work around the consistency of our discipline policy … so that it takes away any ambiguity at all.” And that, Mulford says, “aligns very well with [federal civil rights law].”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s why, he says, he’s “a little taken aback.” For now, he’s left to wait for clarity from the department.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The new guidance and the Fayetteville investigation reopen an old and bitter civil rights fight over discipline in the nation’s K-12 schools — and what qualifies as discrimination.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>The potential for discrimination in school discipline\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Multiple \u003ca href=\"https://ocrcas.ed.gov/sites/default/files/ocr-letters-and-agreements/05221177-a.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">federal\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://ocrcas.ed.gov/sites/default/files/ocr-letters-and-agreements/08231007-a.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">investigations\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://ocrcas.ed.gov/sites/default/files/ocr-letters-and-agreements/11221530-a.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">have found\u003c/a> that discrimination still plagues America’s schools, even as it’s been illegal for decades, thanks to federal civil rights law.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But what if a school policy \u003cem>seems\u003c/em> neutral — until you dig into its impact on students? What if data shows that the policy is disproportionately hurting one group? Is that also discrimination?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In 2014, the Obama administration issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/laws-and-policy/civil-rights-laws/race-color-and-national-origin-discrimination/dear-colleague-letter-nondiscriminatory-administration-of-school-discipline-rescinded\" target=\"_blank\">guidance\u003c/a> to the nation’s schools arguing that discipline data — showing who was being suspended or expelled, for how long and how frequently — often revealed large, potentially discriminatory impacts on students of color.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>According to federal data at the time, the guidance said, African American students represented just 15% of students overall but 35% of students suspended once and 44% of students suspended more than once. (NPR has reported that this trend actually \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/06/20/482472535/why-preschool-suspensions-still-happen-and-how-to-stop-them\" target=\"_blank\">begins in preschool\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>An American Psychological Association \u003ca href=\"https://www.apa.org/pubs/reports/zero-tolerance.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">task force\u003c/a> found no evidence that these disparities reflected differences in student behavior; instead, the APA said they “may be due to lack of teacher preparation in classroom management, lack of training in culturally competent practices, or racial stereotypes.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Reflecting on why she sent that 2014 memo, Catherine Lhamon, who ran OCR under Presidents Obama and Biden, tells NPR that given our nation’s history, not looking carefully at school discipline rates through the lens of race would have been an abdication.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“The very first desegregation agreements that [OCR] was created by Congress to enforce included requirements that discriminatory discipline practices end,” Lhamon says. These practices, she says, are “a feature of discrimination. And it’s something that we have seen persist in schools over decades.” And so, as head of the department’s civil rights enforcement unit, Lhamon warned school leaders that these disparities were not acceptable and “give rise to concerns that schools may be engaging in racial discrimination that violates the Federal civil rights laws.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In other words, they needed to look hard at their data to see if the numbers revealed meaningful racial disparities. If so, they could be investigated by the U.S. government.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Schools got the message.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In the years after that 2014 guidance, NPR reported that many school districts mounted a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/03/23/521070924/school-suspensions-have-plunged-we-don-t-yet-know-if-that-s-good-news\" target=\"_blank\">dramatic shift\u003c/a> away from suspension and expulsion and toward the use of policies that kept students in school, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/series/557324733/a-year-at-ron-brown-high-school\" target=\"_blank\">restorative justice\u003c/a>, which emphasizes dialogue and mediation over punishment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>By 2018, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/12/17/677508707/suspensions-are-down-in-u-s-schools-but-large-racial-gaps-remain\" target=\"_blank\">NPR reported\u003c/a> that the share of students suspended at least once had dropped from 5.6% to 4.7%, with Hispanic students seeing a 30% drop. Black students and students with disabilities also saw big drops, though suspension rates for both groups remained high.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Enforcement of this policy continued even into the first Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In late 2018, OCR reached \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/media/document/11101311-apdf-31083.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">an agreement\u003c/a> with Wake County Public School System in North Carolina after finding that, among other things, Black students being disciplined for their first offense were more likely to be suspended than similarly situated white students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>The backlash\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After the 2014 guidance, conservative critics accused Lhamon of heavy-handedness, arguing that districts began going easy on disruptive, perhaps dangerous students out of a fear that any difference in their discipline rates between student groups would be considered discrimination.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In 2018, conservative commentator Max Eden, who would go on to work in the second Trump administration, \u003ca href=\"https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/disparate-impact-school-discipline-never-has-been-never-should-be\" target=\"_blank\">wrote that\u003c/a> “school districts must never again be presumed guilty and unable to prove their innocence, and kids should never again be put in danger because of statistics.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Eden argued that these relaxed discipline policies may also have made classrooms \u003ca href=\"https://www.the74million.org/article/eden-studies-and-teachers-nationwide-say-school-discipline-reform-is-harming-students-academic-achievement-and-safety/\" target=\"_blank\">more disruptive\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In December 2018, a game of ping-pong began: The first Trump administration issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/media/document/colleague-201812pdf-35093.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">new guidance\u003c/a> formally rescinding Lhamon’s.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In 2023, after returning to lead the Biden-era OCR, Lhamon \u003ca href=\"https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/press-release/file/1585291/dl?inline\" target=\"_blank\">again advised schools\u003c/a> that they could be held accountable if their discipline data revealed concerning disparities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But the backlash also continued, fueled by a COVID-driven \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/20/nyregion/safety-incidents-nyc-schools-police-discipline.html\" target=\"_blank\">spike in student misbehavior\u003c/a>, which led to more \u003ca href=\"https://ies.ed.gov/schoolsurvey/spp/\" target=\"_blank\">classroom disruptions\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/03/17/1087137571/school-violence-teachers-covid\" target=\"_blank\">stories\u003c/a> of teachers feeling victimized by students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Classroom discipline even became a talking point in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/how-did-school-discipline-get-dragged-into-the-presidential-election/2024/09\" target=\"_blank\">2024 presidential campaign\u003c/a>. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-party-platform\" target=\"_blank\">Republican platform\u003c/a> pledged that candidates “will support overhauling standards on school discipline [and] advocate for immediate suspension of violent students.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In April 2025, after Trump’s return to the White House, he made good on that pledge and signed \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/reinstating-common-sense-school-discipline-policies/\" target=\"_blank\">an executive order\u003c/a> titled “Reinstating Common Sense School Discipline Policies.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And finally, there’s this month’s guidance, signed by Kimberly Richey, the current head of OCR. In an interview with NPR, Richey says that, today, “classrooms are less safe, they are more disruptive, and that is all a fruit of this policy. And that’s why we’re ending it.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>The new guidance\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The latest guidance from the Trump administration argues that, under the previous policy, “schools ignored or covered up — rather than disciplined — student misconduct to avoid any purported racial disparity in discipline numbers that might catch the eye of the federal government. As a result, students who should have been suspended, expelled, or otherwise held accountable for dangerous or disruptive behavior remained in the classroom.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Richey argues that the goal of OCR’s previous approach was what she calls “racial balance”: “To make sure that the number of African-American students [being disciplined], the number of Hispanic students, the number of white students, the number of Asian students — that it was equal across the board.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But, Richey says, this idea that any difference in discipline rates is a sign of discrimination — “that everything has to be equal and, if it’s not, it’s inherently discriminatory… That’s false.\u003cem>“\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In the new guidance, Richey doesn’t just warn schools against this kind of balancing. She advises schools that weighing discipline policies with any consideration of race, even if it’s in the name of identifying and addressing disparities, is itself discriminatory and illegal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As the new guidance puts it: “The consideration of race in student discipline is race discrimination.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Civil rights groups, including EdTrust, which focuses on education equity, reject this view.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Schools must be able to examine who is being suspended, expelled, or referred to law enforcement, why those decisions are being made, and whether students are being treated differently for similar behavior,” EdTrust’s Eric Duncan \u003ca href=\"https://edtrust.org/press-room/guidance-restricting-race-disparities-in-school-discipline/\" target=\"_blank\">said in a statement\u003c/a>. “That is not preferential treatment. It is basic accountability to ensure all students are valued.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And Lhamon argues that by telling schools they cannot consider race, disparities won’t go away. They’ll simply become invisible to everyone except the students who are being hurt.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>She says this new guidance “is a scare tactic… designed to ensure that some of our kids in school will experience extraordinary harm.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Richey argues the opposite: This consideration of race isn’t a tool of the law — it breaks the law.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“You cannot take race into account when you’re disciplining students. It can’t play a factor, and the racial balancing must end,” Richey says.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>The investigations\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Fayetteville is one of two districts the department says it is investigating — the other is Milwaukee Public Schools. Little is known about why these two were singled out beyond what was included in the department’s press release.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Of Milwaukee, the department release says, “education leaders derided facially neutral school policies as reflecting systemic ‘whiteness,’ seemingly encouraging school officials to consider race in disciplinary practices.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But, in response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for Milwaukee Public Schools said that the notice it had received from the Education Department didn’t explain the reason for the investigation, and “Once we receive more detail, we would be able to respond appropriately.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In Fayetteville, Superintendent Mulford, now in his fourth year running the district, says his team does review the district’s discipline data. But, he adds, “we never talk about, ‘Hey, go softer or harder on this particular group of people.’ That doesn’t even come into our language at all. So we preach consistency, the standard is the standard, everybody’s held to the standard.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Mulford says he welcomes the department and its investigation. If it finds something, he says, “Great. Share it with us. If we’re doing something wrong, we’ll get it fixed.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But, if they’re looking for inconsistency, Mulford says, he doubts they’ll find it in Fayetteville.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Research shows that Black, Hispanic and Native American students are more likely than their white peers to be suspended or expelled from school. And the past four presidential administrations have been battling over what to do about it. Should schools try to address racial disparities, or is that itself illegal? As NPR’s Cory Turner explains, the U.S. Education Department recently reopened that debate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>CORY TURNER, BYLINE: Superintendent John Mulford runs the public schools in Fayetteville, Arkansas.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>JOHN MULFORD: We’re a little shocked at this point and completely in the dark as to what this is even about.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>TURNER: Earlier this month, Mulford says, the Education Department announced it would be investigating his district for racial discrimination. The department press release suggested that in Fayetteville, teachers had been told to be more lenient with students of color to make up for disparities in their discipline data.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>MULFORD: Yeah, we read that in the press release. We have no idea where that claim came from.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>TURNER: Mulford says he and his staff regularly review their discipline data, and they talk about how they can support kids who are getting suspended more frequently by trying to get at the root of the problem.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>MULFORD: But we never talk about, hey, go softer or harder on this particular group of people. The standard is the standard, but depending on a kid’s background, they may need different supports to get to that standard.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>TURNER: The standard that’s changed is the Education Department’s and how it interprets federal civil rights law.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>CATHERINE LHAMON: The kinds of race discrimination that we find in schools are not subtle.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>TURNER: Catherine Lhamon ran the department’s civil rights office during both the Obama and Biden administrations, and she says the office has long pushed back against schools that discipline students of color at higher rates or more harshly compared to white students who’ve broken the same rules.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>LHAMON: The very first desegregation agreements included requirements that discriminatory discipline practices end, and it’s something that we have seen persist in schools over decades.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>TURNER: And so under both Obama and Biden, Lhamon warned schools that disparities in student discipline rates might be considered discrimination and trigger an investigation. Kimberly Richey had Lhamon’s job during the first Trump administration and is back again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>KIMBERLY RICHEY: When you tell a school that there can be no disparities, schools are going to make sure that their data look good, and they’re going to do that by either ignoring incidents or not reporting them or letting student misbehavior slide.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>TURNER: Richey says, in an effort to avoid being accused of discipline discrimination, schools have essentially been discriminating.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>RICHEY: We have heard from teachers and from school leaders for decades that they have been told either you cannot discipline African American and Hispanic students or you can only discipline white and Asian students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>TURNER: And so earlier this month, Richey sent new guidance to the nation’s schools. Her message – you cannot consider race at all when it comes to discipline. Put another way…\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>RICHEY: You cannot address discrimination by requiring more of it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>TURNER: Catherine Lhamon calls this new guidance a fundamental misreading of civil rights law. She also worries that schools will stop looking for disparities, let alone trying to address them, if they think doing so will put them at risk of an investigation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>LHAMON: Telling our school communities, look away, don’t even evaluate that question, do not even consider race – which is what this letter says – that puts our kids in danger.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>TURNER: This whipsawing in federal policy has put schools in a bind, with the federal government alternating between two very different messages – either that schools should be vigilant about disparities in their discipline to make sure they’re not discriminating, or it’s focusing too much on disparities and how to change them that will get you into trouble. Cory Turner, NPR News.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Science high school teacher Furahi Achebe remembers getting a phone call from a former student whom she hadn’t heard from in six months. He told her that doctors found a heart defect; he’d just woken up after life-saving surgery, and he wanted to let her know that he’s doing ok.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This call left her wondering why that student reached out to her. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Why would a student think that I am important enough to be on his list to be one of the people that he contacts after a life-saving operation?” Achebe said, recalling how shocked she was.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For Achebe, a former chemist who has taught science and digital production to high school students for 12 years in New Haven, Connecticut, moments like the phone call are a reminder of how she’s been able to build lasting connections with students. Achebe recounted the story during the 2026 \u003ca href=\"https://conference.iste.org/2026/program/search/detail_session.php?id=118452181\">International Society for Technology in Education conference\u003c/a>, held at the end of June, during a workshop titled, “Why asking students ‘How Are You?’ wastes a reachable moment.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In the workshop, she argues that the question “How are you?” is no longer sufficient for interactions between students and teachers. Some experts say the phrase has become a “\u003ca href=\"https://time.com/article/2026/03/18/how-are-you-question-meaning-listening/\">reflexive greeting\u003c/a>” during a casual interaction, but one that doesn’t really make way for deeper conversation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I believe that when you ask a person ‘How are you?’ they feel a little bit rushed to say fine or okay and move on,” says Achebe. “They don’t actually believe – unless you append something to the beginning or the end – that you’re asking how they really are.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Instead, Achebe says teachers must strive for reachable moments with students, which can then turn into powerful teachable moments.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“A reachable moment is when a student and an educator of any sort are looking at each other eye to eye and having a casual conversation,” says Achebe. “Those moments empower our teachable moments because they \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/66425/the-lasting-legacy-of-rita-piersons-every-kid-needs-a-champion\">create the relationship that drives education\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Creating true connections is more critical than ever as more studies have found a decrease in youth well-being in recent years. The\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/teens-are-the-loneliest-people-in-the-world-a-new-report-finds-why/2025/08\"> World Health Organization Commission on Social Connection\u003c/a> released a report in 2025 saying one in six people worldwide are affected by loneliness, with the highest percentage (20%) among 13- to 17-year-olds. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Additionally, with some schools implementing \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/66363/inside-the-latest-global-research-on-school-cellphone-bans\">cell phone bans\u003c/a>, school hours may be the longest stretch of time when some young people are forced to reconnect with their peers and adults without the distraction of personal devices. Achebe encourages teachers to take that opportunity to reteach students how to communicate with others.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2409\" height=\"2560\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-66570\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-scaled.jpg 2409w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-2000x2125.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-160x170.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-768x816.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-1445x1536.jpg 1445w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-1927x2048.jpg 1927w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2409px) 100vw, 2409px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">\u003cem>Courtesy of Furahi Achebe\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Connection starts at the beginning of the year.\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Achebe suggests creating a Google Form at the start of the school year for students to fill out. She says the form should include the usual questions about nicknames or pronouns, but the form should also try to dig into who the students are and what they value.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Suggested questions include:\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003col class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>What brings you joy?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>What do you think is unique about you?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Who is it that is always in your corner?\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Teachers can quickly put responses into a spreadsheet or chart, which can then be printed out to be carried around the rest of the year or referred to when walking around the classroom throughout the year. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Rather than making the first day of school about reciting rules and expectations, Achebe suggests thinking of it more as a time to get to know students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I think the first day is about getting to know each other, and really deeply expressing who you are,” Achebe says. Achebe refers to these questions as “endorphin-flowing” questions, because it “builds rapport” and allows individuals to feel good about themselves.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Similar questions include:\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003col class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>What are you most grateful for in life?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Name or describe your top three strengths.\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>What do you wish more people knew about you?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Which accomplishment are you most proud of? \u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How to keep reachable moments going with debate questions.\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Achebe says at the root of it all, students, just like adults, like to feel seen. So connection needs to happen throughout the year. And the questions that teachers ask don’t always have to be deep.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Teachers can watch for specific moments in the classroom — when energy may be falling off — and take the time to ask students more trivial questions or encourage them to dive into debates with each other. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>These questions don’t have a right answer, but while low-stakes, they could give a picture of what a student believes and how they think.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003col class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>Which do you prefer, Pepsi or Coke?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Are you Apple or Android?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Would you rather never stop dancing or never be able to stop singing?\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“That is rapport building time, that’s connection building time,” Achebe says. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Choice, feedback and reminders throughout the year.\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Finally, building connection isn’t just about questions; it’s also allowing a flow of opinions between student and teacher.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>One of the ways Achebe reminds herself of this ongoing process is through digital signage and messaging throughout her classroom. Achebe is the founder of a company that creates free\u003ca href=\"https://thrivescreens.org/\"> screensavers that teachers can re-use\u003c/a> and download.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Achebe also tries to leave as much room as possible in her classroom for genuine feedback and student choice in assignments. This might mean allowing them to pick which assignment or project to tackle first, giving them choice in topics or how a lab gets done.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>She asks students: Was the quiz too hard? Did the reading make sense? Are the instructions clear? These types of choices and questions signal to students that their opinions and perspectives matter.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Relationships are] central to what you can get out of a student,” Achebe says. “The most effective way to reach them is to satisfy the human need to be seen, heard and understood.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“A reachable moment is when a student and an educator of any sort are looking at each other eye to eye and having a casual conversation,” says Achebe. “Those moments empower our teachable moments because they \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/66425/the-lasting-legacy-of-rita-piersons-every-kid-needs-a-champion\">create the relationship that drives education\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“A reachable moment is when a student and an educator of any sort are looking at each other eye to eye and having a casual conversation,” says Achebe. “Those moments empower our teachable moments because they \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/66425/the-lasting-legacy-of-rita-piersons-every-kid-needs-a-champion\">create the relationship that drives education\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Creating true connections is more critical than ever as more studies have found a decrease in youth well-being in recent years. The\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/teens-are-the-loneliest-people-in-the-world-a-new-report-finds-why/2025/08\"> World Health Organization Commission on Social Connection\u003c/a> released a report in 2025 saying one in six people worldwide are affected by loneliness, with the highest percentage (20%) among 13- to 17-year-olds. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Additionally, with some schools implementing \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/66363/inside-the-latest-global-research-on-school-cellphone-bans\">cell phone bans\u003c/a>, school hours may be the longest stretch of time when some young people are forced to reconnect with their peers and adults without the distraction of personal devices. Achebe encourages teachers to take that opportunity to reteach students how to communicate with others.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-66570\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-scaled.jpg 2409w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-2000x2125.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-160x170.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-768x816.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-1445x1536.jpg 1445w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-1927x2048.jpg 1927w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\"/>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">\u003cem>Courtesy of Furahi Achebe\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Achebe suggests creating a Google Form at the start of the school year for students to fill out. She says the form should include the usual questions about nicknames or pronouns, but the form should also try to dig into who the students are and what they value.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Teachers can quickly put responses into a spreadsheet or chart, which can then be printed out to be carried around the rest of the year or referred to when walking around the classroom throughout the year. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Rather than making the first day of school about reciting rules and expectations, Achebe suggests thinking of it more as a time to get to know students.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Science high school teacher Furahi Achebe remembers getting a phone call from a former student whom she hadn’t heard from in six months. He told her that doctors found a heart defect; he’d just woken up after life-saving surgery, and he wanted to let her know that he’s doing ok.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This call left her wondering why that student reached out to her. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Why would a student think that I am important enough to be on his list to be one of the people that he contacts after a life-saving operation?” Achebe said, recalling how shocked she was.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For Achebe, a former chemist who has taught science and digital production to high school students for 12 years in New Haven, Connecticut, moments like the phone call are a reminder of how she’s been able to build lasting connections with students. Achebe recounted the story during the 2026 \u003ca href=\"https://conference.iste.org/2026/program/search/detail_session.php?id=118452181\">International Society for Technology in Education conference\u003c/a>, held at the end of June, during a workshop titled, “Why asking students ‘How Are You?’ wastes a reachable moment.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In the workshop, she argues that the question “How are you?” is no longer sufficient for interactions between students and teachers. Some experts say the phrase has become a “\u003ca href=\"https://time.com/article/2026/03/18/how-are-you-question-meaning-listening/\">reflexive greeting\u003c/a>” during a casual interaction, but one that doesn’t really make way for deeper conversation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I believe that when you ask a person ‘How are you?’ they feel a little bit rushed to say fine or okay and move on,” says Achebe. “They don’t actually believe – unless you append something to the beginning or the end – that you’re asking how they really are.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Instead, Achebe says teachers must strive for reachable moments with students, which can then turn into powerful teachable moments.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“A reachable moment is when a student and an educator of any sort are looking at each other eye to eye and having a casual conversation,” says Achebe. “Those moments empower our teachable moments because they \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/66425/the-lasting-legacy-of-rita-piersons-every-kid-needs-a-champion\">create the relationship that drives education\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Creating true connections is more critical than ever as more studies have found a decrease in youth well-being in recent years. The\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/leadership/teens-are-the-loneliest-people-in-the-world-a-new-report-finds-why/2025/08\"> World Health Organization Commission on Social Connection\u003c/a> released a report in 2025 saying one in six people worldwide are affected by loneliness, with the highest percentage (20%) among 13- to 17-year-olds. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Additionally, with some schools implementing \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/66363/inside-the-latest-global-research-on-school-cellphone-bans\">cell phone bans\u003c/a>, school hours may be the longest stretch of time when some young people are forced to reconnect with their peers and adults without the distraction of personal devices. Achebe encourages teachers to take that opportunity to reteach students how to communicate with others.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2409\" height=\"2560\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-66570\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-scaled.jpg 2409w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-2000x2125.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-160x170.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-768x816.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-1445x1536.jpg 1445w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/08/E01C0850-0C7A-4A65-A4A6-224BD7380E55-1927x2048.jpg 1927w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2409px) 100vw, 2409px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">\u003cem>Courtesy of Furahi Achebe\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Connection starts at the beginning of the year.\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Achebe suggests creating a Google Form at the start of the school year for students to fill out. She says the form should include the usual questions about nicknames or pronouns, but the form should also try to dig into who the students are and what they value.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Suggested questions include:\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003col class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>What brings you joy?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>What do you think is unique about you?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Who is it that is always in your corner?\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Teachers can quickly put responses into a spreadsheet or chart, which can then be printed out to be carried around the rest of the year or referred to when walking around the classroom throughout the year. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Rather than making the first day of school about reciting rules and expectations, Achebe suggests thinking of it more as a time to get to know students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I think the first day is about getting to know each other, and really deeply expressing who you are,” Achebe says. Achebe refers to these questions as “endorphin-flowing” questions, because it “builds rapport” and allows individuals to feel good about themselves.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Similar questions include:\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003col class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>What are you most grateful for in life?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Name or describe your top three strengths.\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>What do you wish more people knew about you?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Which accomplishment are you most proud of? \u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How to keep reachable moments going with debate questions.\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Achebe says at the root of it all, students, just like adults, like to feel seen. So connection needs to happen throughout the year. And the questions that teachers ask don’t always have to be deep.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Teachers can watch for specific moments in the classroom — when energy may be falling off — and take the time to ask students more trivial questions or encourage them to dive into debates with each other. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>These questions don’t have a right answer, but while low-stakes, they could give a picture of what a student believes and how they think.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003col class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>Which do you prefer, Pepsi or Coke?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Are you Apple or Android?\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Would you rather never stop dancing or never be able to stop singing?\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“That is rapport building time, that’s connection building time,” Achebe says. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Choice, feedback and reminders throughout the year.\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Finally, building connection isn’t just about questions; it’s also allowing a flow of opinions between student and teacher.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>One of the ways Achebe reminds herself of this ongoing process is through digital signage and messaging throughout her classroom. Achebe is the founder of a company that creates free\u003ca href=\"https://thrivescreens.org/\"> screensavers that teachers can re-use\u003c/a> and download.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Achebe also tries to leave as much room as possible in her classroom for genuine feedback and student choice in assignments. This might mean allowing them to pick which assignment or project to tackle first, giving them choice in topics or how a lab gets done.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>She asks students: Was the quiz too hard? Did the reading make sense? Are the instructions clear? These types of choices and questions signal to students that their opinions and perspectives matter.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Relationships are] central to what you can get out of a student,” Achebe says. “The most effective way to reach them is to satisfy the human need to be seen, heard and understood.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2013, Rita Pierson, a middle school teacher from Texas, walked onto a stage, wearing a bright red jacket, to deliver an unscripted speech to TED Conference attendees. The video of that speech would become one of the most viewed TED Talks at that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In just under eight minutes, she made a simple, unforgettable argument: kids don’t learn from people they don’t like. The talk, titled \u003ca href=\"https://www.ted.com/talks/rita_pierson_every_kid_needs_a_champion\">Every Kid Needs a Champion\u003c/a>, is often the first time people hear someone describe teaching not just as instruction, but as a relationship. The video has become a staple of teacher professional development sessions across the country in staff meetings and college classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a decade later, the message lands in a very different educational climate. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/what-new-survey-says-about-teachers-plans-leave-their-jobs\">Teachers report high levels of stress\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/overview-teacher-shortages-2025-factsheet\">staffing shortages are common\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://cps.northeastern.edu/news/teacher-burnout-crisis-addressing-compassion-fatigue-and-the-impact-of-praxis-shock/\">burnout remains a major concern\u003c/a>. Exploring her presentation today raises important questions: What does it actually take to be the kind of teacher Pierson described? And is it sustainable?\u003cbr />\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr />\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC2909467136\" 0=\"width="100%"/iframe\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The teacher behind the TED Talk\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Before her talk went viral, Rita Pierson was already well known among educators in Texas. She came from a family of teachers and spent decades working in classrooms and advocating for students who often felt overlooked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her daughter, Kristin Pierson Forrest, remembers that relationships were at the center of everything her mother did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She helped remind teachers that it’s okay to say ‘I love you.’ It’s okay to let the kids know that they are loved,” Forrest said. “There’s so many kids out there who don’t know that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That idea shows up clearly in the talk. Teachers, she said, have the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60094/strategies-for-building-deeper-relationships-with-students-through-academic-content\">power to build relationships\u003c/a>, even with students who struggle in school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But her daughter said Pierson also understood the emotional demands of that kind of work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She reminded me quickly [during] my first year teaching that I’m no good to my kids if I’m exhausted,” Forrest said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Every kid needs a champion | Rita Pierson | TED\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/SFnMTHhKdkw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A message passed from teacher to teacher\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For many educators, Pierson’s talk appears during professional development at the start of the school year. That’s how Melissa K. Stanley encountered it when she was teaching in K–12 classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It really resonated with me,” Stanley said. “I felt like I was meeting someone who viewed education and viewed the role of a teacher the same way that I did.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today she trains future teachers of secondary social studies education at Central Michigan University, where Pierson’s message is still part of the curriculum. Before her students begin their pre-service teaching placements, Stanley asks them to watch the talk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The video helps her introduce students to what educators call \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60112/learning-from-students-families-as-a-step-toward-equity-in-literacy-instruction\">asset-based pedagogy\u003c/a>, an approach that focuses on students’ strengths and experiences rather than what students lack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/new-focus-strength-based-learning\">Studies\u003c/a> have found that students often show stronger engagement, greater belonging and better academic outcomes when teachers build on students’ strengths and experiences rather than focusing primarily on deficits. Instead of asking what students lack, teachers focus on what they bring to the table.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for some future educators, Stanley said, this approach is new and they don’t know where to start. This video helps her pre-service teachers start talking about what it means to build relationships with students so they can start to apply asset-based pedagogy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re about to step into classrooms for the first time and they’re nervous,” said Stanley.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>When caring becomes exhausting by design\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The kind of relational teaching Pierson described requires emotional labor. For teachers already juggling large class sizes, administrative demands and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59748/how-perspective-taking-can-improve-classroom-behavior-and-teacher-student-relationships\">behavioral challenges\u003c/a>, that energy can run out quickly. Teacher burnout has been a major concern in recent years and \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/09/27/a-dwindling-number-of-new-u-s-college-graduates-have-a-degree-in-education/\">fewer people are entering the profession\u003c/a>. Surveys consistently show high levels of stress among educators and \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/article/how-to-increase-the-retention-of-early-career-teachers/\">many teachers leave the profession within their first five years\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers like professor \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpc.unc.edu/people/fellows/ganga-bey/\">Ganga Bey at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill\u003c/a> are looking more closely at the emotional dynamics of teaching and how educators can sustain themselves while still showing up for students. Bey studies how people respond to stress and why similar experiences can affect individuals differently. “Not everyone who is exposed to stress will deal with it in the same way,” Bey said. “Dealing with it has a lot of implications for how that stress will impact people’s health.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teaching provides plenty of opportunities for stressful encounters. Examples may include a heated argument with a student or a classroom moment that spirals unexpectedly. According to Bey, the way teachers interpret those moments can influence how stressful they become physically and emotionally. For instance, if a teacher interprets a student’s outburst as a personal attack, the body may register the encounter as a threat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if the teacher understands the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/66347/ross-greene-what-if-bad-behavior-isnt-the-problem\">behavior as a sign the student is struggling\u003c/a>, the response can shift. “You wouldn’t be treating someone badly like that if you yourself weren’t suffering in some way,” Bey added. That reframing doesn’t mean ignoring harmful behavior. Instead, Bey said it can reduce the intensity of the stress response and make it easier to stay grounded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bey describes this mindset as part of what she calls a \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/article/how-to-increase-the-retention-of-early-career-teachers/\">vitalizing identity\u003c/a>, which is a way of understanding yourself and others that emphasizes connection, compassion and shared humanity. At its core, she said, it’s about expanding the boundaries of who we include in our circle of care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burnout often occurs, Bey said, when educators consistently place students’ needs above their own without receiving the support they need. “One would hope that because teachers give up so much of themselves that others would pour so much into them to sustain the work that they do. And that does not happen,” she said. Instead, many teachers are left trying to set boundaries that school systems often do not support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Love, to me, is the idea of opening our ego boundaries to include everyone else,” Bey said, and teachers have to include themselves in their own circles of care. In other words, caring for students cannot come at the expense of caring for yourself, which is the lesson Pierson emphasized with her daughter.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Rita Pierson’s continued legacy \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For Stanley’s college students, Pierson’s talk often becomes a reference point throughout their training. They return to it when they’re thinking about classroom management, lesson design or how to respond to difficult moments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a discussion about what that looks like and how do we keep our enthusiasm for teaching when things are hard—when things don’t go as well as we want them to, despite best intentions or despite support that we provide for students,” said Stanley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/jc95sq/if_i_have_to_sit_through_that_rita_pierson_ted/\">fatigue that comes with repeated views\u003c/a> of the TED Talk during professional development, Pierson’s message continues to resonate with educators. Stanley believes that’s because the talk gives them a license to teach the way they want to. That doesn’t mean the work becomes easy; building relationships with students takes time, patience and emotional effort. But Pierson’s legacy reminds educators that those relationships are not separate from learning. They are what make learning possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many teachers, that idea still feels worth holding onto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr />\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC2909467136\" 0=\"width="100%"/iframe\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Welcome to MindShift, where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Nimah Gobir.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> It’s summertime. School hasn’t started yet. The hallways are still quiet, and the kids are still sleeping in, but teachers? They’re back in school early to attend mandatory professional development sessions. Also known as PD. These might include discussing new protocols, hashing out curriculum and getting inspired for the new school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> If I asked teachers ‘What’s the one piece of PD you just know is coming?’ A lot of them would say the same thing: “Every kid needs a champion.” A TED Talk given by a teacher named Rita Pierson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rita Pierson:\u003c/strong> Every child deserves a champion, an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best they can possibly be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> In our last episode, we talked about how teaching is harder than ever – and how schools tend to focus on supporting kids while overlooking the adults who make learning possible: teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> In this episode, we take a look at Rita Pierson’s viral talk and what it tells us about how relationships shape learning. We’ll meet the people who knew Rita best, the educators who carry her philosophy forward, and the researcher studying what happens to our bodies and minds when we lead with love.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> Every time somebody finds out I teach middle school, they’re like, ‘Oh bless you.’ Like that’s the that’s the first reaction. And I’m like, Yeah, I know, because everybody remembers middle school is such a hard transition\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Beth Jarzabek teaches English in Ludlow, Massachusetts. She works with the kids who struggle the most with reading and writing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> I have all three grades. So I teach sixth, seventh, and eighth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Since her students need more support, there’s a stigma about being placed in her class\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> Like, ‘Oh, you have to go to Mrs. J’s class.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> These are kids who often mask academic frustration with misbehavior. They might act out. They shut down. But Beth sees through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek\u003c/strong>: Their other teachers may not see them the same way I do. So I try to make those connections and and try to be their champion\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> The idea of being a students’ champion comes straight from Rita Pierson. Like many teachers Beth first watched her TED Talk video during professional development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> There were people like, you know, who were kind of rolling their eyes and whatnot. But it resonated with maybe when she talked about the kids that she had that, you know were the kids that were struggling, that the and the fact that she said to them, they put us all together to show everybody else how it’s done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Here’s the clip from Rita’s TED Talk\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk\u003c/strong>: One year I came up with a bright idea. I told all my students, you were chosen to be in my class. Because I am the best teacher and you are the best students. They put us all together so we could show everybody else how to do it.]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> And I was like, oh, I love that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> So Beth decided to bring that same energy into her own classroom, especially for kids who rarely get encouraged by adults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> I started, you know, just trying to be that hype person, you know, when I go when I would go into my neighbor’s classroom, I would be like, Oh, which kids can I steal from you? You know, I’m like, oh, or if a kid got transferred in, I was like, I found out how cool you were, and I told them that I want, wanted you in my classroom. And it gave the kids like a little boost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> Or I’ll say to them, you know, like, hey, I’m telling all these people how awesome you are. I’m like, you gotta show them how awesome you are. And they’re like, okay, well, for you, I’ll do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> she’s tapping into something we know from decades of research. A positive relationship with even one caring adult is one of the strongest predictors of: better attendance, stronger academic performance, and improved social-emotional skills\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Several studies find that students with strong teacher relationships can gain the equivalent of up to an extra year of learning — especially those who struggle the most.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And here’s something else: supportive teacher–student relationships protect teachers too. Studies show that educators who feel connected to their students report significantly lower burnout and higher job satisfaction, even in high-stress environments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> I don’t have to be your favorite, but I’m still gonna go to bat with you. You are still going to know that you’re safe with me. You are still going to know that you have a valued place in my classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> She reminds herself of that, even on the hardest days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> I try to remember when everything is falling apart I’m here for them to be that person in this tumultuous time in their life is really such an honor. Sometimes it’s easier to remember that than others. And there’s definitely days that I I go home and I like I’m under a weighted blanket. But I try to bring myself back to that, you know, what an honor it is to be the safe place for these kids because some of them don’t have it otherwise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Up next, we’ll explore why Rita Pierson’s message still resonates — who she was, how teachers are putting her ideas into practice, and what it takes to care for students without burning out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Rita Pierson’s TED Talk reached millions of teachers, but behind the scenes, the story of how it even happened is almost as special as the talk itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> I joined Ted working two days a week to try and help them figure out whether or not they could make TV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And I said, Of course you can do TV, it’s SNL for nerds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Juliet Blake , was the head of television for TED in 2013. She was producing a TV special on education — it included John Legend, Bill Gates, Sir Ken Robinson… big names. But she couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was missing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> Through YouTube and I came across Rita. And the video that was that existed online wasn’t great, but I could see she had this enormous personality and that she was so authentic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> After seeing clips of Rita giving teaching tips, she spent months trying to track her down\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> I was getting a bit desperate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Rita wasn’t a celebrity educator at the time. She was a longtime teacher and administrator in Houston who came from a family of educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And eventually I was calling different school districts in Houston. And I left a message for her at a school\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Then one evening Juliet’s phone rang.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> I got a call one evening, and she just went, ‘Hello,’ and I went, ‘Rita, Rita Pearson?’ And she went, ‘Sure am.’ And I went, ‘I have been looking you for you for months.’ She said, ‘Why?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m producing a show for Ted.’ And she said these magical words that made me fall in love with her immediately. ‘Who’s Ted?’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> From there, they talked on the phone almost every night—once Rita got home from teaching. They were trying to figure out what she might talk about for her presentation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> She would talk to me about her mother and her father being educators and the schools that she’d worked in\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Rita could move seamlessly between heartbreaking stories about students and cracking jokes about the realities of teaching. And slowly, through those late-night phone calls, the TED Talk started to take shape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And then she said, I need to write this, don’t I? I said, Yes, this is how it works. You not only have to write it, you have to learn it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> But when Rita arrived in New York for rehearsal…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And she goes, ‘Honey, I didn’t learn it.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Juliet was panicking… Rita was not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And she goes, You sit here and I’ll be on the stage and give me, tell me when I’ve got to wrap up, do this, and I’ll bring it to a close.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And I just thought, you know what? I just trust this woman to be brilliant. I just know that she’s going to do it and it’s gonna be great.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And it was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> That talk given live and mostly off the cuff and it is the one millions of teachers know today. Rita, on stage, speaking straight from the heart about how relationships are important for learning\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk\u003c/strong>: But one of the things that we never discuss or we rarely discuss is the value and importance of human connection…relationships]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Juliet remembers her as one of the most authentic speakers she’s ever worked with. And Rita’s daughter, Kristin Pierson Forrest says this all makes sense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> My mother’s never written down a speech in her life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> there might be maybe some bullet points, but she always knew exactly what she wanted to say and how she wanted to get it across.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir\u003c/strong>: Kristin says her mom’s taught elementary and junior high students for over 40 years. Her entire philosophy came down to one lesson:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> It’s okay to say I love you. It’s okay to let the kids know that that that they are loved, because there’s so many kids out there who don’t know that, who don’t inherently know that they are love. And so to explicitly tell kids, I care about you, you know, I’m here for you. I love you, and I’m gonna work my butt off for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Kristin spent 15 years teaching in Houston herself, and she says her mother’s approach shaped her own practice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> her work was centered around relationships. It was centered around relationship building and that was the central part of who I got to be as a teacher because I got that from her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> But she’s also quick to point out that her mom wasn’t naïve about the realities of teaching. Rita loved her students fiercely, but she knew that caring deeply for students wasn’t enough to protect her from burnout or from a system that often asks too much with too little support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> And she reminded me quickly, my first year teaching, that I’m no good to my kids if I’m exhausted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk\u003c/strong>: When Kristin had an especially hard day in the classroom. Rita would say, “You get 5 minutes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> It just means that you know, your sadness, there’s an end point to it. So whatever that five minutes is, it might be a day, it might be a week, it might be a month. But just know that at some point there’s going to be an end to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Kristin says those lessons from her mom took on a very different meaning not long after the TED Talk was filmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> After you know, they shot that TED talk, she she passed about three months later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Kirstin isn’t in the classroom anymore, but she still works with educators. she brings her mom’s presence with her everywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> I think about my mom every day, and it’s been close to 13 years since she was gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> And even the day she passed, I had to remind myself, okay, you get five minutes. I don’t know if my five minutes is over yet. I really I really don’t know. But I I haven’t stayed in a sad place clearly, but but it’s definitely reminded me to pick myself up, dust myself off, and and what’s the next thing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> More than a decade later, Rita Pierson’s talk is still finding new audiences – not just among teachers, but among the people learning to become teachers. And that’s where Melissa Stanley comes in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> I am Dr. Melissa K. Stanley and I am the director of secondary social studies education at Central Michigan University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> I teach social studies methods courses to help prepare them to be social studies teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> She first saw Rita’s talk back when she was teaching in K–12 classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> And it really resonated with me and resonated with the way that I taught. I felt like I was meeting someone who viewed education and viewed the role of a teacher the same way that I did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And once Melissa became a teacher-educator at Central Michigan University. The talk became part of how she teaches. It’s a required video during the semester that her class does their pre-student teaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> They’re pretty nervous. And that is the semester that they do their pre-student teaching. It’s is the first real experience that they’ll get with students in going into classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Melissa uses the video to introduce students to asset-based pedagogy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> It’s looking at the whole student and it’s valuing what they bring and building relationships with them when the history of education has traditionally been kind of a deficit approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> That means seeing students through their problems rather than their potential.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Studies show that when teachers take an asset-based approach, valuing students’ cultural strengths, community knowledge, and lived identities, students show stronger academic engagement, better attendance, and improved well-being. And teachers themselves experience more purpose and lower burnout because relationships feel reciprocal rather than adversarial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> That really helps us have conversations and then use it as a gateway into conversations with students about how we adopt an asset bit based pedagogy and how we value the whole student and we value the strengths they bring to the classroom, the diversity they bring to the classroom, and how we work with that to build relationships and then also help them grow and meet their goals and their dreams for their lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> for some preservice teachers, this is a brand-new idea. Their own schooling may not have included teachers who championed them. So imagining themselves as that kind of teacher can be hard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> It generally generates a lot of questions about okay, how do we do this? This is great. I would love to get there. That’s kind of an end goal for me. But what are the steps along the way? What does that look like in practical application?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> They also discuss Rita’s line about joy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk:\u003c/strong>Teaching and learning should bring joy.]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> But if you’re engaging in this type of teaching and this type of work with students, not every moment is going to be joy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk: \u003c/strong>So teachers become great actors and great actresses. And we come to work when we don’t feel like it. And we listen to policy that doesn’t make sense. And we teach anyway. We teach anyway because that’s what we do. ]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> So we have a discussion about what that looks like and how do we keep our enthusiasm for teaching when things are hard, when things don’t go as well as we want them to, despite best intentions or despite support that we provide for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Melissa is naming something important. Teachers want to show up for kids the way Rita did, but the reality is that teaching is stressful. And not just the piles of grading or the endless meetings—interpersonal stress can hit teachers particularly hard. It affects their bodies and can leave them feeling emotionally exhausted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Dr. Ganga Bey is a researcher at the University of North Carolina. She studies how stress affects the body and why stress hits some people harder than others. And one thing she’s interested in is how the way we think about other people changes how stress affects us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> Love to me is this idea of opening our ego boundaries to include everyone else in it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> In simpler terms: seeing other people’s well-being as connected to your own. That can matter a lot in the classroom. Because when a student lashes out, a teacher can interpret that in different ways. They can think: This kid doesn’t respect me. Or: This kid is struggling right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And Ganga says that shift matters physically—not just emotionally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> So because of that, I’m literally gonna process that in a less stressful way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Now to be clear—this is not the same thing as toxic positivity. This isn’t: ‘Just smile through abuse.’ And it’s not: ‘Teachers should sacrifice themselves for kids.’ In fact, Ganga says one of the biggest problems in education is that teachers are already being asked to give too much of themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> Teachers are a particular group of people. Who encounter a tremendous amount of stressors and some of them are avoidable stressors right and part of the way that we organize our society teachers are undervalued um overworked and and live in a largely thankless space\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Teachers are reporting record-high stress levels, elevated rates of depression, and many are leaving the profession within the first five years. Ganga says burnout often happens when teachers keep putting everyone else’s needs ahead of their own for too long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> I think burnout happens when you have pushed out, pushed through as much as possibly can because you have centered the needs of these children that you have been serving above even your own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> So her argument isn’t “love harder.” It’s that teachers have to include themselves in that care too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> It means that when my body is signaling to me that I am tired…we give equal weight to our needs\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong>That balance—staying open to students without completely draining yourself—is hard. But Ganga says people like Rita Pierson matter because that care seem possible\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> I love to hear about Rita because I know that there are other people out there like that who embody this. And the more that we make them into real human beings and make them accessible, the more than I think we can convince others that it’s worth endeavoring to even be like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> Regardless of what the world right now may make us think, that it is worth it for us to pursue a world and a society and hold on to the idea that being loving can be the norm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED. This episode was made possible by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley and the Templeton Foundation.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2013, Rita Pierson, a middle school teacher from Texas, walked onto a stage, wearing a bright red jacket, to deliver an unscripted speech to TED Conference attendees. The video of that speech would become one of the most viewed TED Talks at that time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In just under eight minutes, she made a simple, unforgettable argument: kids don’t learn from people they don’t like. The talk, titled \u003ca href=\"https://www.ted.com/talks/rita_pierson_every_kid_needs_a_champion\">Every Kid Needs a Champion\u003c/a>, is often the first time people hear someone describe teaching not just as instruction, but as a relationship. The video has become a staple of teacher professional development sessions across the country in staff meetings and college classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a decade later, the message lands in a very different educational climate. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/what-new-survey-says-about-teachers-plans-leave-their-jobs\">Teachers report high levels of stress\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/overview-teacher-shortages-2025-factsheet\">staffing shortages are common\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://cps.northeastern.edu/news/teacher-burnout-crisis-addressing-compassion-fatigue-and-the-impact-of-praxis-shock/\">burnout remains a major concern\u003c/a>. Exploring her presentation today raises important questions: What does it actually take to be the kind of teacher Pierson described? And is it sustainable?\u003cbr />\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr />\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC2909467136\" 0=\"width="100%"/iframe\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>The teacher behind the TED Talk\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Before her talk went viral, Rita Pierson was already well known among educators in Texas. She came from a family of teachers and spent decades working in classrooms and advocating for students who often felt overlooked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her daughter, Kristin Pierson Forrest, remembers that relationships were at the center of everything her mother did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She helped remind teachers that it’s okay to say ‘I love you.’ It’s okay to let the kids know that they are loved,” Forrest said. “There’s so many kids out there who don’t know that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That idea shows up clearly in the talk. Teachers, she said, have the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60094/strategies-for-building-deeper-relationships-with-students-through-academic-content\">power to build relationships\u003c/a>, even with students who struggle in school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But her daughter said Pierson also understood the emotional demands of that kind of work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She reminded me quickly [during] my first year teaching that I’m no good to my kids if I’m exhausted,” Forrest said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Every kid needs a champion | Rita Pierson | TED\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/SFnMTHhKdkw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A message passed from teacher to teacher\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For many educators, Pierson’s talk appears during professional development at the start of the school year. That’s how Melissa K. Stanley encountered it when she was teaching in K–12 classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It really resonated with me,” Stanley said. “I felt like I was meeting someone who viewed education and viewed the role of a teacher the same way that I did.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today she trains future teachers of secondary social studies education at Central Michigan University, where Pierson’s message is still part of the curriculum. Before her students begin their pre-service teaching placements, Stanley asks them to watch the talk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The video helps her introduce students to what educators call \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60112/learning-from-students-families-as-a-step-toward-equity-in-literacy-instruction\">asset-based pedagogy\u003c/a>, an approach that focuses on students’ strengths and experiences rather than what students lack.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/new-focus-strength-based-learning\">Studies\u003c/a> have found that students often show stronger engagement, greater belonging and better academic outcomes when teachers build on students’ strengths and experiences rather than focusing primarily on deficits. Instead of asking what students lack, teachers focus on what they bring to the table.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for some future educators, Stanley said, this approach is new and they don’t know where to start. This video helps her pre-service teachers start talking about what it means to build relationships with students so they can start to apply asset-based pedagogy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re about to step into classrooms for the first time and they’re nervous,” said Stanley.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>When caring becomes exhausting by design\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The kind of relational teaching Pierson described requires emotional labor. For teachers already juggling large class sizes, administrative demands and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59748/how-perspective-taking-can-improve-classroom-behavior-and-teacher-student-relationships\">behavioral challenges\u003c/a>, that energy can run out quickly. Teacher burnout has been a major concern in recent years and \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/09/27/a-dwindling-number-of-new-u-s-college-graduates-have-a-degree-in-education/\">fewer people are entering the profession\u003c/a>. Surveys consistently show high levels of stress among educators and \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/article/how-to-increase-the-retention-of-early-career-teachers/\">many teachers leave the profession within their first five years\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers like professor \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpc.unc.edu/people/fellows/ganga-bey/\">Ganga Bey at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill\u003c/a> are looking more closely at the emotional dynamics of teaching and how educators can sustain themselves while still showing up for students. Bey studies how people respond to stress and why similar experiences can affect individuals differently. “Not everyone who is exposed to stress will deal with it in the same way,” Bey said. “Dealing with it has a lot of implications for how that stress will impact people’s health.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teaching provides plenty of opportunities for stressful encounters. Examples may include a heated argument with a student or a classroom moment that spirals unexpectedly. According to Bey, the way teachers interpret those moments can influence how stressful they become physically and emotionally. For instance, if a teacher interprets a student’s outburst as a personal attack, the body may register the encounter as a threat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if the teacher understands the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/66347/ross-greene-what-if-bad-behavior-isnt-the-problem\">behavior as a sign the student is struggling\u003c/a>, the response can shift. “You wouldn’t be treating someone badly like that if you yourself weren’t suffering in some way,” Bey added. That reframing doesn’t mean ignoring harmful behavior. Instead, Bey said it can reduce the intensity of the stress response and make it easier to stay grounded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bey describes this mindset as part of what she calls a \u003ca href=\"https://www.americanprogress.org/article/how-to-increase-the-retention-of-early-career-teachers/\">vitalizing identity\u003c/a>, which is a way of understanding yourself and others that emphasizes connection, compassion and shared humanity. At its core, she said, it’s about expanding the boundaries of who we include in our circle of care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burnout often occurs, Bey said, when educators consistently place students’ needs above their own without receiving the support they need. “One would hope that because teachers give up so much of themselves that others would pour so much into them to sustain the work that they do. And that does not happen,” she said. Instead, many teachers are left trying to set boundaries that school systems often do not support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Love, to me, is the idea of opening our ego boundaries to include everyone else,” Bey said, and teachers have to include themselves in their own circles of care. In other words, caring for students cannot come at the expense of caring for yourself, which is the lesson Pierson emphasized with her daughter.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Rita Pierson’s continued legacy \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For Stanley’s college students, Pierson’s talk often becomes a reference point throughout their training. They return to it when they’re thinking about classroom management, lesson design or how to respond to difficult moments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a discussion about what that looks like and how do we keep our enthusiasm for teaching when things are hard—when things don’t go as well as we want them to, despite best intentions or despite support that we provide for students,” said Stanley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/jc95sq/if_i_have_to_sit_through_that_rita_pierson_ted/\">fatigue that comes with repeated views\u003c/a> of the TED Talk during professional development, Pierson’s message continues to resonate with educators. Stanley believes that’s because the talk gives them a license to teach the way they want to. That doesn’t mean the work becomes easy; building relationships with students takes time, patience and emotional effort. But Pierson’s legacy reminds educators that those relationships are not separate from learning. They are what make learning possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many teachers, that idea still feels worth holding onto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr />\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC2909467136\" 0=\"width="100%"/iframe\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Welcome to MindShift, where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Nimah Gobir.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> It’s summertime. School hasn’t started yet. The hallways are still quiet, and the kids are still sleeping in, but teachers? They’re back in school early to attend mandatory professional development sessions. Also known as PD. These might include discussing new protocols, hashing out curriculum and getting inspired for the new school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> If I asked teachers ‘What’s the one piece of PD you just know is coming?’ A lot of them would say the same thing: “Every kid needs a champion.” A TED Talk given by a teacher named Rita Pierson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rita Pierson:\u003c/strong> Every child deserves a champion, an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best they can possibly be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> In our last episode, we talked about how teaching is harder than ever – and how schools tend to focus on supporting kids while overlooking the adults who make learning possible: teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> In this episode, we take a look at Rita Pierson’s viral talk and what it tells us about how relationships shape learning. We’ll meet the people who knew Rita best, the educators who carry her philosophy forward, and the researcher studying what happens to our bodies and minds when we lead with love.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> Every time somebody finds out I teach middle school, they’re like, ‘Oh bless you.’ Like that’s the that’s the first reaction. And I’m like, Yeah, I know, because everybody remembers middle school is such a hard transition\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Beth Jarzabek teaches English in Ludlow, Massachusetts. She works with the kids who struggle the most with reading and writing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> I have all three grades. So I teach sixth, seventh, and eighth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Since her students need more support, there’s a stigma about being placed in her class\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> Like, ‘Oh, you have to go to Mrs. J’s class.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> These are kids who often mask academic frustration with misbehavior. They might act out. They shut down. But Beth sees through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek\u003c/strong>: Their other teachers may not see them the same way I do. So I try to make those connections and and try to be their champion\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> The idea of being a students’ champion comes straight from Rita Pierson. Like many teachers Beth first watched her TED Talk video during professional development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> There were people like, you know, who were kind of rolling their eyes and whatnot. But it resonated with maybe when she talked about the kids that she had that, you know were the kids that were struggling, that the and the fact that she said to them, they put us all together to show everybody else how it’s done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Here’s the clip from Rita’s TED Talk\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk\u003c/strong>: One year I came up with a bright idea. I told all my students, you were chosen to be in my class. Because I am the best teacher and you are the best students. They put us all together so we could show everybody else how to do it.]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> And I was like, oh, I love that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> So Beth decided to bring that same energy into her own classroom, especially for kids who rarely get encouraged by adults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> I started, you know, just trying to be that hype person, you know, when I go when I would go into my neighbor’s classroom, I would be like, Oh, which kids can I steal from you? You know, I’m like, oh, or if a kid got transferred in, I was like, I found out how cool you were, and I told them that I want, wanted you in my classroom. And it gave the kids like a little boost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> Or I’ll say to them, you know, like, hey, I’m telling all these people how awesome you are. I’m like, you gotta show them how awesome you are. And they’re like, okay, well, for you, I’ll do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> she’s tapping into something we know from decades of research. A positive relationship with even one caring adult is one of the strongest predictors of: better attendance, stronger academic performance, and improved social-emotional skills\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Several studies find that students with strong teacher relationships can gain the equivalent of up to an extra year of learning — especially those who struggle the most.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And here’s something else: supportive teacher–student relationships protect teachers too. Studies show that educators who feel connected to their students report significantly lower burnout and higher job satisfaction, even in high-stress environments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> I don’t have to be your favorite, but I’m still gonna go to bat with you. You are still going to know that you’re safe with me. You are still going to know that you have a valued place in my classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> She reminds herself of that, even on the hardest days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Beth Jarzabek:\u003c/strong> I try to remember when everything is falling apart I’m here for them to be that person in this tumultuous time in their life is really such an honor. Sometimes it’s easier to remember that than others. And there’s definitely days that I I go home and I like I’m under a weighted blanket. But I try to bring myself back to that, you know, what an honor it is to be the safe place for these kids because some of them don’t have it otherwise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Up next, we’ll explore why Rita Pierson’s message still resonates — who she was, how teachers are putting her ideas into practice, and what it takes to care for students without burning out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Rita Pierson’s TED Talk reached millions of teachers, but behind the scenes, the story of how it even happened is almost as special as the talk itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> I joined Ted working two days a week to try and help them figure out whether or not they could make TV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And I said, Of course you can do TV, it’s SNL for nerds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Juliet Blake , was the head of television for TED in 2013. She was producing a TV special on education — it included John Legend, Bill Gates, Sir Ken Robinson… big names. But she couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was missing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> Through YouTube and I came across Rita. And the video that was that existed online wasn’t great, but I could see she had this enormous personality and that she was so authentic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> After seeing clips of Rita giving teaching tips, she spent months trying to track her down\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> I was getting a bit desperate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Rita wasn’t a celebrity educator at the time. She was a longtime teacher and administrator in Houston who came from a family of educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And eventually I was calling different school districts in Houston. And I left a message for her at a school\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Then one evening Juliet’s phone rang.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> I got a call one evening, and she just went, ‘Hello,’ and I went, ‘Rita, Rita Pearson?’ And she went, ‘Sure am.’ And I went, ‘I have been looking you for you for months.’ She said, ‘Why?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m producing a show for Ted.’ And she said these magical words that made me fall in love with her immediately. ‘Who’s Ted?’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> From there, they talked on the phone almost every night—once Rita got home from teaching. They were trying to figure out what she might talk about for her presentation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> She would talk to me about her mother and her father being educators and the schools that she’d worked in\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Rita could move seamlessly between heartbreaking stories about students and cracking jokes about the realities of teaching. And slowly, through those late-night phone calls, the TED Talk started to take shape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And then she said, I need to write this, don’t I? I said, Yes, this is how it works. You not only have to write it, you have to learn it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> But when Rita arrived in New York for rehearsal…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And she goes, ‘Honey, I didn’t learn it.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Juliet was panicking… Rita was not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And she goes, You sit here and I’ll be on the stage and give me, tell me when I’ve got to wrap up, do this, and I’ll bring it to a close.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And I just thought, you know what? I just trust this woman to be brilliant. I just know that she’s going to do it and it’s gonna be great.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Juliet Blake:\u003c/strong> And it was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> That talk given live and mostly off the cuff and it is the one millions of teachers know today. Rita, on stage, speaking straight from the heart about how relationships are important for learning\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk\u003c/strong>: But one of the things that we never discuss or we rarely discuss is the value and importance of human connection…relationships]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Juliet remembers her as one of the most authentic speakers she’s ever worked with. And Rita’s daughter, Kristin Pierson Forrest says this all makes sense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> My mother’s never written down a speech in her life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> there might be maybe some bullet points, but she always knew exactly what she wanted to say and how she wanted to get it across.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir\u003c/strong>: Kristin says her mom’s taught elementary and junior high students for over 40 years. Her entire philosophy came down to one lesson:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> It’s okay to say I love you. It’s okay to let the kids know that that that they are loved, because there’s so many kids out there who don’t know that, who don’t inherently know that they are love. And so to explicitly tell kids, I care about you, you know, I’m here for you. I love you, and I’m gonna work my butt off for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Kristin spent 15 years teaching in Houston herself, and she says her mother’s approach shaped her own practice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> her work was centered around relationships. It was centered around relationship building and that was the central part of who I got to be as a teacher because I got that from her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> But she’s also quick to point out that her mom wasn’t naïve about the realities of teaching. Rita loved her students fiercely, but she knew that caring deeply for students wasn’t enough to protect her from burnout or from a system that often asks too much with too little support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> And she reminded me quickly, my first year teaching, that I’m no good to my kids if I’m exhausted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk\u003c/strong>: When Kristin had an especially hard day in the classroom. Rita would say, “You get 5 minutes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> It just means that you know, your sadness, there’s an end point to it. So whatever that five minutes is, it might be a day, it might be a week, it might be a month. But just know that at some point there’s going to be an end to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Kristin says those lessons from her mom took on a very different meaning not long after the TED Talk was filmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> After you know, they shot that TED talk, she she passed about three months later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Kirstin isn’t in the classroom anymore, but she still works with educators. she brings her mom’s presence with her everywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> I think about my mom every day, and it’s been close to 13 years since she was gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kristin Pierson Forrest:\u003c/strong> And even the day she passed, I had to remind myself, okay, you get five minutes. I don’t know if my five minutes is over yet. I really I really don’t know. But I I haven’t stayed in a sad place clearly, but but it’s definitely reminded me to pick myself up, dust myself off, and and what’s the next thing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> More than a decade later, Rita Pierson’s talk is still finding new audiences – not just among teachers, but among the people learning to become teachers. And that’s where Melissa Stanley comes in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> I am Dr. Melissa K. Stanley and I am the director of secondary social studies education at Central Michigan University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> I teach social studies methods courses to help prepare them to be social studies teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> She first saw Rita’s talk back when she was teaching in K–12 classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> And it really resonated with me and resonated with the way that I taught. I felt like I was meeting someone who viewed education and viewed the role of a teacher the same way that I did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And once Melissa became a teacher-educator at Central Michigan University. The talk became part of how she teaches. It’s a required video during the semester that her class does their pre-student teaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> They’re pretty nervous. And that is the semester that they do their pre-student teaching. It’s is the first real experience that they’ll get with students in going into classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Melissa uses the video to introduce students to asset-based pedagogy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> It’s looking at the whole student and it’s valuing what they bring and building relationships with them when the history of education has traditionally been kind of a deficit approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> That means seeing students through their problems rather than their potential.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Studies show that when teachers take an asset-based approach, valuing students’ cultural strengths, community knowledge, and lived identities, students show stronger academic engagement, better attendance, and improved well-being. And teachers themselves experience more purpose and lower burnout because relationships feel reciprocal rather than adversarial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> That really helps us have conversations and then use it as a gateway into conversations with students about how we adopt an asset bit based pedagogy and how we value the whole student and we value the strengths they bring to the classroom, the diversity they bring to the classroom, and how we work with that to build relationships and then also help them grow and meet their goals and their dreams for their lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> for some preservice teachers, this is a brand-new idea. Their own schooling may not have included teachers who championed them. So imagining themselves as that kind of teacher can be hard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> It generally generates a lot of questions about okay, how do we do this? This is great. I would love to get there. That’s kind of an end goal for me. But what are the steps along the way? What does that look like in practical application?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> They also discuss Rita’s line about joy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk:\u003c/strong>Teaching and learning should bring joy.]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> But if you’re engaging in this type of teaching and this type of work with students, not every moment is going to be joy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[\u003cstrong>Rita’s TED Talk: \u003c/strong>So teachers become great actors and great actresses. And we come to work when we don’t feel like it. And we listen to policy that doesn’t make sense. And we teach anyway. We teach anyway because that’s what we do. ]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Melissa K. Stanley:\u003c/strong> So we have a discussion about what that looks like and how do we keep our enthusiasm for teaching when things are hard, when things don’t go as well as we want them to, despite best intentions or despite support that we provide for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Melissa is naming something important. Teachers want to show up for kids the way Rita did, but the reality is that teaching is stressful. And not just the piles of grading or the endless meetings—interpersonal stress can hit teachers particularly hard. It affects their bodies and can leave them feeling emotionally exhausted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Dr. Ganga Bey is a researcher at the University of North Carolina. She studies how stress affects the body and why stress hits some people harder than others. And one thing she’s interested in is how the way we think about other people changes how stress affects us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> Love to me is this idea of opening our ego boundaries to include everyone else in it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> In simpler terms: seeing other people’s well-being as connected to your own. That can matter a lot in the classroom. Because when a student lashes out, a teacher can interpret that in different ways. They can think: This kid doesn’t respect me. Or: This kid is struggling right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And Ganga says that shift matters physically—not just emotionally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> So because of that, I’m literally gonna process that in a less stressful way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Now to be clear—this is not the same thing as toxic positivity. This isn’t: ‘Just smile through abuse.’ And it’s not: ‘Teachers should sacrifice themselves for kids.’ In fact, Ganga says one of the biggest problems in education is that teachers are already being asked to give too much of themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> Teachers are a particular group of people. Who encounter a tremendous amount of stressors and some of them are avoidable stressors right and part of the way that we organize our society teachers are undervalued um overworked and and live in a largely thankless space\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Teachers are reporting record-high stress levels, elevated rates of depression, and many are leaving the profession within the first five years. Ganga says burnout often happens when teachers keep putting everyone else’s needs ahead of their own for too long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> I think burnout happens when you have pushed out, pushed through as much as possibly can because you have centered the needs of these children that you have been serving above even your own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> So her argument isn’t “love harder.” It’s that teachers have to include themselves in that care too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> It means that when my body is signaling to me that I am tired…we give equal weight to our needs\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong>That balance—staying open to students without completely draining yourself—is hard. But Ganga says people like Rita Pierson matter because that care seem possible\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> I love to hear about Rita because I know that there are other people out there like that who embody this. And the more that we make them into real human beings and make them accessible, the more than I think we can convince others that it’s worth endeavoring to even be like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ganga Bey:\u003c/strong> Regardless of what the world right now may make us think, that it is worth it for us to pursue a world and a society and hold on to the idea that being loving can be the norm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED. This episode was made possible by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley and the Templeton Foundation.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about the gender gap was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/k12/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OAKLAND, Calif. — It’s a Friday morning at Oakland Unity Middle School, a public charter school nestled between residential buildings in East Oakland, and Austin Razavi is announcing the morning advisory prompt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ll give you 10, 15 seconds to think about it,” Razavi said to the group of 15 mixed-grade middle school boys who had arranged desks into a messy circle. “Then each of you share something most people don’t know about you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was some shuffling and silence. Several boys asked for more time, then one piped up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I like to play videos,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then another: “I like to play with my little siblings.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then: “A little-known fact about me is that half of my lung is missing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other classrooms on campus, girls-only and all-gender advisories are meeting too; students choose which type they are assigned to. During these trust circles, students can’t opt out of sharing, because this first period sets the tone for the day. Students will rely on each other for support to complete missing assignments by the end of the day, and teachers and administrators like Razavi want students to feel safe being vulnerable with each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Immediately after sharing time, each boy tells the group about class assignments he needs to finish. Their classmates offer advice, encouragement or just acknowledgement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s where growth happens,” said Razavi, a humanities teacher and assistant principal of the school. “Growth happens through risk. That’s where kids feel like they’re in community and an indicator of kids feeling a sense of belonging.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts agree that a sense of belonging — meaning that students feel accepted, respected and supported in school — is \u003ca href=\"https://ced.ncsu.edu/news/2021/10/21/why-is-it-important-for-students-to-feel-a-sense-of-belonging-at-school-students-choose-to-be-in-environments-that-make-them-feel-a-sense-of-fit-says-associate-professor-deleon-gra/\">crucial for academic success\u003c/a>. This is perhaps even more true for boys, who are more likely than girls to \u003ca href=\"https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ780936\">repeat kindergarten\u003c/a> and lag in \u003ca href=\"https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/gender-achievement-gaps-us-school-districts\">reading and writing skills\u003c/a> and less likely to \u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/articles/racial-disparities-in-the-high-school-graduation-gender-gap/\">graduate from high school\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But this safety eludes many boys who \u003ca href=\"https://www.srcd.org/news/negative-stereotypes-about-boys-hinder-their-academic-achievement\">get the message early in life\u003c/a> that they’re not good students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Something happens over time so by the time they get to high school, boys don’t feel like they belong in academic settings,” said Ioakim Boutakidis, a professor of child and adolescent studies at California State University, Fullerton, and a research fellow at the American Institute for Boys and Men, a nonprofit research and policy group. “And then that hurts academic belonging, the sense that you’re good enough to be successful in these academic spaces.” (Rise Together, a fund established by American Institute for Boys and Men founder Richard Reeves, is one of The Hechinger Report’s many donors.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Oakland Unity Middle School, teachers are trying to break that cycle through the relationship-building program, which is designed to normalize male vulnerability and support boys to be themselves, instead of what they feel is expected of them. Just over 140 sixth, seventh and eighth graders attend the school, nearly all of them from East Oakland — one of the most ethnically diverse and socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program, Ever Forward, was founded in 2004 by Ashanti Branch, then a first-year teacher in nearby San Lorenzo, to embrace a philosophy of “radical positivity.” Since 2021, according to Branch, it has led more than 300 workshops, mostly in Northern California, reaching upwards of 30,000 teachers and educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel like this school is kind of my second home,” said Unity eighth grader Adrian Polanco, who wants to study business in college. “We always have someone we can look up to, who has our back, which I think is really good and really important for school to have.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No one claims that social-emotional support for boys alone will help them do better academically, but experts say that programming to boost belonging may be key to closing the academic gender gap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warmth and connection matter a lot to boys, even if they don’t always demonstrate these needs by being responsive to questions and expectations the way girls often do, Boutakidis said. Boys may appear not to care about what adults think of them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t crave connection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This can make it hard for some teachers to connect with boys in the classroom and even read boys’ behavior as so disengaged as to be antagonistic, said Matt Englar-Carlson, a professor of counseling and the co-director of the Center for Boys and Men at Cal State Fullerton. This may be particularly true with adolescent boys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you think what’s happening is disrespect in the classroom, the reality is that it typically isn’t, because they’re not performing for you,” Englar-Carlson said. “They’re performing for their peers around them. He can ridicule you and save face in front of his friends and act like he doesn’t care.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once teachers begin to realize when this is happening, they can make adaptations to their teaching, he said, like asking boys questions in a different way. Instead of calling out a male student in front of the class, teachers might come up next to him while walking around the classroom and talk to him softly, at his level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So now it’s actually a private conversation between the two of you,” he said, “and you don’t actually have to call out bad behavior.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ashanti Branch learned early the challenges faced by male students. A wrestler and football player while attending East Oakland public schools, he now wears his hair in long braids and has an easy, warm smile and laugh. After graduating from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Branch worked as a civil engineer before going into teaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As one of just a few male teachers at San Lorenzo High School about 20 miles south of Oakland, Branch soon discovered that male students vented their anger and frustration at him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I saw young men who were brilliant, but the way they were acting in front of class was really difficult,” he said. “I would tell them, ‘Young man, you want to fight with me because it looks good with your peers? I’m not here to fight you. I’m not your enemy. You’re a high schooler. I’m an adult with a job. What are we arguing about? I want you to succeed.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He invited some male students to have lunch with him once a week and asked them how he could be a better teacher. What they told him was that their lives were too difficult for school to be a priority. Students described “crashing out” — sudden outbursts of rage and emotion — after dealing with one emotional “land mine” after another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A kid getting pushed down the hall, he ignores it, ignores it, and then all of a sudden he turns around and boom,” Branch said, making an explosion gesture with both hands. “And then he gets in trouble, right?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Branch recalled that as a teacher he was encouraged to leave his own problems “in the glove compartment” before coming to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I tried to do that, but I realized I was so fake,” he said. Instead, he was honest with his students about how he was doing. “I would tell them, ‘I had a rough weekend. A lot of drama happened in my life. Today’s not a good day.” He calls this approach “normalizing vulnerability” — an essential step for young men to be themselves as people and as students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Branch turned the weekly lunches with students into a club, the \u003ca href=\"https://everforwardclub.org/\">Ever Forward Club\u003c/a>, where young men could gather to process emotions. He spent a decade developing the program and expanding to more schools, eventually leaving his job to build the program and provide professional development for educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the heart of the Ever Forward Club is a project-based tool Branch calls Masks, Emotions and Math. During workshops, Branch guides young men to explore the ways they present themselves to the world while hiding their difficult emotions from view.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the club started in 2004, every participating student has graduated from high school and 93 percent have transitioned to college, the military or a trade school, Branch said. He expanded the work to include \u003ca href=\"https://everforwardclub.org/ever-forward-pd\">professional development\u003c/a> for educators, calling it the \u003ca href=\"https://millionmask.org/\">Million Mask Movement\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tony Farrell, head of \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/5UpYCERPDmIkvY73HNflc7Lbyo?domain=sacredsf.org\">Stuart Hall High School\u003c/a> — the boys’ segment of a school in San Francisco affiliated with Schools of the Sacred Heart* — recalls an event Branch led at his school ten years ago. Two hundred male high school students sat in a big circle in the school’s gymnasium, Farrell said, and Branch handed out pens and paper. He instructed students to write on one side of the paper how they appear to the world. On the other side, he said, write the stuff the world doesn’t know about them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then they crumpled the papers up and threw them at each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a snowball fight,” Farrell said. “We had a perfectly, wonderfully randomized pile of crumpled paper.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then each boy picked a paper ball, smoothed it out and, one at a time, read what another boy had written.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farrell recalled boys reading, “You wouldn’t know from looking at me that my parents are getting a divorce’’ and “You wouldn’t know from looking at me that my grandma’s really sick.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not to get woo-woo, but it was like an electric field,” he said. “It was really powerful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two years ago, Branch led a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXtA5Pg6wUc\">Masks, Emotions and Math\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXtA5Pg6wUc\"> event\u003c/a> at Oakland Unity Middle School. Since then, teachers at the school have integrated elements of Branch’s work into routine practices, including how the school manages disciplinary issues. That’s also where Razavi got the idea to offer single-sex advisory periods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some boys need a space where they can open up to other boys, he said, without the social dynamics that can come with all-gender groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you know that belonging matters, and you know that there’s this very evident drop in sense of belonging over time for boys, then we need to work on making boys feel like they belong,” he said. “And we need to work on that earlier.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eighth grader Fierre Hill transferred to Oakland Unity after his old middle school closed. He wants to go to college and study something health-related. He describes the support he gets from his teachers at the school as “warming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re able to tell them stuff that you couldn’t tell other people,” he said, “and they just have this different energy that makes you comfortable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I get with that,” seventh grader Jubran Sulaiman agreed. “We can all, what’s the word? Express ourselves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Wednesdays, Hill and other students go to the school’s Learning Lab, where they get help completing any work they haven’t turned in. Chris Bibbens Williams is the teacher in charge of the Learning Lab. He said that the Masks, Emotions and Math event that Branch led at the school helped otherwise shy students engage more deeply with their peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re gonna have some kids who are more confident in talking in front of everyone, but even the kids who weren’t confident, it just seemed like because the space was positive, it was a chance for them to say how they felt in the moment,” he said. “That’s one thing that I love about this school is that we really allow kids to be themselves, and we build those deep relationships.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he isn’t in the Learning Lab, Williams can be found all over campus — playing basketball with students and hanging out with them in the cafeteria.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>”When you build those relationships, kids come to you,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recently, Williams approached an eighth grader who hadn’t been completing his language arts assignments. Was he not doing the work because it was too hard, or because he lacked confidence?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had him come over and read the passage to me,” Williams said, “and I discovered it was truly just him not being confident in his reading.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With Williams sitting with him, the student made his way through the passage and read words he wasn’t familiar with. Since then, Williams has noticed a change in the boy’s confidence level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s attempting more,” he said, “and that’s all I could ask for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Contact editor Christina Samuels at (212) 678-3635 or samuels@hechingerreport.org.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about the gender gap was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/k12/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about the gender gap was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/k12/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OAKLAND, Calif. — It’s a Friday morning at Oakland Unity Middle School, a public charter school nestled between residential buildings in East Oakland, and Austin Razavi is announcing the morning advisory prompt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ll give you 10, 15 seconds to think about it,” Razavi said to the group of 15 mixed-grade middle school boys who had arranged desks into a messy circle. “Then each of you share something most people don’t know about you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was some shuffling and silence. Several boys asked for more time, then one piped up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I like to play videos,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then another: “I like to play with my little siblings.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then: “A little-known fact about me is that half of my lung is missing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other classrooms on campus, girls-only and all-gender advisories are meeting too; students choose which type they are assigned to. During these trust circles, students can’t opt out of sharing, because this first period sets the tone for the day. Students will rely on each other for support to complete missing assignments by the end of the day, and teachers and administrators like Razavi want students to feel safe being vulnerable with each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Immediately after sharing time, each boy tells the group about class assignments he needs to finish. Their classmates offer advice, encouragement or just acknowledgement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s where growth happens,” said Razavi, a humanities teacher and assistant principal of the school. “Growth happens through risk. That’s where kids feel like they’re in community and an indicator of kids feeling a sense of belonging.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts agree that a sense of belonging — meaning that students feel accepted, respected and supported in school — is \u003ca href=\"https://ced.ncsu.edu/news/2021/10/21/why-is-it-important-for-students-to-feel-a-sense-of-belonging-at-school-students-choose-to-be-in-environments-that-make-them-feel-a-sense-of-fit-says-associate-professor-deleon-gra/\">crucial for academic success\u003c/a>. This is perhaps even more true for boys, who are more likely than girls to \u003ca href=\"https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ780936\">repeat kindergarten\u003c/a> and lag in \u003ca href=\"https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/gender-achievement-gaps-us-school-districts\">reading and writing skills\u003c/a> and less likely to \u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/articles/racial-disparities-in-the-high-school-graduation-gender-gap/\">graduate from high school\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But this safety eludes many boys who \u003ca href=\"https://www.srcd.org/news/negative-stereotypes-about-boys-hinder-their-academic-achievement\">get the message early in life\u003c/a> that they’re not good students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Something happens over time so by the time they get to high school, boys don’t feel like they belong in academic settings,” said Ioakim Boutakidis, a professor of child and adolescent studies at California State University, Fullerton, and a research fellow at the American Institute for Boys and Men, a nonprofit research and policy group. “And then that hurts academic belonging, the sense that you’re good enough to be successful in these academic spaces.” (Rise Together, a fund established by American Institute for Boys and Men founder Richard Reeves, is one of The Hechinger Report’s many donors.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Oakland Unity Middle School, teachers are trying to break that cycle through the relationship-building program, which is designed to normalize male vulnerability and support boys to be themselves, instead of what they feel is expected of them. Just over 140 sixth, seventh and eighth graders attend the school, nearly all of them from East Oakland — one of the most ethnically diverse and socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program, Ever Forward, was founded in 2004 by Ashanti Branch, then a first-year teacher in nearby San Lorenzo, to embrace a philosophy of “radical positivity.” Since 2021, according to Branch, it has led more than 300 workshops, mostly in Northern California, reaching upwards of 30,000 teachers and educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel like this school is kind of my second home,” said Unity eighth grader Adrian Polanco, who wants to study business in college. “We always have someone we can look up to, who has our back, which I think is really good and really important for school to have.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No one claims that social-emotional support for boys alone will help them do better academically, but experts say that programming to boost belonging may be key to closing the academic gender gap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warmth and connection matter a lot to boys, even if they don’t always demonstrate these needs by being responsive to questions and expectations the way girls often do, Boutakidis said. Boys may appear not to care about what adults think of them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t crave connection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This can make it hard for some teachers to connect with boys in the classroom and even read boys’ behavior as so disengaged as to be antagonistic, said Matt Englar-Carlson, a professor of counseling and the co-director of the Center for Boys and Men at Cal State Fullerton. This may be particularly true with adolescent boys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you think what’s happening is disrespect in the classroom, the reality is that it typically isn’t, because they’re not performing for you,” Englar-Carlson said. “They’re performing for their peers around them. He can ridicule you and save face in front of his friends and act like he doesn’t care.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once teachers begin to realize when this is happening, they can make adaptations to their teaching, he said, like asking boys questions in a different way. Instead of calling out a male student in front of the class, teachers might come up next to him while walking around the classroom and talk to him softly, at his level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So now it’s actually a private conversation between the two of you,” he said, “and you don’t actually have to call out bad behavior.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ashanti Branch learned early the challenges faced by male students. A wrestler and football player while attending East Oakland public schools, he now wears his hair in long braids and has an easy, warm smile and laugh. After graduating from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Branch worked as a civil engineer before going into teaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As one of just a few male teachers at San Lorenzo High School about 20 miles south of Oakland, Branch soon discovered that male students vented their anger and frustration at him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I saw young men who were brilliant, but the way they were acting in front of class was really difficult,” he said. “I would tell them, ‘Young man, you want to fight with me because it looks good with your peers? I’m not here to fight you. I’m not your enemy. You’re a high schooler. I’m an adult with a job. What are we arguing about? I want you to succeed.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He invited some male students to have lunch with him once a week and asked them how he could be a better teacher. What they told him was that their lives were too difficult for school to be a priority. Students described “crashing out” — sudden outbursts of rage and emotion — after dealing with one emotional “land mine” after another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A kid getting pushed down the hall, he ignores it, ignores it, and then all of a sudden he turns around and boom,” Branch said, making an explosion gesture with both hands. “And then he gets in trouble, right?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Branch recalled that as a teacher he was encouraged to leave his own problems “in the glove compartment” before coming to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I tried to do that, but I realized I was so fake,” he said. Instead, he was honest with his students about how he was doing. “I would tell them, ‘I had a rough weekend. A lot of drama happened in my life. Today’s not a good day.” He calls this approach “normalizing vulnerability” — an essential step for young men to be themselves as people and as students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Branch turned the weekly lunches with students into a club, the \u003ca href=\"https://everforwardclub.org/\">Ever Forward Club\u003c/a>, where young men could gather to process emotions. He spent a decade developing the program and expanding to more schools, eventually leaving his job to build the program and provide professional development for educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the heart of the Ever Forward Club is a project-based tool Branch calls Masks, Emotions and Math. During workshops, Branch guides young men to explore the ways they present themselves to the world while hiding their difficult emotions from view.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the club started in 2004, every participating student has graduated from high school and 93 percent have transitioned to college, the military or a trade school, Branch said. He expanded the work to include \u003ca href=\"https://everforwardclub.org/ever-forward-pd\">professional development\u003c/a> for educators, calling it the \u003ca href=\"https://millionmask.org/\">Million Mask Movement\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tony Farrell, head of \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/5UpYCERPDmIkvY73HNflc7Lbyo?domain=sacredsf.org\">Stuart Hall High School\u003c/a> — the boys’ segment of a school in San Francisco affiliated with Schools of the Sacred Heart* — recalls an event Branch led at his school ten years ago. Two hundred male high school students sat in a big circle in the school’s gymnasium, Farrell said, and Branch handed out pens and paper. He instructed students to write on one side of the paper how they appear to the world. On the other side, he said, write the stuff the world doesn’t know about them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then they crumpled the papers up and threw them at each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a snowball fight,” Farrell said. “We had a perfectly, wonderfully randomized pile of crumpled paper.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then each boy picked a paper ball, smoothed it out and, one at a time, read what another boy had written.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farrell recalled boys reading, “You wouldn’t know from looking at me that my parents are getting a divorce’’ and “You wouldn’t know from looking at me that my grandma’s really sick.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not to get woo-woo, but it was like an electric field,” he said. “It was really powerful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two years ago, Branch led a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXtA5Pg6wUc\">Masks, Emotions and Math\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXtA5Pg6wUc\"> event\u003c/a> at Oakland Unity Middle School. Since then, teachers at the school have integrated elements of Branch’s work into routine practices, including how the school manages disciplinary issues. That’s also where Razavi got the idea to offer single-sex advisory periods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some boys need a space where they can open up to other boys, he said, without the social dynamics that can come with all-gender groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you know that belonging matters, and you know that there’s this very evident drop in sense of belonging over time for boys, then we need to work on making boys feel like they belong,” he said. “And we need to work on that earlier.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eighth grader Fierre Hill transferred to Oakland Unity after his old middle school closed. He wants to go to college and study something health-related. He describes the support he gets from his teachers at the school as “warming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re able to tell them stuff that you couldn’t tell other people,” he said, “and they just have this different energy that makes you comfortable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I get with that,” seventh grader Jubran Sulaiman agreed. “We can all, what’s the word? Express ourselves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Wednesdays, Hill and other students go to the school’s Learning Lab, where they get help completing any work they haven’t turned in. Chris Bibbens Williams is the teacher in charge of the Learning Lab. He said that the Masks, Emotions and Math event that Branch led at the school helped otherwise shy students engage more deeply with their peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re gonna have some kids who are more confident in talking in front of everyone, but even the kids who weren’t confident, it just seemed like because the space was positive, it was a chance for them to say how they felt in the moment,” he said. “That’s one thing that I love about this school is that we really allow kids to be themselves, and we build those deep relationships.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he isn’t in the Learning Lab, Williams can be found all over campus — playing basketball with students and hanging out with them in the cafeteria.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>”When you build those relationships, kids come to you,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recently, Williams approached an eighth grader who hadn’t been completing his language arts assignments. Was he not doing the work because it was too hard, or because he lacked confidence?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had him come over and read the passage to me,” Williams said, “and I discovered it was truly just him not being confident in his reading.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With Williams sitting with him, the student made his way through the passage and read words he wasn’t familiar with. Since then, Williams has noticed a change in the boy’s confidence level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s attempting more,” he said, “and that’s all I could ask for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Contact editor Christina Samuels at (212) 678-3635 or samuels@hechingerreport.org.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about the gender gap was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/k12/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "what-michigan-schools-reveal-about-reversing-chronic-absenteeism",
"title": "What Michigan Schools Reveal About Reversing Chronic Absenteeism",
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"content": "\u003cp>Absenteeism is a huge and seemingly intractable problem for the nation’s public schools. And Michigan has one of the worst \u003ca href=\"https://www.returntolearntracker.net/\">attendance rates\u003c/a> in the country. That makes it a prime target for researchers. In hundreds of schools, more than 3 out of 5 students were chronically absent before the pandemic. When classes resumed, chronic absenteeism approached 4 out of 5 students in the state’s worst-attended schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet a new \u003ca href=\"https://detroitpeer.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Identifying-Effective-Attendance-Strategies.pdf\">study\u003c/a> released in May offers hope. Researchers found that some Michigan schools appear to be substantially better than others at getting students to show up, and identified one intervention — frequent home visits to families whose children are absent from class — that was used more often by schools making a difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schools that were more successful in boosting attendance were much more likely to conduct these visits frequently — daily or weekly. Monthly or occasional home visits did not appear to make as much difference. Schools that visited less frequently performed about the same as those that did not conduct home visits at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Measuring a school’s impact on attendance is tricky. If a student attends school 95 percent of the time, it can be hard to tell whether the student was already conscientious, or whether the school itself is having a positive influence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To isolate a school’s influence, researchers at the University of Michigan-Flint and Wayne State University focused on students who switched schools, such as those transitioning from middle to high school. The students themselves remained largely the same while their school environments changed so researchers could more credibly estimate whether particular schools made a difference. To account for the fact that more diligent students might be selected or funneled into higher-performing schools, researchers further adjusted their calculations to compare students with similar backgrounds and academic records as they switched schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers analyzed roughly 2,700 Michigan schools between 2022 and 2025 and divided them into quarters based on how much they improved their students’ attendance rates. Students in the top quarter of schools showed up for class about seven more days per year than similar students in the bottom quarter. Seven days is substantial since missing 18 days a year is the threshold for chronic absenteeism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Encouragingly, these attendance gains were not short-lived. The schools that made the most progress tended to show improvement across all three years of the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But improvement does not necessarily mean success. Some of the most effective schools in the state still had absenteeism rates above 40 or 50 percent, said Jeremy Singer, assistant professor at the University of Michigan-Flint and lead author of the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The schools making the most progress tend to educate many children in poverty, often clustered in the state’s poorest cities, such as Detroit, Flint and Saginaw, or in economically depressed rural areas where farms are rapidly going out of business. Across the nation, absenteeism rates are highest in poor communities where evictions, addiction, transportation problems, health issues and family responsibilities interfere with school attendance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>High-poverty schools know absenteeism is a problem and have numerous programs and staff in place to address it. Researchers wanted to see if there were common strategies used by schools that were making progress. And so they combined their analysis with a Michigan school survey where principals disclosed how they were tackling the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s how the value of frequent home visits rose to the top, which also corroborates other \u003ca href=\"https://virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/event/75879/submission/61\">research in Connecticut\u003c/a>. An \u003ca href=\"https://portal.ct.gov/sde/chronic-absence/learner-engagement-and-attendance-program-leap\">intensive home visiting program\u003c/a> to boost attendance has also shown strong results there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, these visits are not a guaranteed solution. Some Michigan schools conducting weekly home visits saw no improvement in attendance — or even worsening absenteeism. In other words, while many schools using frequent home visits were successful, others were not. “They’re certainly no silver bullet,” said Singer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Singer says that researchers need to dig deeper into what makes home visits effective since they are expensive and time-intensive. Possible factors include who conducts them, what time of day they occur, whether they are scheduled or surprise visits, and what conversations take place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schools in the study are trying dozens of other interventions, but the researchers didn’t detect a strong connection between most of those efforts and improved attendance. These other interventions include early warning systems, letters home, automated text messages and phone calls. Schools that had support from district personnel, such as truancy officers or liaisons, did not do better than schools without these staffers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Personalized and frequent text messages were modestly more common among more schools with improving attendance. Researchers also found that schools making more progress were slightly more likely to report actively helping families address outside barriers such as housing and transportation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The correlation between interventions and schools that are effective in boosting attendance is a clue about what works, but the researchers cannot say whether the interventions are driving the attendance improvements. It could be that the most effective schools are doing other things not captured in the survey, such as hiring especially skilled teachers or building stronger relationships with students that make school feel worth attending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The findings are a reminder that “best practices” recommendations often overstate what researchers actually know. Schools can make a meaningful difference in attendance, but identifying genuinely successful schools is hard, isolating why they succeed is even harder, and simple solutions rarely hold up under scrutiny.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-michigan-absenteeism/\">\u003cem>addressing absenteeism in Michigan\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Absenteeism is a huge and seemingly intractable problem for the nation’s public schools. And Michigan has one of the worst \u003ca href=\"https://www.returntolearntracker.net/\">attendance rates\u003c/a> in the country. That makes it a prime target for researchers. In hundreds of schools, more than 3 out of 5 students were chronically absent before the pandemic. When classes resumed, chronic absenteeism approached 4 out of 5 students in the state’s worst-attended schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet a new \u003ca href=\"https://detroitpeer.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Identifying-Effective-Attendance-Strategies.pdf\">study\u003c/a> released in May offers hope. Researchers found that some Michigan schools appear to be substantially better than others at getting students to show up, and identified one intervention — frequent home visits to families whose children are absent from class — that was used more often by schools making a difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schools that were more successful in boosting attendance were much more likely to conduct these visits frequently — daily or weekly. Monthly or occasional home visits did not appear to make as much difference. Schools that visited less frequently performed about the same as those that did not conduct home visits at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Measuring a school’s impact on attendance is tricky. If a student attends school 95 percent of the time, it can be hard to tell whether the student was already conscientious, or whether the school itself is having a positive influence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To isolate a school’s influence, researchers at the University of Michigan-Flint and Wayne State University focused on students who switched schools, such as those transitioning from middle to high school. The students themselves remained largely the same while their school environments changed so researchers could more credibly estimate whether particular schools made a difference. To account for the fact that more diligent students might be selected or funneled into higher-performing schools, researchers further adjusted their calculations to compare students with similar backgrounds and academic records as they switched schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers analyzed roughly 2,700 Michigan schools between 2022 and 2025 and divided them into quarters based on how much they improved their students’ attendance rates. Students in the top quarter of schools showed up for class about seven more days per year than similar students in the bottom quarter. Seven days is substantial since missing 18 days a year is the threshold for chronic absenteeism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Encouragingly, these attendance gains were not short-lived. The schools that made the most progress tended to show improvement across all three years of the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But improvement does not necessarily mean success. Some of the most effective schools in the state still had absenteeism rates above 40 or 50 percent, said Jeremy Singer, assistant professor at the University of Michigan-Flint and lead author of the study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The schools making the most progress tend to educate many children in poverty, often clustered in the state’s poorest cities, such as Detroit, Flint and Saginaw, or in economically depressed rural areas where farms are rapidly going out of business. Across the nation, absenteeism rates are highest in poor communities where evictions, addiction, transportation problems, health issues and family responsibilities interfere with school attendance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>High-poverty schools know absenteeism is a problem and have numerous programs and staff in place to address it. Researchers wanted to see if there were common strategies used by schools that were making progress. And so they combined their analysis with a Michigan school survey where principals disclosed how they were tackling the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s how the value of frequent home visits rose to the top, which also corroborates other \u003ca href=\"https://virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/event/75879/submission/61\">research in Connecticut\u003c/a>. An \u003ca href=\"https://portal.ct.gov/sde/chronic-absence/learner-engagement-and-attendance-program-leap\">intensive home visiting program\u003c/a> to boost attendance has also shown strong results there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, these visits are not a guaranteed solution. Some Michigan schools conducting weekly home visits saw no improvement in attendance — or even worsening absenteeism. In other words, while many schools using frequent home visits were successful, others were not. “They’re certainly no silver bullet,” said Singer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Singer says that researchers need to dig deeper into what makes home visits effective since they are expensive and time-intensive. Possible factors include who conducts them, what time of day they occur, whether they are scheduled or surprise visits, and what conversations take place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schools in the study are trying dozens of other interventions, but the researchers didn’t detect a strong connection between most of those efforts and improved attendance. These other interventions include early warning systems, letters home, automated text messages and phone calls. Schools that had support from district personnel, such as truancy officers or liaisons, did not do better than schools without these staffers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Personalized and frequent text messages were modestly more common among more schools with improving attendance. Researchers also found that schools making more progress were slightly more likely to report actively helping families address outside barriers such as housing and transportation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The correlation between interventions and schools that are effective in boosting attendance is a clue about what works, but the researchers cannot say whether the interventions are driving the attendance improvements. It could be that the most effective schools are doing other things not captured in the survey, such as hiring especially skilled teachers or building stronger relationships with students that make school feel worth attending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The findings are a reminder that “best practices” recommendations often overstate what researchers actually know. Schools can make a meaningful difference in attendance, but identifying genuinely successful schools is hard, isolating why they succeed is even harder, and simple solutions rarely hold up under scrutiny.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-michigan-absenteeism/\">\u003cem>addressing absenteeism in Michigan\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Oliver, an only child, was born in 2018, and he and his parents don’t live near family. When the pandemic hit, “it was kinda like a perfect storm” during such an important time in early childhood development, said Dan, Oliver’s dad.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Oliver’s teachers noticed early on in preschool that he was having a hard time engaging with his peers and would keep to himself during group activities, Dan said. His parents initially brushed it off as shyness. “It really surprised us because we don’t see that at home at all,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But as his teachers brought up their concerns, Dan and his wife, who weren’t familiar with the special education system, began to learn all about it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They were prepared to send Oliver to the local public school for kindergarten. But when they found out about Copper Island Academy, they saw an opportunity for Oliver to experience a different type of school, one that reminded Dan of his own school experience, when class sizes were smaller and students connected with their peers and teachers beyond traditional academics.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Copper Island Academy is where “sisu” — a Finnish word describing an internal level of grit and perseverance — is paramount. It’s a K-8 charter school serving students and their families from the surrounding area of Calumet, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula. Tucked behind an EMS vehicle service center on the only road to and from the town’s one-room airport, you might never know that the school is there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-megaphone wp-block-embed-megaphone\">\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6353911588\n\u003c/div>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1562\" height=\"1463\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983.jpg\" alt=\"A poster is displayed on a wall\" class=\"wp-image-66188\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983.jpg 1562w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983-160x150.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983-768x719.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983-1536x1439.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1562px) 100vw, 1562px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A poster creating an acronym of the word “sisu” is on display at Copper Island Academy. (Marlena Jackson-Retondo)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Launched in the fall of 2021, the school was developed by educator duo and married couple Matt and Nora Laho. But this isn’t just their brainchild. It was actualized in collaboration with community members and families searching for an answer to their concerns about public education — like increased screentime, a lack of joy in learning, less challenging lessons and dwindling extracurricular offerings — during the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, Matt Laho said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The parent community also wanted more skilled trades and culinary arts in the day-to-day curriculum, Laho said. For example, parents noted the slow decline in shop classes offered in public schools, so Copper Island made a concerted effort to bring them back.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The group considered many education models, Laho said, including Montessori and hybrid models, but ultimately they landed on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/55006/the-teachers-role-in-finlands-phenomenon-based-learning\">Finnish education model\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Finnish education model is marked by teacher autonomy and collaboration, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/47909/how-kids-learn-better-by-taking-frequent-breaks-throughout-the-day\">frequent breaks\u003c/a>, inclusive practices and differentiation, according to \u003ca href=\"https://taughtbyfinland.com/\">Tim Walker\u003c/a>, Copper Island Academy’s Finnish education model consultant, who has written several books about \u003ca href=\"https://wwnorton.com/books/Teach-Like-Finland/\">teaching in Finland\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Teachers in Finland are highly respected professionals, and it’s difficult to obtain teaching credentials. Teachers are allotted ample time for planning and prep, and they’re expected to leave school at the end of the day alongside their students. In the U.S., teacher shortages are common, morale and teacher pay are low and planning and prep periods are painfully short.\u003c/p>\n\n\nCalumet and the surrounding area are home to the highest percentage of people of Finnish heritage outside of Finland itself. But that didn’t mean schools in the area operated like their cross-Atlantic counterparts. For the Lahos, the Finnish model represented what parents and families in the area wanted most out of their children’s education: hands-on classrooms, real-world life skills and a focus on joy.\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>What’s so great about Finland? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\u003cp>In the early 2000s, Finland emerged as an unexpected global leader in education after the first Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores, published in 2001, ranked Finland number one among the 31 other participating countries. The U.S. showed middle-of-the-road academic scores and was ranked in the 15th spot that same year.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In 2001, the Bush administration also reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and rolled out the No Child Left Behind Act in public schools across the country in 2002, so education reform was already top of mind in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In the decade following the 2001 PISA scores, Finland continued to rank in the top three participating countries. Within that time, the U.S. was one of many countries that looked to Finland’s balanced approach to learning for guidance on pedagogical practices, which included differentiated learning and early intervention practices.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But by the 2010s, Finland’s PISA scores began to fall, and the hype died down. And organizations like the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which administers the PISA exams, began to encourage schools to focus more on student well-being beyond academic success, said Walker, an American teacher who taught in Finland for more than 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>However, the draw to a Finnish model still remains today in education circles, and for Copper Island Academy, it landed close to home.\u003c/p>\n\n\nAnd for parents like Dan, Copper Island had the added benefit of an inclusive special education program. He said enrolling Oliver at Copper Island Academy “was the best decision we possibly could have made.”\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Special education, the Finnish way\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\u003cp>Oliver has an Individualized Education Program (IEP), a highly detailed, legally binding document, requiring an official diagnosis. The family asked we not use their last name because of privacy concerns for their child. IEPs adjust the curriculum for an individual student in order to meet their goals. Part of Oliver’s education plan includes push-ins during general education classroom time with Jennifer Gervais, one of Copper Island Academy’s special education teachers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Push-ins are a form of support that keeps students in the classroom alongside their peers rather than in a siloed special education classroom.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>During a push-in on one of his more difficult mornings, Gervais sits next to Oliver and quietly prompts him to participate. The other students are used to her presence in their classroom and aren’t phased. Oliver’s responses are very quiet, but he does take part in a phonics lesson led by his teacher, Ms. Erva. And if you listen very carefully, you can hear his peers encouraging him with a “good job, Oliver,” after his turn to play the phonics game is over.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_JenGervais_headshot-e1773379859400.png\" alt=\"Woman in front of window\" class=\"wp-image-66186\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Copper Island Academy teacher Jennifer Gervais. (Marlena Jackson-Retondo)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Although Oliver’s experience at Copper Island Academy has been positive, many students struggle to get the services they need.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There are \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgg/students-with-disabilities#:~:text=In%202022%E2%80%9323%2C%20the%20number,of%20all%20public%20school%20students.\">7.5 million students\u003c/a> receiving special education services in the U.S. — the majority of whom are diagnosed with \u003ca href=\"https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/specific-learning-disorder/what-is-specific-learning-disorder\">specific learning disorders\u003c/a> like dyslexia, dysgraphia or dyscalculia. Even for those students who are identified as needing to receive special education services early on, the path to receiving these supports is hard to navigate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Most often in the U.S., students must exhaust Tier 1 and Tier 2 support services, which consist of specialized, small group instruction from a general education teacher, specialists or paraeducators, before receiving an IEP — a Tier 3 special education service.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>However, the special education system in Finland is marked by teacher and family collaboration, personalized learning and trust in teacher expertise; special education intervention in Finland is seen as a preventative and inclusive practice.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Everybody’s getting support,” said Helmi Betancourt, an elementary special education teacher in Helsinki, Finland. Like many special education teachers in Finland, Betancourt is assigned to many different classrooms. Throughout the week, she spends a couple of hours in each of her assigned classrooms teaching alongside the general education teacher. If there is an individual student or smaller group of students who need extra help outside of their general education classroom, Betancourt has the flexibility to pull them into a separate learning environment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The decision to support a student with special education resources is seen as a pedagogical one, and is accessible for any student in the classroom who is struggling with academic or behavioral issues, according to Betancourt and her colleague in special education, Anna-Mari Vuohelainen. Teachers are free to make these decisions without the explicit consent of parents and without waiting for a diagnosis for additional support.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“It’s based on the benefit of the child,” not on a diagnosis, Betancourt said. They use a classroom-based support system to be more inclusive of special education students in their general education classrooms, and to make sure that other students who are not yet receiving support, but might need it, get it as early as possible. This also makes for less paperwork.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“The idea is that nobody has to wait for the support that they need,” said Betancourt, because sometimes, getting a diagnosis takes a long time and it’s unfair to a student if they can’t get support for years. And the students identified as having the most intensive needs receive them in a setting that makes the most sense for their needs.\u003c/p>\n\n\nBut there isn’t necessarily a one-to-one application of the Finnish education model to the U.S. special education system.\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Early intervention and measuring student growth\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\u003cp>Early intervention is one of the hallmarks of the Finnish education model, and is one that Copper Island has emulated. According to Laho, early intervention allows Copper Island to tackle problems as they emerge and before a formal special education referral needs to be placed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In order to identify student needs, teachers across departments regularly meet to hold student success meetings. These meetings occur outside of traditional IEP or special education meeting requirements, and all students are considered. This is where they identify students who are struggling, collaborate on how to help the student and regularly check in. Student success meetings often happen before parent involvement, and if the plan to remediate doesn’t work, then they might have to call a parent in to work out a more robust support plan.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Special education teachers attend student success meetings, but not necessarily to provide special education services. They’re there because of their expertise in Tier 2 and Tier 3 intervention. It’s a seemingly small distinction to make, but a rather important one that advances a culture of trust and respect in educators who are highly regarded for their pedagogical expertise.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The success of these meetings is measured in individual student growth, not achievement. The teachers and admin focus on answering questions like: Where did this student start the year? Where are they mid-year, and where did they end the year? And according to Laho, student growth is the most useful measurement that Copper Island tracks, and they do so without compromising measurable achievement.\u003c/p>\n\n\nStudents at Copper Island Academy score very high on traditional indicators of student achievement. Most notably, they received a score of 99.03 in the 2024-25 Michigan School Index — a state-run public school accountability system that evaluates overall school achievement on a scale of 0-100 — placing the school in the top 3.5% of all Michigan public schools.\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Inclusion first for special education students \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\u003cp>The school’s unwavering stance on inclusion of all students in general education classrooms was a big deal for Gervais.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In other schools throughout her experience in special education, which spans more than a decade, Gervais has had to fight to get special education students included in the general education classroom, she said. Self-contained special education support is not an uncommon practice in public schools across the U.S., in which students receiving differing levels of special education support are kept from their general education peers for much of the day.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Although some level of inclusion in general education classrooms is a North Star for special education in the U.S. public school system, it isn’t always possible or recommended for every student. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act does not have a number or percentage of general education classroom time that each student with an IEP is required to meet. Rather, inclusion is measured by Least Restrictive Environment practices. But across special education, the measurable benchmark for “good” general education classroom integration time per student hovers around \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=59\">80%\u003c/a>, although classroom time alone doesn’t automatically lead to improved outcomes, said Chris Lemons, a professor who specializes in learning disabilities at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Special education teaching presents its own unique challenges, but according to Jeremy Jarvi, who has taught in self-contained, mild-to-moderate and moderate-to-severe special education classrooms in the Bay Area, the prominent issues that come to mind are systemic and bureaucratic in nature.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We can’t force it,” said Jarvi, of inclusion in all cases.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For parents like \u003ca href=\"http://www.danielwillingham.com/\">Daniel Willingham\u003c/a> and his wife, navigating the special education system for their daughter, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-willingham-how-to-interact-with-a-disabled-child-20180322-story.html\">Esprit\u003c/a>, over a decade ago was challenging and frustrating. Willingham is an education expert, and his wife is a teacher, but even then, it took a lot of time and expertise.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“To be clear, my child was profoundly disabled and so education for her looked quite different,” Willingham said. “It’s not like she was having trouble reading … she couldn’t speak.” So education for Esprit looked like setting up systems for her to be able to communicate “yes” and “no,” and inclusion in a general education classroom wasn’t possible or the best option for her.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Although Esprit’s medical conditions required in-home care and schooling, Willingham and his family experienced many of the common failures and triumphs of the U.S. special education system. They dealt with the frustration that comes with “tangling with bureaucracy,” but also benefited from interactions with educators and therapists who were “working very, very hard under very difficult circumstances trying to help children,” Willingham said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n“We frequently marveled that anyone was able to navigate through this system,” especially families without a stay-at-home parent, Willingham said.\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Paraeducators and classroom staffing\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\u003cp>Classroom staffing can be an issue, according to Jarvi, and at previous schools he found himself spending a lot of time each week training paraeducators.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“On top of working with the kids, I’m training adults … you hope that they get it the first time,” but they don’t always, and this takes time away from individualized instruction, Jarvi said of his past experiences. He now works with experienced paraeducators who have made a big difference.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Paraeducators are recognized by many states as essential to the K-12 classroom. And for some, like Lemons, the Stanford professor, the idea of paraeducators in the classroom is promising. This is not only because there are more paraeducators than special education teachers in the public school system, but also because they are with students throughout the entire school day, including in special education and general education classrooms, Lemons said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In the U.S. paraeducators only need a high school diploma, and “in many districts, [paraeducators] receive the least amount of training, the least amount of support; they’re paid the least, but in many ways, they’re kind of the cog in the system that makes everything work, especially for kids with more extensive support needs,” Lemons said.\u003c/p>\n\n\nSo far, Copper Island has had a positive experience with their paraeducators because of their willingness to go through the extra training and credentialing that the school requires outside of Michigan’s academic standards, according to Laho. The school’s paraeducators are trained on Orton-Gillingham or Morphology, which are touted for their detailed and unique approach to literacy education, especially for students who struggle. Laho said having paraeducators trained in these two methods allows for flexibility “to use multiple different people to attack a problem.”\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Trust in special education teachers\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\u003cp>In Finland, conversations between special education teachers and general education teachers happen on a regular basis, and pedagogical approaches to addressing all student learning are shared.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For Walker, the special education teacher who assisted in his Finnish classroom was seen as an “instructional coach who’s not at a higher level than the general ed teacher, but is still this trusted colleague … who has specialized knowledge in assisting kids who need more support in the classroom.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A second set of discerning eyes can go a long way. Knowing that he wasn’t alone in providing attentive and individualized instruction for students with IEPs or those who needed a little bit of extra help with a specific subject matter was a relief to Walker. This practice of part-time, in-classroom special education instruction also allowed for Walker to exercise intellectual humility. He acknowledged that the special education teacher’s presence in his classroom two times per week exposed growth areas to better meet student needs, a ritual that he welcomed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“For a lot of teachers out there, especially in the United States — when they don’t have this type of [inclusive] model — it’s very easy for you to feel alone in your classroom,” Walker said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>These types of experiences have roots in teacher training programs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In the U.S., “typically, teachers who are trained to be general education teachers receive way too little training related to supporting kids with disabilities,” said Lemons, pointing out that some graduate schools of education, like Stanford’s, offer only one course focused on students with disabilities to elementary teacher candidates. On top of that, he said there’s almost zero training on how general education teachers can build effective working relationships with special education teachers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Even at Copper Island, where teachers are trained in differentiation, general education teachers have had some trepidation about approaching differentiated learning practices. But experts like Gervais are available and willing to work with general education teachers to adjust their lessons so that everyone can learn with their peers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I told every one of them, ‘I will gladly show you because in special ed you learn to differentiate anything that’s thrown at you,’” Gervais said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And offering to help general education teachers with differentiating their work also benefits other students outside of special education.\u003c/p>\n\n\n“We don’t just teach to that middle student. It helps everybody,” Gervais said.\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Brain breaks for everyone, outside\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\u003cp>Like schools in Finland, Copper Island prioritizes outdoor time for all students, which happens at a greater frequency than a typical U.S. school. This was one of the major draws for Dan and his family, and regular outdoor time during the school day has helped Oliver come out of his shell, connect with friends and focus in the classroom, Dan said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But time outside at this school doesn’t just happen during recess and lunch; it happens every 45 minutes for 15 minutes at a time. This is Copper Island’s version of “brain breaks” — a tried and true method of allowing for, typically, classroom time spent away from academic subjects.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Brain breaks are used in both American and Finnish schools, but the way that Copper Island does brain breaks is different from most U.S. schools. Typically, brain breaks in American classrooms are occasional, very short, in-class and not necessarily physical.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Brain breaks at Copper Island are always spent outside — rain or shine or snow — and they happen seamlessly at all grade levels. When the brain break begins, students walk quietly through the hallways and out into the schoolyard. Once the break is over, a whistle is blown, and the students quickly and quietly pile through the school’s back doors, returning to their classrooms with minimal prompting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Usually, moments of transition like these are a stress point for teachers, who are tasked with managing energetic or even disengaged students itching to get away from the lesson plan, and then coaxing them back into the lesson plan. It might even be unfathomable to some teachers across the U.S. to get all students outside for a brain break and then settled and back into the classroom, all within 15 minutes, multiple times per day.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But there wasn’t any yelling or running down hallways to get to a brain break at Copper Island when I visited. And when asked, teachers repeatedly brushed off any potential stress or anxiety around transitions in and out of brain breaks. It turns out these breaks aren’t just good for students, they’re good for the teachers too, who spend most of their classroom time executing highly engaged and individualized lesson plans for all of their students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edvF_AJXU5I&t=3s\n\u003c/div>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There’s only one rule during brain breaks at Copper Island Academy — sports balls aren’t allowed. “The minute that you give a sports ball to somebody, you put rules and limitations on [their play],” Laho said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Instead, kids in elementary school are encouraged to play with each other and throughout the various outdoor spaces, like their play structure, the perimeter of surrounding woods, in the garden or on the structure made of industrial-sized rubber tires.\u003c/p>\n\n\nSports balls are reintroduced during brain breaks for middle schoolers, who Laho said might need additional motivation to move their bodies and spend time outdoors.\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Can Copper Island be replicated? It depends\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\u003cp>Calumet and the surrounding Houghton County area are a pocket of the U.S. that has preserved old town Americana charm, for better or for worse. Some people don’t lock their front doors, and they leave their keys in their cars when they are away, just in case someone needs to borrow them. The people are kind and welcoming, and very quick to recommend their claim to fame: the meat pasty. And Copper Island Academy reflects these unique traits.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The families in the community had worried that the Finnish model in a location with such an overwhelmingly large population of people with Finnish heritage would be seen as exclusionary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>According to Laho, the diversity at Copper Island Academy reflects that of the surrounding area.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“So far we haven’t seen any discrepancies between, you know, one demographic or another,” Laho said about student academic achievement and behavioral data.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The school has also made a significant effort to support teachers beyond their professional development days with Walker and more than what you might find in an average American public school classroom.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Something fundamental took place during the pandemic, Walker said. In the scramble to overhaul in-person learning to virtual learning, along with the pressure to mitigate learning loss, teachers started to publicly acknowledge their dismal working conditions, Walker said. And American society took notice, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“There was something about COVID that broke many educators,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But paying attention to teacher well-being in a holistic manner at Copper Island has paid off. The school’s baby pilot program allows new mothers, who are only allotted 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave by federal standards, to ease their way back into teaching full time again after having a baby. On certain days, babies are allowed in the classroom, and teachers meet their hours without having to choose continuous, outsourced child care for their infants.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The teachers also created a support group they call “Tsemppiä,” a Finnish word that doesn’t have a direct translation, but one that Walker compared to terms like “godspeed” or “strength” and is used in Finland as a word of encouragement. And the Tsemppiä group at Copper Island does just that — it exists as a support group made by and for teachers experiencing difficulties in their personal lives.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Although Tsemppiä was established before Walker came on as an educational consultant, he quickly recognized its purpose from his days teaching in Finland. The U.S. has a habit of creating and encouraging “super teachers,” Walker said — individuals who exceed, above and beyond, which harbors competition to be “the best.” In his experience, “super teachers” don’t really exist in Finland, Walker said, and instead there’s more of a spirit of teamwork and collaboration between teachers. The adoption of this part of Finnish culture is a big part of why Copper Island has been able to be so successful, Walker said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Additionally, the administrators don’t seem to hover at Copper Island; rather, as Laho said, they trust their teachers to get their work done. If lesson planning needs to happen at home, then that works for the school administrators. If teachers need to leave the building with the students at 3:20 p.m. when the school day is over, that also works.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Copper Island Academy experiences the everyday limitations that many American schools and educators face. “I wish we could pay our teachers what they’re worth financially,” said Laho, adding that the school does “find ways to leverage what [they do] have to help” their teachers in other ways.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We want to try to find ways to support the teachers in what they’re doing, knowing that we’re asking them to do a lot within our model,” Laho said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1262\" height=\"1618\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184.png\" alt=\"Man smiling for portrait\" class=\"wp-image-66185\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184.png 1262w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184-160x205.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184-768x985.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184-1198x1536.png 1198w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1262px) 100vw, 1262px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Copper Island Academy co-founder Matt Laho. (Marlena Jackson-Retondo)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As for students, the school has put into place measures to encourage their belonging in the community. Students are grouped intentionally in classrooms, which gives them the opportunity to work and play with the peers that they may not organically gravitate toward, Laho said. This practice of belonging and empathy extends throughout the school culture, both in the classroom, outdoors and in the community, Laho said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And when Dan is out in the neighborhood with his son, or at a local hockey game, all of the hard work that Oliver and his teachers have done to face challenging social situations has paid off. Now, when Oliver sees someone familiar outside of school, “[he] always points out, ‘Hey, there’s my friend from school’ or ‘there’s my teacher,’” Dan said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>He described enrolling Oliver in Copper Island as one of the best decisions he’s recently made and is glad he did it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I think that connection between the students and the students and their and their teachers is really great,” he said. “Really, really great.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-audio\">\u003caudio controls src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC6353911588\">\u003c/audio>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Oliver’s teachers noticed early on in preschool that he was having a hard time engaging with his peers and would keep to himself during group activities, Dan said. His parents initially brushed it off as shyness. “It really surprised us because we don’t see that at home at all,” he said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They were prepared to send Oliver to the local public school for kindergarten. But when they found out about Copper Island Academy, they saw an opportunity for Oliver to experience a different type of school, one that reminded Dan of his own school experience, when class sizes were smaller and students connected with their peers and teachers beyond traditional academics.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Copper Island Academy is where “sisu” — a Finnish word describing an internal level of grit and perseverance — is paramount. It’s a K-8 charter school serving students and their families from the surrounding area of Calumet, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula. Tucked behind an EMS vehicle service center on the only road to and from the town’s one-room airport, you might never know that the school is there.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Copper Island Academy is where “sisu” — a Finnish word describing an internal level of grit and perseverance — is paramount. It’s a K-8 charter school serving students and their families from the surrounding area of Calumet, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula. Tucked behind an EMS vehicle service center on the only road to and from the town’s one-room airport, you might never know that the school is there.\u003c/p>\n"
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"\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983.jpg\" alt=\"A poster is displayed on a wall\" class=\"wp-image-66188\"/>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A poster creating an acronym of the word “sisu” is on display at Copper Island Academy.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Launched in the fall of 2021, the school was developed by educator duo and married couple Matt and Nora Laho. But this isn’t just their brainchild. It was actualized in collaboration with community members and families searching for an answer to their concerns about public education — like increased screentime, a lack of joy in learning, less challenging lessons and dwindling extracurricular offerings — during the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, Matt Laho said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The parent community also wanted more skilled trades and culinary arts in the day-to-day curriculum, Laho said. For example, parents noted the slow decline in shop classes offered in public schools, so Copper Island made a concerted effort to bring them back.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The parent community also wanted more skilled trades and culinary arts in the day-to-day curriculum, Laho said. For example, parents noted the slow decline in shop classes offered in public schools, so Copper Island made a concerted effort to bring them back.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The group considered many education models, Laho said, including Montessori and hybrid models, but ultimately they landed on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/55006/the-teachers-role-in-finlands-phenomenon-based-learning\">Finnish education model\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The group considered many education models, Laho said, including Montessori and hybrid models, but ultimately they landed on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/55006/the-teachers-role-in-finlands-phenomenon-based-learning\">Finnish education model\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The Finnish education model is marked by teacher autonomy and collaboration, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/47909/how-kids-learn-better-by-taking-frequent-breaks-throughout-the-day\">frequent breaks\u003c/a>, inclusive practices and differentiation, according to \u003ca href=\"https://taughtbyfinland.com/\">Tim Walker\u003c/a>, Copper Island Academy’s Finnish education model consultant, who has written several books about \u003ca href=\"https://wwnorton.com/books/Teach-Like-Finland/\">teaching in Finland\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The Finnish education model is marked by teacher autonomy and collaboration, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/47909/how-kids-learn-better-by-taking-frequent-breaks-throughout-the-day\">frequent breaks\u003c/a>, inclusive practices and differentiation, according to \u003ca href=\"https://taughtbyfinland.com/\">Tim Walker\u003c/a>, Copper Island Academy’s Finnish education model consultant, who has written several books about \u003ca href=\"https://wwnorton.com/books/Teach-Like-Finland/\">teaching in Finland\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Teachers in Finland are highly respected professionals, and it’s difficult to obtain teaching credentials. Teachers are allotted ample time for planning and prep, and they’re expected to leave school at the end of the day alongside their students. In the U.S., teacher shortages are common, morale and teacher pay are low and planning and prep periods are painfully short.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Teachers in Finland are highly respected professionals, and it’s difficult to obtain teaching credentials. Teachers are allotted ample time for planning and prep, and they’re expected to leave school at the end of the day alongside their students. In the U.S., teacher shortages are common, morale and teacher pay are low and planning and prep periods are painfully short.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In the early 2000s, Finland emerged as an unexpected global leader in education after the first Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores, published in 2001, ranked Finland number one among the 31 other participating countries. The U.S. showed middle-of-the-road academic scores and was ranked in the 15th spot that same year.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>In the early 2000s, Finland emerged as an unexpected global leader in education after the first Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores, published in 2001, ranked Finland number one among the 31 other participating countries. The U.S. showed middle-of-the-road academic scores and was ranked in the 15th spot that same year.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In 2001, the Bush administration also reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and rolled out the No Child Left Behind Act in public schools across the country in 2002, so education reform was already top of mind in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>In 2001, the Bush administration also reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and rolled out the No Child Left Behind Act in public schools across the country in 2002, so education reform was already top of mind in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n"
],
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},
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In the decade following the 2001 PISA scores, Finland continued to rank in the top three participating countries. Within that time, the U.S. was one of many countries that looked to Finland’s balanced approach to learning for guidance on pedagogical practices, which included differentiated learning and early intervention practices.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>In the decade following the 2001 PISA scores, Finland continued to rank in the top three participating countries. Within that time, the U.S. was one of many countries that looked to Finland’s balanced approach to learning for guidance on pedagogical practices, which included differentiated learning and early intervention practices.\u003c/p>\n"
],
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},
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But by the 2010s, Finland’s PISA scores began to fall, and the hype died down. And organizations like the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which administers the PISA exams, began to encourage schools to focus more on student well-being beyond academic success, said Walker, an American teacher who taught in Finland for more than 10 years.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>But by the 2010s, Finland’s PISA scores began to fall, and the hype died down. And organizations like the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which administers the PISA exams, began to encourage schools to focus more on student well-being beyond academic success, said Walker, an American teacher who taught in Finland for more than 10 years.\u003c/p>\n"
],
"innerBlocks": []
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{
"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>However, the draw to a Finnish model still remains today in education circles, and for Copper Island Academy, it landed close to home.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>However, the draw to a Finnish model still remains today in education circles, and for Copper Island Academy, it landed close to home.\u003c/p>\n"
],
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},
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Oliver has an Individualized Education Program (IEP), a highly detailed, legally binding document, requiring an official diagnosis. The family asked we not use their last name because of privacy concerns for their child. IEPs adjust the curriculum for an individual student in order to meet their goals. Part of Oliver’s education plan includes push-ins during general education classroom time with Jennifer Gervais, one of Copper Island Academy’s special education teachers.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Oliver has an Individualized Education Program (IEP), a highly detailed, legally binding document, requiring an official diagnosis. The family asked we not use their last name because of privacy concerns for their child. IEPs adjust the curriculum for an individual student in order to meet their goals. Part of Oliver’s education plan includes push-ins during general education classroom time with Jennifer Gervais, one of Copper Island Academy’s special education teachers.\u003c/p>\n"
],
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},
{
"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Push-ins are a form of support that keeps students in the classroom alongside their peers rather than in a siloed special education classroom.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Push-ins are a form of support that keeps students in the classroom alongside their peers rather than in a siloed special education classroom.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>During a push-in on one of his more difficult mornings, Gervais sits next to Oliver and quietly prompts him to participate. The other students are used to her presence in their classroom and aren’t phased. Oliver’s responses are very quiet, but he does take part in a phonics lesson led by his teacher, Ms. Erva. And if you listen very carefully, you can hear his peers encouraging him with a “good job, Oliver,” after his turn to play the phonics game is over.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>During a push-in on one of his more difficult mornings, Gervais sits next to Oliver and quietly prompts him to participate. The other students are used to her presence in their classroom and aren’t phased. Oliver’s responses are very quiet, but he does take part in a phonics lesson led by his teacher, Ms. Erva. And if you listen very carefully, you can hear his peers encouraging him with a “good job, Oliver,” after his turn to play the phonics game is over.\u003c/p>\n"
],
"innerBlocks": []
},
{
"blockName": "core/image",
"attrs": {
"id": 66186,
"sizeSlug": "full",
"imageCredit": "Marlena Jackson-Retondo"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_JenGervais_headshot-e1773379859400.png\" alt=\"Woman in front of window\" class=\"wp-image-66186\"/>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Copper Island Academy teacher Jennifer Gervais.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_JenGervais_headshot-e1773379859400.png\" alt=\"Woman in front of window\" class=\"wp-image-66186\"/>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Copper Island Academy teacher Jennifer Gervais.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n"
],
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Although Oliver’s experience at Copper Island Academy has been positive, many students struggle to get the services they need.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Although Oliver’s experience at Copper Island Academy has been positive, many students struggle to get the services they need.\u003c/p>\n"
],
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},
{
"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There are \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgg/students-with-disabilities#:~:text=In%202022%E2%80%9323%2C%20the%20number,of%20all%20public%20school%20students.\">7.5 million students\u003c/a> receiving special education services in the U.S. — the majority of whom are diagnosed with \u003ca href=\"https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/specific-learning-disorder/what-is-specific-learning-disorder\">specific learning disorders\u003c/a> like dyslexia, dysgraphia or dyscalculia. Even for those students who are identified as needing to receive special education services early on, the path to receiving these supports is hard to navigate.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>There are \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgg/students-with-disabilities#:~:text=In%202022%E2%80%9323%2C%20the%20number,of%20all%20public%20school%20students.\">7.5 million students\u003c/a> receiving special education services in the U.S. — the majority of whom are diagnosed with \u003ca href=\"https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/specific-learning-disorder/what-is-specific-learning-disorder\">specific learning disorders\u003c/a> like dyslexia, dysgraphia or dyscalculia. Even for those students who are identified as needing to receive special education services early on, the path to receiving these supports is hard to navigate.\u003c/p>\n"
],
"innerBlocks": []
},
{
"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Most often in the U.S., students must exhaust Tier 1 and Tier 2 support services, which consist of specialized, small group instruction from a general education teacher, specialists or paraeducators, before receiving an IEP — a Tier 3 special education service.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Most often in the U.S., students must exhaust Tier 1 and Tier 2 support services, which consist of specialized, small group instruction from a general education teacher, specialists or paraeducators, before receiving an IEP — a Tier 3 special education service.\u003c/p>\n"
],
"innerBlocks": []
},
{
"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>However, the special education system in Finland is marked by teacher and family collaboration, personalized learning and trust in teacher expertise; special education intervention in Finland is seen as a preventative and inclusive practice.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>However, the special education system in Finland is marked by teacher and family collaboration, personalized learning and trust in teacher expertise; special education intervention in Finland is seen as a preventative and inclusive practice.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Everybody’s getting support,” said Helmi Betancourt, an elementary special education teacher in Helsinki, Finland. Like many special education teachers in Finland, Betancourt is assigned to many different classrooms. Throughout the week, she spends a couple of hours in each of her assigned classrooms teaching alongside the general education teacher. If there is an individual student or smaller group of students who need extra help outside of their general education classroom, Betancourt has the flexibility to pull them into a separate learning environment.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>“Everybody’s getting support,” said Helmi Betancourt, an elementary special education teacher in Helsinki, Finland. Like many special education teachers in Finland, Betancourt is assigned to many different classrooms. Throughout the week, she spends a couple of hours in each of her assigned classrooms teaching alongside the general education teacher. If there is an individual student or smaller group of students who need extra help outside of their general education classroom, Betancourt has the flexibility to pull them into a separate learning environment.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The decision to support a student with special education resources is seen as a pedagogical one, and is accessible for any student in the classroom who is struggling with academic or behavioral issues, according to Betancourt and her colleague in special education, Anna-Mari Vuohelainen. Teachers are free to make these decisions without the explicit consent of parents and without waiting for a diagnosis for additional support.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>The decision to support a student with special education resources is seen as a pedagogical one, and is accessible for any student in the classroom who is struggling with academic or behavioral issues, according to Betancourt and her colleague in special education, Anna-Mari Vuohelainen. Teachers are free to make these decisions without the explicit consent of parents and without waiting for a diagnosis for additional support.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“It’s based on the benefit of the child,” not on a diagnosis, Betancourt said. They use a classroom-based support system to be more inclusive of special education students in their general education classrooms, and to make sure that other students who are not yet receiving support, but might need it, get it as early as possible. This also makes for less paperwork.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>“It’s based on the benefit of the child,” not on a diagnosis, Betancourt said. They use a classroom-based support system to be more inclusive of special education students in their general education classrooms, and to make sure that other students who are not yet receiving support, but might need it, get it as early as possible. This also makes for less paperwork.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“The idea is that nobody has to wait for the support that they need,” said Betancourt, because sometimes, getting a diagnosis takes a long time and it’s unfair to a student if they can’t get support for years. And the students identified as having the most intensive needs receive them in a setting that makes the most sense for their needs.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>“The idea is that nobody has to wait for the support that they need,” said Betancourt, because sometimes, getting a diagnosis takes a long time and it’s unfair to a student if they can’t get support for years. And the students identified as having the most intensive needs receive them in a setting that makes the most sense for their needs.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Early intervention is one of the hallmarks of the Finnish education model, and is one that Copper Island has emulated. According to Laho, early intervention allows Copper Island to tackle problems as they emerge and before a formal special education referral needs to be placed.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Early intervention is one of the hallmarks of the Finnish education model, and is one that Copper Island has emulated. According to Laho, early intervention allows Copper Island to tackle problems as they emerge and before a formal special education referral needs to be placed.\u003c/p>\n"
],
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In order to identify student needs, teachers across departments regularly meet to hold student success meetings. These meetings occur outside of traditional IEP or special education meeting requirements, and all students are considered. This is where they identify students who are struggling, collaborate on how to help the student and regularly check in. Student success meetings often happen before parent involvement, and if the plan to remediate doesn’t work, then they might have to call a parent in to work out a more robust support plan.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>In order to identify student needs, teachers across departments regularly meet to hold student success meetings. These meetings occur outside of traditional IEP or special education meeting requirements, and all students are considered. This is where they identify students who are struggling, collaborate on how to help the student and regularly check in. Student success meetings often happen before parent involvement, and if the plan to remediate doesn’t work, then they might have to call a parent in to work out a more robust support plan.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Special education teachers attend student success meetings, but not necessarily to provide special education services. They’re there because of their expertise in Tier 2 and Tier 3 intervention. It’s a seemingly small distinction to make, but a rather important one that advances a culture of trust and respect in educators who are highly regarded for their pedagogical expertise.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Special education teachers attend student success meetings, but not necessarily to provide special education services. They’re there because of their expertise in Tier 2 and Tier 3 intervention. It’s a seemingly small distinction to make, but a rather important one that advances a culture of trust and respect in educators who are highly regarded for their pedagogical expertise.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The success of these meetings is measured in individual student growth, not achievement. The teachers and admin focus on answering questions like: Where did this student start the year? Where are they mid-year, and where did they end the year? And according to Laho, student growth is the most useful measurement that Copper Island tracks, and they do so without compromising measurable achievement.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>The success of these meetings is measured in individual student growth, not achievement. The teachers and admin focus on answering questions like: Where did this student start the year? Where are they mid-year, and where did they end the year? And according to Laho, student growth is the most useful measurement that Copper Island tracks, and they do so without compromising measurable achievement.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The school’s unwavering stance on inclusion of all students in general education classrooms was a big deal for Gervais.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>The school’s unwavering stance on inclusion of all students in general education classrooms was a big deal for Gervais.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In other schools throughout her experience in special education, which spans more than a decade, Gervais has had to fight to get special education students included in the general education classroom, she said. Self-contained special education support is not an uncommon practice in public schools across the U.S., in which students receiving differing levels of special education support are kept from their general education peers for much of the day.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>In other schools throughout her experience in special education, which spans more than a decade, Gervais has had to fight to get special education students included in the general education classroom, she said. Self-contained special education support is not an uncommon practice in public schools across the U.S., in which students receiving differing levels of special education support are kept from their general education peers for much of the day.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Although some level of inclusion in general education classrooms is a North Star for special education in the U.S. public school system, it isn’t always possible or recommended for every student. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act does not have a number or percentage of general education classroom time that each student with an IEP is required to meet. Rather, inclusion is measured by Least Restrictive Environment practices. But across special education, the measurable benchmark for “good” general education classroom integration time per student hovers around \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=59\">80%\u003c/a>, although classroom time alone doesn’t automatically lead to improved outcomes, said Chris Lemons, a professor who specializes in learning disabilities at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Although some level of inclusion in general education classrooms is a North Star for special education in the U.S. public school system, it isn’t always possible or recommended for every student. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act does not have a number or percentage of general education classroom time that each student with an IEP is required to meet. Rather, inclusion is measured by Least Restrictive Environment practices. But across special education, the measurable benchmark for “good” general education classroom integration time per student hovers around \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=59\">80%\u003c/a>, although classroom time alone doesn’t automatically lead to improved outcomes, said Chris Lemons, a professor who specializes in learning disabilities at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Special education teaching presents its own unique challenges, but according to Jeremy Jarvi, who has taught in self-contained, mild-to-moderate and moderate-to-severe special education classrooms in the Bay Area, the prominent issues that come to mind are systemic and bureaucratic in nature.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Special education teaching presents its own unique challenges, but according to Jeremy Jarvi, who has taught in self-contained, mild-to-moderate and moderate-to-severe special education classrooms in the Bay Area, the prominent issues that come to mind are systemic and bureaucratic in nature.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“We can’t force it,” said Jarvi, of inclusion in all cases.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>“We can’t force it,” said Jarvi, of inclusion in all cases.\u003c/p>\n"
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"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>For parents like \u003ca href=\"http://www.danielwillingham.com/\">Daniel Willingham\u003c/a> and his wife, navigating the special education system for their daughter, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-willingham-how-to-interact-with-a-disabled-child-20180322-story.html\">Esprit\u003c/a>, over a decade ago was challenging and frustrating. Willingham is an education expert, and his wife is a teacher, but even then, it took a lot of time and expertise.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>For parents like \u003ca href=\"http://www.danielwillingham.com/\">Daniel Willingham\u003c/a> and his wife, navigating the special education system for their daughter, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-willingham-how-to-interact-with-a-disabled-child-20180322-story.html\">Esprit\u003c/a>, over a decade ago was challenging and frustrating. Willingham is an education expert, and his wife is a teacher, but even then, it took a lot of time and expertise.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“To be clear, my child was profoundly disabled and so education for her looked quite different,” Willingham said. “It’s not like she was having trouble reading … she couldn’t speak.” So education for Esprit looked like setting up systems for her to be able to communicate “yes” and “no,” and inclusion in a general education classroom wasn’t possible or the best option for her.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>“To be clear, my child was profoundly disabled and so education for her looked quite different,” Willingham said. “It’s not like she was having trouble reading … she couldn’t speak.” So education for Esprit looked like setting up systems for her to be able to communicate “yes” and “no,” and inclusion in a general education classroom wasn’t possible or the best option for her.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Although Esprit’s medical conditions required in-home care and schooling, Willingham and his family experienced many of the common failures and triumphs of the U.S. special education system. They dealt with the frustration that comes with “tangling with bureaucracy,” but also benefited from interactions with educators and therapists who were “working very, very hard under very difficult circumstances trying to help children,” Willingham said.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Although Esprit’s medical conditions required in-home care and schooling, Willingham and his family experienced many of the common failures and triumphs of the U.S. special education system. They dealt with the frustration that comes with “tangling with bureaucracy,” but also benefited from interactions with educators and therapists who were “working very, very hard under very difficult circumstances trying to help children,” Willingham said.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Classroom staffing can be an issue, according to Jarvi, and at previous schools he found himself spending a lot of time each week training paraeducators.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Classroom staffing can be an issue, according to Jarvi, and at previous schools he found himself spending a lot of time each week training paraeducators.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“On top of working with the kids, I’m training adults … you hope that they get it the first time,” but they don’t always, and this takes time away from individualized instruction, Jarvi said of his past experiences. He now works with experienced paraeducators who have made a big difference.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>“On top of working with the kids, I’m training adults … you hope that they get it the first time,” but they don’t always, and this takes time away from individualized instruction, Jarvi said of his past experiences. He now works with experienced paraeducators who have made a big difference.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Paraeducators are recognized by many states as essential to the K-12 classroom. And for some, like Lemons, the Stanford professor, the idea of paraeducators in the classroom is promising. This is not only because there are more paraeducators than special education teachers in the public school system, but also because they are with students throughout the entire school day, including in special education and general education classrooms, Lemons said.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Paraeducators are recognized by many states as essential to the K-12 classroom. And for some, like Lemons, the Stanford professor, the idea of paraeducators in the classroom is promising. This is not only because there are more paraeducators than special education teachers in the public school system, but also because they are with students throughout the entire school day, including in special education and general education classrooms, Lemons said.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In the U.S. paraeducators only need a high school diploma, and “in many districts, [paraeducators] receive the least amount of training, the least amount of support; they’re paid the least, but in many ways, they’re kind of the cog in the system that makes everything work, especially for kids with more extensive support needs,” Lemons said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In the U.S. paraeducators only need a high school diploma, and “in many districts, [paraeducators] receive the least amount of training, the least amount of support; they’re paid the least, but in many ways, they’re kind of the cog in the system that makes everything work, especially for kids with more extensive support needs,” Lemons said.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
"attrs": [],
"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In Finland, conversations between special education teachers and general education teachers happen on a regular basis, and pedagogical approaches to addressing all student learning are shared.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>In Finland, conversations between special education teachers and general education teachers happen on a regular basis, and pedagogical approaches to addressing all student learning are shared.\u003c/p>\n"
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"blockName": "core/paragraph",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>For Walker, the special education teacher who assisted in his Finnish classroom was seen as an “instructional coach who’s not at a higher level than the general ed teacher, but is still this trusted colleague … who has specialized knowledge in assisting kids who need more support in the classroom.”\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>For Walker, the special education teacher who assisted in his Finnish classroom was seen as an “instructional coach who’s not at a higher level than the general ed teacher, but is still this trusted colleague … who has specialized knowledge in assisting kids who need more support in the classroom.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>A second set of discerning eyes can go a long way. Knowing that he wasn’t alone in providing attentive and individualized instruction for students with IEPs or those who needed a little bit of extra help with a specific subject matter was a relief to Walker. This practice of part-time, in-classroom special education instruction also allowed for Walker to exercise intellectual humility. He acknowledged that the special education teacher’s presence in his classroom two times per week exposed growth areas to better meet student needs, a ritual that he welcomed.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“For a lot of teachers out there, especially in the United States — when they don’t have this type of [inclusive] model — it’s very easy for you to feel alone in your classroom,” Walker said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>These types of experiences have roots in teacher training programs.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In the U.S., “typically, teachers who are trained to be general education teachers receive way too little training related to supporting kids with disabilities,” said Lemons, pointing out that some graduate schools of education, like Stanford’s, offer only one course focused on students with disabilities to elementary teacher candidates. On top of that, he said there’s almost zero training on how general education teachers can build effective working relationships with special education teachers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In the U.S., “typically, teachers who are trained to be general education teachers receive way too little training related to supporting kids with disabilities,” said Lemons, pointing out that some graduate schools of education, like Stanford’s, offer only one course focused on students with disabilities to elementary teacher candidates. On top of that, he said there’s almost zero training on how general education teachers can build effective working relationships with special education teachers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Even at Copper Island, where teachers are trained in differentiation, general education teachers have had some trepidation about approaching differentiated learning practices. But experts like Gervais are available and willing to work with general education teachers to adjust their lessons so that everyone can learn with their peers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Even at Copper Island, where teachers are trained in differentiation, general education teachers have had some trepidation about approaching differentiated learning practices. But experts like Gervais are available and willing to work with general education teachers to adjust their lessons so that everyone can learn with their peers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“I told every one of them, ‘I will gladly show you because in special ed you learn to differentiate anything that’s thrown at you,’” Gervais said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And offering to help general education teachers with differentiating their work also benefits other students outside of special education.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like schools in Finland, Copper Island prioritizes outdoor time for all students, which happens at a greater frequency than a typical U.S. school. This was one of the major draws for Dan and his family, and regular outdoor time during the school day has helped Oliver come out of his shell, connect with friends and focus in the classroom, Dan said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But time outside at this school doesn’t just happen during recess and lunch; it happens every 45 minutes for 15 minutes at a time. This is Copper Island’s version of “brain breaks” — a tried and true method of allowing for, typically, classroom time spent away from academic subjects.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But time outside at this school doesn’t just happen during recess and lunch; it happens every 45 minutes for 15 minutes at a time. This is Copper Island’s version of “brain breaks” — a tried and true method of allowing for, typically, classroom time spent away from academic subjects.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Brain breaks are used in both American and Finnish schools, but the way that Copper Island does brain breaks is different from most U.S. schools. Typically, brain breaks in American classrooms are occasional, very short, in-class and not necessarily physical.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Brain breaks at Copper Island are always spent outside — rain or shine or snow — and they happen seamlessly at all grade levels. When the brain break begins, students walk quietly through the hallways and out into the schoolyard. Once the break is over, a whistle is blown, and the students quickly and quietly pile through the school’s back doors, returning to their classrooms with minimal prompting.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Usually, moments of transition like these are a stress point for teachers, who are tasked with managing energetic or even disengaged students itching to get away from the lesson plan, and then coaxing them back into the lesson plan. It might even be unfathomable to some teachers across the U.S. to get all students outside for a brain break and then settled and back into the classroom, all within 15 minutes, multiple times per day.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Usually, moments of transition like these are a stress point for teachers, who are tasked with managing energetic or even disengaged students itching to get away from the lesson plan, and then coaxing them back into the lesson plan. It might even be unfathomable to some teachers across the U.S. to get all students outside for a brain break and then settled and back into the classroom, all within 15 minutes, multiple times per day.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But there wasn’t any yelling or running down hallways to get to a brain break at Copper Island when I visited. And when asked, teachers repeatedly brushed off any potential stress or anxiety around transitions in and out of brain breaks. It turns out these breaks aren’t just good for students, they’re good for the teachers too, who spend most of their classroom time executing highly engaged and individualized lesson plans for all of their students.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But there wasn’t any yelling or running down hallways to get to a brain break at Copper Island when I visited. And when asked, teachers repeatedly brushed off any potential stress or anxiety around transitions in and out of brain breaks. It turns out these breaks aren’t just good for students, they’re good for the teachers too, who spend most of their classroom time executing highly engaged and individualized lesson plans for all of their students.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There’s only one rule during brain breaks at Copper Island Academy — sports balls aren’t allowed. “The minute that you give a sports ball to somebody, you put rules and limitations on [their play],” Laho said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Instead, kids in elementary school are encouraged to play with each other and throughout the various outdoor spaces, like their play structure, the perimeter of surrounding woods, in the garden or on the structure made of industrial-sized rubber tires.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Calumet and the surrounding Houghton County area are a pocket of the U.S. that has preserved old town Americana charm, for better or for worse. Some people don’t lock their front doors, and they leave their keys in their cars when they are away, just in case someone needs to borrow them. The people are kind and welcoming, and very quick to recommend their claim to fame: the meat pasty. And Copper Island Academy reflects these unique traits.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The families in the community had worried that the Finnish model in a location with such an overwhelmingly large population of people with Finnish heritage would be seen as exclusionary.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>According to Laho, the diversity at Copper Island Academy reflects that of the surrounding area.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“So far we haven’t seen any discrepancies between, you know, one demographic or another,” Laho said about student academic achievement and behavioral data.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The school has also made a significant effort to support teachers beyond their professional development days with Walker and more than what you might find in an average American public school classroom.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Something fundamental took place during the pandemic, Walker said. In the scramble to overhaul in-person learning to virtual learning, along with the pressure to mitigate learning loss, teachers started to publicly acknowledge their dismal working conditions, Walker said. And American society took notice, too.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Something fundamental took place during the pandemic, Walker said. In the scramble to overhaul in-person learning to virtual learning, along with the pressure to mitigate learning loss, teachers started to publicly acknowledge their dismal working conditions, Walker said. And American society took notice, too.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“There was something about COVID that broke many educators,” he said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But paying attention to teacher well-being in a holistic manner at Copper Island has paid off. The school’s baby pilot program allows new mothers, who are only allotted 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave by federal standards, to ease their way back into teaching full time again after having a baby. On certain days, babies are allowed in the classroom, and teachers meet their hours without having to choose continuous, outsourced child care for their infants.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The teachers also created a support group they call “Tsemppiä,” a Finnish word that doesn’t have a direct translation, but one that Walker compared to terms like “godspeed” or “strength” and is used in Finland as a word of encouragement. And the Tsemppiä group at Copper Island does just that — it exists as a support group made by and for teachers experiencing difficulties in their personal lives.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Although Tsemppiä was established before Walker came on as an educational consultant, he quickly recognized its purpose from his days teaching in Finland. The U.S. has a habit of creating and encouraging “super teachers,” Walker said — individuals who exceed, above and beyond, which harbors competition to be “the best.” In his experience, “super teachers” don’t really exist in Finland, Walker said, and instead there’s more of a spirit of teamwork and collaboration between teachers. The adoption of this part of Finnish culture is a big part of why Copper Island has been able to be so successful, Walker said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Additionally, the administrators don’t seem to hover at Copper Island; rather, as Laho said, they trust their teachers to get their work done. If lesson planning needs to happen at home, then that works for the school administrators. If teachers need to leave the building with the students at 3:20 p.m. when the school day is over, that also works.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Additionally, the administrators don’t seem to hover at Copper Island; rather, as Laho said, they trust their teachers to get their work done. If lesson planning needs to happen at home, then that works for the school administrators. If teachers need to leave the building with the students at 3:20 p.m. when the school day is over, that also works.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Copper Island Academy experiences the everyday limitations that many American schools and educators face. “I wish we could pay our teachers what they’re worth financially,” said Laho, adding that the school does “find ways to leverage what [they do] have to help” their teachers in other ways.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“We want to try to find ways to support the teachers in what they’re doing, knowing that we’re asking them to do a lot within our model,” Laho said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>As for students, the school has put into place measures to encourage their belonging in the community. Students are grouped intentionally in classrooms, which gives them the opportunity to work and play with the peers that they may not organically gravitate toward, Laho said. This practice of belonging and empathy extends throughout the school culture, both in the classroom, outdoors and in the community, Laho said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And when Dan is out in the neighborhood with his son, or at a local hockey game, all of the hard work that Oliver and his teachers have done to face challenging social situations has paid off. Now, when Oliver sees someone familiar outside of school, “[he] always points out, ‘Hey, there’s my friend from school’ or ‘there’s my teacher,’” Dan said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“I think that connection between the students and the students and their and their teachers is really great,” he said. “Really, really great.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The Finnish education model shot to global prominence in 2001, but has since fallen. But the lessons of Finland still resonate with educators and parents, so much so that some U.S. schools are modeled with Finnish best practices. ",
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"headline": "How Finnish Education Inspires U.S. Schools, Still",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Oliver, an only child, was born in 2018, and he and his parents don’t live near family. When the pandemic hit, “it was kinda like a perfect storm” during such an important time in early childhood development, said Dan, Oliver’s dad.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Oliver’s teachers noticed early on in preschool that he was having a hard time engaging with his peers and would keep to himself during group activities, Dan said. His parents initially brushed it off as shyness. “It really surprised us because we don’t see that at home at all,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But as his teachers brought up their concerns, Dan and his wife, who weren’t familiar with the special education system, began to learn all about it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They were prepared to send Oliver to the local public school for kindergarten. But when they found out about Copper Island Academy, they saw an opportunity for Oliver to experience a different type of school, one that reminded Dan of his own school experience, when class sizes were smaller and students connected with their peers and teachers beyond traditional academics.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Copper Island Academy is where “sisu” — a Finnish word describing an internal level of grit and perseverance — is paramount. It’s a K-8 charter school serving students and their families from the surrounding area of Calumet, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula. Tucked behind an EMS vehicle service center on the only road to and from the town’s one-room airport, you might never know that the school is there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-megaphone wp-block-embed-megaphone\">\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6353911588\n\u003c/div>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1562\" height=\"1463\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983.jpg\" alt=\"A poster is displayed on a wall\" class=\"wp-image-66188\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983.jpg 1562w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983-160x150.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983-768x719.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983-1536x1439.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1562px) 100vw, 1562px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A poster creating an acronym of the word “sisu” is on display at Copper Island Academy. (Marlena Jackson-Retondo)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Launched in the fall of 2021, the school was developed by educator duo and married couple Matt and Nora Laho. But this isn’t just their brainchild. It was actualized in collaboration with community members and families searching for an answer to their concerns about public education — like increased screentime, a lack of joy in learning, less challenging lessons and dwindling extracurricular offerings — during the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, Matt Laho said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The parent community also wanted more skilled trades and culinary arts in the day-to-day curriculum, Laho said. For example, parents noted the slow decline in shop classes offered in public schools, so Copper Island made a concerted effort to bring them back.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The group considered many education models, Laho said, including Montessori and hybrid models, but ultimately they landed on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/55006/the-teachers-role-in-finlands-phenomenon-based-learning\">Finnish education model\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Finnish education model is marked by teacher autonomy and collaboration, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/47909/how-kids-learn-better-by-taking-frequent-breaks-throughout-the-day\">frequent breaks\u003c/a>, inclusive practices and differentiation, according to \u003ca href=\"https://taughtbyfinland.com/\">Tim Walker\u003c/a>, Copper Island Academy’s Finnish education model consultant, who has written several books about \u003ca href=\"https://wwnorton.com/books/Teach-Like-Finland/\">teaching in Finland\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Teachers in Finland are highly respected professionals, and it’s difficult to obtain teaching credentials. Teachers are allotted ample time for planning and prep, and they’re expected to leave school at the end of the day alongside their students. In the U.S., teacher shortages are common, morale and teacher pay are low and planning and prep periods are painfully short.\u003c/p>\n\n\nCalumet and the surrounding area are home to the highest percentage of people of Finnish heritage outside of Finland itself. But that didn’t mean schools in the area operated like their cross-Atlantic counterparts. For the Lahos, the Finnish model represented what parents and families in the area wanted most out of their children’s education: hands-on classrooms, real-world life skills and a focus on joy.\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>What’s so great about Finland? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\u003cp>In the early 2000s, Finland emerged as an unexpected global leader in education after the first Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores, published in 2001, ranked Finland number one among the 31 other participating countries. The U.S. showed middle-of-the-road academic scores and was ranked in the 15th spot that same year.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In 2001, the Bush administration also reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and rolled out the No Child Left Behind Act in public schools across the country in 2002, so education reform was already top of mind in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In the decade following the 2001 PISA scores, Finland continued to rank in the top three participating countries. Within that time, the U.S. was one of many countries that looked to Finland’s balanced approach to learning for guidance on pedagogical practices, which included differentiated learning and early intervention practices.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But by the 2010s, Finland’s PISA scores began to fall, and the hype died down. And organizations like the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which administers the PISA exams, began to encourage schools to focus more on student well-being beyond academic success, said Walker, an American teacher who taught in Finland for more than 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>However, the draw to a Finnish model still remains today in education circles, and for Copper Island Academy, it landed close to home.\u003c/p>\n\n\nAnd for parents like Dan, Copper Island had the added benefit of an inclusive special education program. He said enrolling Oliver at Copper Island Academy “was the best decision we possibly could have made.”\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Special education, the Finnish way\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\u003cp>Oliver has an Individualized Education Program (IEP), a highly detailed, legally binding document, requiring an official diagnosis. The family asked we not use their last name because of privacy concerns for their child. IEPs adjust the curriculum for an individual student in order to meet their goals. Part of Oliver’s education plan includes push-ins during general education classroom time with Jennifer Gervais, one of Copper Island Academy’s special education teachers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Push-ins are a form of support that keeps students in the classroom alongside their peers rather than in a siloed special education classroom.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>During a push-in on one of his more difficult mornings, Gervais sits next to Oliver and quietly prompts him to participate. The other students are used to her presence in their classroom and aren’t phased. Oliver’s responses are very quiet, but he does take part in a phonics lesson led by his teacher, Ms. Erva. And if you listen very carefully, you can hear his peers encouraging him with a “good job, Oliver,” after his turn to play the phonics game is over.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_JenGervais_headshot-e1773379859400.png\" alt=\"Woman in front of window\" class=\"wp-image-66186\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Copper Island Academy teacher Jennifer Gervais. (Marlena Jackson-Retondo)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Although Oliver’s experience at Copper Island Academy has been positive, many students struggle to get the services they need.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There are \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgg/students-with-disabilities#:~:text=In%202022%E2%80%9323%2C%20the%20number,of%20all%20public%20school%20students.\">7.5 million students\u003c/a> receiving special education services in the U.S. — the majority of whom are diagnosed with \u003ca href=\"https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/specific-learning-disorder/what-is-specific-learning-disorder\">specific learning disorders\u003c/a> like dyslexia, dysgraphia or dyscalculia. Even for those students who are identified as needing to receive special education services early on, the path to receiving these supports is hard to navigate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Most often in the U.S., students must exhaust Tier 1 and Tier 2 support services, which consist of specialized, small group instruction from a general education teacher, specialists or paraeducators, before receiving an IEP — a Tier 3 special education service.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>However, the special education system in Finland is marked by teacher and family collaboration, personalized learning and trust in teacher expertise; special education intervention in Finland is seen as a preventative and inclusive practice.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Everybody’s getting support,” said Helmi Betancourt, an elementary special education teacher in Helsinki, Finland. Like many special education teachers in Finland, Betancourt is assigned to many different classrooms. Throughout the week, she spends a couple of hours in each of her assigned classrooms teaching alongside the general education teacher. If there is an individual student or smaller group of students who need extra help outside of their general education classroom, Betancourt has the flexibility to pull them into a separate learning environment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The decision to support a student with special education resources is seen as a pedagogical one, and is accessible for any student in the classroom who is struggling with academic or behavioral issues, according to Betancourt and her colleague in special education, Anna-Mari Vuohelainen. Teachers are free to make these decisions without the explicit consent of parents and without waiting for a diagnosis for additional support.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“It’s based on the benefit of the child,” not on a diagnosis, Betancourt said. They use a classroom-based support system to be more inclusive of special education students in their general education classrooms, and to make sure that other students who are not yet receiving support, but might need it, get it as early as possible. This also makes for less paperwork.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“The idea is that nobody has to wait for the support that they need,” said Betancourt, because sometimes, getting a diagnosis takes a long time and it’s unfair to a student if they can’t get support for years. And the students identified as having the most intensive needs receive them in a setting that makes the most sense for their needs.\u003c/p>\n\n\nBut there isn’t necessarily a one-to-one application of the Finnish education model to the U.S. special education system.\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Early intervention and measuring student growth\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\u003cp>Early intervention is one of the hallmarks of the Finnish education model, and is one that Copper Island has emulated. According to Laho, early intervention allows Copper Island to tackle problems as they emerge and before a formal special education referral needs to be placed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In order to identify student needs, teachers across departments regularly meet to hold student success meetings. These meetings occur outside of traditional IEP or special education meeting requirements, and all students are considered. This is where they identify students who are struggling, collaborate on how to help the student and regularly check in. Student success meetings often happen before parent involvement, and if the plan to remediate doesn’t work, then they might have to call a parent in to work out a more robust support plan.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Special education teachers attend student success meetings, but not necessarily to provide special education services. They’re there because of their expertise in Tier 2 and Tier 3 intervention. It’s a seemingly small distinction to make, but a rather important one that advances a culture of trust and respect in educators who are highly regarded for their pedagogical expertise.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The success of these meetings is measured in individual student growth, not achievement. The teachers and admin focus on answering questions like: Where did this student start the year? Where are they mid-year, and where did they end the year? And according to Laho, student growth is the most useful measurement that Copper Island tracks, and they do so without compromising measurable achievement.\u003c/p>\n\n\nStudents at Copper Island Academy score very high on traditional indicators of student achievement. Most notably, they received a score of 99.03 in the 2024-25 Michigan School Index — a state-run public school accountability system that evaluates overall school achievement on a scale of 0-100 — placing the school in the top 3.5% of all Michigan public schools.\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Inclusion first for special education students \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\u003cp>The school’s unwavering stance on inclusion of all students in general education classrooms was a big deal for Gervais.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In other schools throughout her experience in special education, which spans more than a decade, Gervais has had to fight to get special education students included in the general education classroom, she said. Self-contained special education support is not an uncommon practice in public schools across the U.S., in which students receiving differing levels of special education support are kept from their general education peers for much of the day.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Although some level of inclusion in general education classrooms is a North Star for special education in the U.S. public school system, it isn’t always possible or recommended for every student. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act does not have a number or percentage of general education classroom time that each student with an IEP is required to meet. Rather, inclusion is measured by Least Restrictive Environment practices. But across special education, the measurable benchmark for “good” general education classroom integration time per student hovers around \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=59\">80%\u003c/a>, although classroom time alone doesn’t automatically lead to improved outcomes, said Chris Lemons, a professor who specializes in learning disabilities at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Special education teaching presents its own unique challenges, but according to Jeremy Jarvi, who has taught in self-contained, mild-to-moderate and moderate-to-severe special education classrooms in the Bay Area, the prominent issues that come to mind are systemic and bureaucratic in nature.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We can’t force it,” said Jarvi, of inclusion in all cases.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For parents like \u003ca href=\"http://www.danielwillingham.com/\">Daniel Willingham\u003c/a> and his wife, navigating the special education system for their daughter, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-willingham-how-to-interact-with-a-disabled-child-20180322-story.html\">Esprit\u003c/a>, over a decade ago was challenging and frustrating. Willingham is an education expert, and his wife is a teacher, but even then, it took a lot of time and expertise.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“To be clear, my child was profoundly disabled and so education for her looked quite different,” Willingham said. “It’s not like she was having trouble reading … she couldn’t speak.” So education for Esprit looked like setting up systems for her to be able to communicate “yes” and “no,” and inclusion in a general education classroom wasn’t possible or the best option for her.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Although Esprit’s medical conditions required in-home care and schooling, Willingham and his family experienced many of the common failures and triumphs of the U.S. special education system. They dealt with the frustration that comes with “tangling with bureaucracy,” but also benefited from interactions with educators and therapists who were “working very, very hard under very difficult circumstances trying to help children,” Willingham said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n“We frequently marveled that anyone was able to navigate through this system,” especially families without a stay-at-home parent, Willingham said.\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Paraeducators and classroom staffing\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\u003cp>Classroom staffing can be an issue, according to Jarvi, and at previous schools he found himself spending a lot of time each week training paraeducators.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“On top of working with the kids, I’m training adults … you hope that they get it the first time,” but they don’t always, and this takes time away from individualized instruction, Jarvi said of his past experiences. He now works with experienced paraeducators who have made a big difference.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Paraeducators are recognized by many states as essential to the K-12 classroom. And for some, like Lemons, the Stanford professor, the idea of paraeducators in the classroom is promising. This is not only because there are more paraeducators than special education teachers in the public school system, but also because they are with students throughout the entire school day, including in special education and general education classrooms, Lemons said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In the U.S. paraeducators only need a high school diploma, and “in many districts, [paraeducators] receive the least amount of training, the least amount of support; they’re paid the least, but in many ways, they’re kind of the cog in the system that makes everything work, especially for kids with more extensive support needs,” Lemons said.\u003c/p>\n\n\nSo far, Copper Island has had a positive experience with their paraeducators because of their willingness to go through the extra training and credentialing that the school requires outside of Michigan’s academic standards, according to Laho. The school’s paraeducators are trained on Orton-Gillingham or Morphology, which are touted for their detailed and unique approach to literacy education, especially for students who struggle. Laho said having paraeducators trained in these two methods allows for flexibility “to use multiple different people to attack a problem.”\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Trust in special education teachers\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\u003cp>In Finland, conversations between special education teachers and general education teachers happen on a regular basis, and pedagogical approaches to addressing all student learning are shared.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For Walker, the special education teacher who assisted in his Finnish classroom was seen as an “instructional coach who’s not at a higher level than the general ed teacher, but is still this trusted colleague … who has specialized knowledge in assisting kids who need more support in the classroom.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A second set of discerning eyes can go a long way. Knowing that he wasn’t alone in providing attentive and individualized instruction for students with IEPs or those who needed a little bit of extra help with a specific subject matter was a relief to Walker. This practice of part-time, in-classroom special education instruction also allowed for Walker to exercise intellectual humility. He acknowledged that the special education teacher’s presence in his classroom two times per week exposed growth areas to better meet student needs, a ritual that he welcomed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“For a lot of teachers out there, especially in the United States — when they don’t have this type of [inclusive] model — it’s very easy for you to feel alone in your classroom,” Walker said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>These types of experiences have roots in teacher training programs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In the U.S., “typically, teachers who are trained to be general education teachers receive way too little training related to supporting kids with disabilities,” said Lemons, pointing out that some graduate schools of education, like Stanford’s, offer only one course focused on students with disabilities to elementary teacher candidates. On top of that, he said there’s almost zero training on how general education teachers can build effective working relationships with special education teachers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Even at Copper Island, where teachers are trained in differentiation, general education teachers have had some trepidation about approaching differentiated learning practices. But experts like Gervais are available and willing to work with general education teachers to adjust their lessons so that everyone can learn with their peers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I told every one of them, ‘I will gladly show you because in special ed you learn to differentiate anything that’s thrown at you,’” Gervais said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And offering to help general education teachers with differentiating their work also benefits other students outside of special education.\u003c/p>\n\n\n“We don’t just teach to that middle student. It helps everybody,” Gervais said.\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Brain breaks for everyone, outside\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\u003cp>Like schools in Finland, Copper Island prioritizes outdoor time for all students, which happens at a greater frequency than a typical U.S. school. This was one of the major draws for Dan and his family, and regular outdoor time during the school day has helped Oliver come out of his shell, connect with friends and focus in the classroom, Dan said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But time outside at this school doesn’t just happen during recess and lunch; it happens every 45 minutes for 15 minutes at a time. This is Copper Island’s version of “brain breaks” — a tried and true method of allowing for, typically, classroom time spent away from academic subjects.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Brain breaks are used in both American and Finnish schools, but the way that Copper Island does brain breaks is different from most U.S. schools. Typically, brain breaks in American classrooms are occasional, very short, in-class and not necessarily physical.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Brain breaks at Copper Island are always spent outside — rain or shine or snow — and they happen seamlessly at all grade levels. When the brain break begins, students walk quietly through the hallways and out into the schoolyard. Once the break is over, a whistle is blown, and the students quickly and quietly pile through the school’s back doors, returning to their classrooms with minimal prompting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Usually, moments of transition like these are a stress point for teachers, who are tasked with managing energetic or even disengaged students itching to get away from the lesson plan, and then coaxing them back into the lesson plan. It might even be unfathomable to some teachers across the U.S. to get all students outside for a brain break and then settled and back into the classroom, all within 15 minutes, multiple times per day.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But there wasn’t any yelling or running down hallways to get to a brain break at Copper Island when I visited. And when asked, teachers repeatedly brushed off any potential stress or anxiety around transitions in and out of brain breaks. It turns out these breaks aren’t just good for students, they’re good for the teachers too, who spend most of their classroom time executing highly engaged and individualized lesson plans for all of their students.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/edvF_AJXU5I'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/edvF_AJXU5I'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/div>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There’s only one rule during brain breaks at Copper Island Academy — sports balls aren’t allowed. “The minute that you give a sports ball to somebody, you put rules and limitations on [their play],” Laho said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Instead, kids in elementary school are encouraged to play with each other and throughout the various outdoor spaces, like their play structure, the perimeter of surrounding woods, in the garden or on the structure made of industrial-sized rubber tires.\u003c/p>\n\n\nSports balls are reintroduced during brain breaks for middle schoolers, who Laho said might need additional motivation to move their bodies and spend time outdoors.\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Can Copper Island be replicated? It depends\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\u003cp>Calumet and the surrounding Houghton County area are a pocket of the U.S. that has preserved old town Americana charm, for better or for worse. Some people don’t lock their front doors, and they leave their keys in their cars when they are away, just in case someone needs to borrow them. The people are kind and welcoming, and very quick to recommend their claim to fame: the meat pasty. And Copper Island Academy reflects these unique traits.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The families in the community had worried that the Finnish model in a location with such an overwhelmingly large population of people with Finnish heritage would be seen as exclusionary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>According to Laho, the diversity at Copper Island Academy reflects that of the surrounding area.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“So far we haven’t seen any discrepancies between, you know, one demographic or another,” Laho said about student academic achievement and behavioral data.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The school has also made a significant effort to support teachers beyond their professional development days with Walker and more than what you might find in an average American public school classroom.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Something fundamental took place during the pandemic, Walker said. In the scramble to overhaul in-person learning to virtual learning, along with the pressure to mitigate learning loss, teachers started to publicly acknowledge their dismal working conditions, Walker said. And American society took notice, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“There was something about COVID that broke many educators,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But paying attention to teacher well-being in a holistic manner at Copper Island has paid off. The school’s baby pilot program allows new mothers, who are only allotted 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave by federal standards, to ease their way back into teaching full time again after having a baby. On certain days, babies are allowed in the classroom, and teachers meet their hours without having to choose continuous, outsourced child care for their infants.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The teachers also created a support group they call “Tsemppiä,” a Finnish word that doesn’t have a direct translation, but one that Walker compared to terms like “godspeed” or “strength” and is used in Finland as a word of encouragement. And the Tsemppiä group at Copper Island does just that — it exists as a support group made by and for teachers experiencing difficulties in their personal lives.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Although Tsemppiä was established before Walker came on as an educational consultant, he quickly recognized its purpose from his days teaching in Finland. The U.S. has a habit of creating and encouraging “super teachers,” Walker said — individuals who exceed, above and beyond, which harbors competition to be “the best.” In his experience, “super teachers” don’t really exist in Finland, Walker said, and instead there’s more of a spirit of teamwork and collaboration between teachers. The adoption of this part of Finnish culture is a big part of why Copper Island has been able to be so successful, Walker said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Additionally, the administrators don’t seem to hover at Copper Island; rather, as Laho said, they trust their teachers to get their work done. If lesson planning needs to happen at home, then that works for the school administrators. If teachers need to leave the building with the students at 3:20 p.m. when the school day is over, that also works.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Copper Island Academy experiences the everyday limitations that many American schools and educators face. “I wish we could pay our teachers what they’re worth financially,” said Laho, adding that the school does “find ways to leverage what [they do] have to help” their teachers in other ways.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We want to try to find ways to support the teachers in what they’re doing, knowing that we’re asking them to do a lot within our model,” Laho said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1262\" height=\"1618\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184.png\" alt=\"Man smiling for portrait\" class=\"wp-image-66185\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184.png 1262w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184-160x205.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184-768x985.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184-1198x1536.png 1198w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1262px) 100vw, 1262px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Copper Island Academy co-founder Matt Laho. (Marlena Jackson-Retondo)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As for students, the school has put into place measures to encourage their belonging in the community. Students are grouped intentionally in classrooms, which gives them the opportunity to work and play with the peers that they may not organically gravitate toward, Laho said. This practice of belonging and empathy extends throughout the school culture, both in the classroom, outdoors and in the community, Laho said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And when Dan is out in the neighborhood with his son, or at a local hockey game, all of the hard work that Oliver and his teachers have done to face challenging social situations has paid off. Now, when Oliver sees someone familiar outside of school, “[he] always points out, ‘Hey, there’s my friend from school’ or ‘there’s my teacher,’” Dan said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>He described enrolling Oliver in Copper Island as one of the best decisions he’s recently made and is glad he did it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I think that connection between the students and the students and their and their teachers is really great,” he said. “Really, really great.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-audio\">\u003caudio controls src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC6353911588\">\u003c/audio>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Last fall, a star soccer player at St. Benedicts Academy in New Jersey was suspended for two games after \u003ca href=\"https://www.nj.com/highschoolsports/2025/09/star-player-for-nj-soccer-dynasty-grabbed-photographer-by-throat-during-post-game-fight.html\">brawling\u003c/a> with players from the opposing team and then grabbing a photographer by the throat who caught the tussle on film. A post-game handshake went bad in Louisiana after a high-stakes football game when a player from Natchitoches Central High School \u003ca href=\"https://natchitochesparishjournal.com/2025/11/17/nchs-apologizes-after-unnamed-player-is-arrested-for-postgame-punch/\">punched\u003c/a> an opponent, sending him to the hospital. In Pennsylvania, s prominent soccer coach at Conestoga High School was quietly placed on leave after being caught making prop \u003ca href=\"https://www.inquirer.com/news/conestoga-high-school-david-zimmerman-gambling-20250817.html\">bets\u003c/a> on basketball games with students from the school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bleak stories like these have become so common in youth and high school sports that few stories hold public attention for very long. Ask referees and umpires who oversee youth competitions and they’ll tell you that \u003ca href=\"https://www.espn.com/high-school/story/_/id/40186581/officiating-assault-referees-umpires\">sportsmanship\u003c/a> has worsened, especially among parents; thousands of sports officials have resigned as a result. Even so, according to a 2024 Harris \u003ca href=\"https://firsttee.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Cultivating-the-Next-Generation-of-Character2024.pdf\">poll\u003c/a>, 93 percent of mothers and fathers believe that sports build character in kids. And despite or because of the uptick in misbehavior at kids’ games, parents claim to value character education in sports and want coaches who respect ethics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most school athletic departments design mission statements that define what the school claims to value in its sports programs. Many refer obliquely to honesty, integrity and moral development, laudable attributes that coaches are expected to help develop in their players. \u003ca href=\"https://www.sbp.org/gray-bee-athletics\">St. Benedicts Academy\u003c/a>, for example, asserts that athletics are “about character, camaraderie and embracing values that withstand a lifetime.” But such statements often fail to reflect, or challenge, the reality of competitive school sports, where defeating an opponent can take priority over lessons in integrity and fair play. Hopes among some players of securing \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2021/7/9/name-image-likeness.aspx\">Name, Image and Likeness deals\u003c/a> in college also can reduce high school sports to brand-building opportunities. Talk of team loyalty and selflessness can seem quaint and unrealistic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.uidaho.edu/people/sstoll\">Sharon Stoll\u003c/a>, who runs the Center for Ethics at the University of Idaho, the research is definitive about athletics building what she calls “social character”: teamwork, perseverance, loyalty and work ethic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But these qualities lack a moral dimension; terrorists, after all, can be highly disciplined and hard working. When it comes to beneficence, responsibility, justice and honesty — the foundational principles of ethics — athletes are no more likely to understand and embrace them than kids in the stands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most sports are about motor skills, not moral skills,” Stoll told me. “It doesn’t magically happen because you are walking or biking or jogging,” she added. The central dilemma for coaches is this: what are you willing to do to win?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some schools take deliberate steps to include character education in their sports programs. At the Menlo School in California, for example, water polo coach \u003ca href=\"https://www.menloschool.org/athletics/us-boys-varsity-water-polo/\">Jack Bowen\u003c/a> offers a model for how coaches and schools can make character development central to their teams. Bowen believes that athletic teams offer a natural setting for teaching moral reasoning because ethical quandaries pop up frequently in sports — and kids who play are a captive audience for learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ethics education for the team starts during preseason, when Bowen assigns \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/opinion/sunday/arthur-c-brooks-love-people-not-pleasure.html\">articles\u003c/a> for the players to read. Most of the stories are unrelated to sport. Then he invites the teenagers to talk about what they learned, first in smaller groups and then as a whole team; the smaller groups allow for more emotional risk-taking, Bowen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team also immerses itself in the athletic department’s mission \u003ca href=\"https://www.menloschool.org/athletics/about-menlo-athletics/\">statement\u003c/a> which elevates four central ideas: pursue excellence, celebrate team, honor the game and uphold strong values. The discussion isn’t a one-time event. Rather, Bowen elicits players’ opinions on ethical challenges that emerge throughout the season, striving to reconcile the mission with what they’re doing in practice and during games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the 2025 season, for example, Bowen noticed one of the Menlo players waving sarcastically at a teenager from the opposing team when that player fouled out. Because he cared for the teenager’s development and believes in the principles that guide the team, Bowen pulled his own player out of the pool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had to do it and the team understood,” Bowen said. It wasn’t a punishment, he added. Afterwards, the coach and player talked at length about what happened and how mocking an opponent, even subtly, dishonored the game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.roxburylatin.org/athletics/staff/\">Sean Spellman\u003c/a>, the head basketball coach at the Roxbury Latin School in Massachusetts, emphasizes a less formal concept of character building on his teams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It starts with the philosophy of the school and knowing and loving each one of the athletes,” Spellman told me. “There’s a genuine care and connection there, regardless of how they are as a defensive basketball player.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, he handed out a 65-question survey to the team that went beyond sports. Who do they admire? When do they feel their best — and worst? During one weekly film session, which Spellman uses to connect personally with the players, he introduced “Teammate Jeopardy” to encourage kids to learn about each other. Like Bowen, Spellman engages the team in collective conversations: What does it mean to have pride and be part of the Roxbury Latin community? What do we value here? While transparent about the adolescents’ play, Spellman assures the teenagers that their basketball skills don’t diminish their value to the group as a person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He strives to make the character dimension of sports tangible, even during the tensest moments of a game. Spellman will “burn a timeout,” as he put it, to remind the players during tight plays that it’s how they handle the high-stakes experiences that matter most, because they’ll have many more to grapple with as they age. “I cherish what this high school sports experience is,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coaches need help figuring out how to balance competing goals. To that end, a graduate student of Dr. Stoll’s, Samantha Lewis, launched a \u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/show/5GF0vTbQfK2qDivtGB6ksw\">podcast\u003c/a> to help them talk through some of the ethical issues they’ll encounter. \u003cem>The Coach’s Dilemma: What Will You Do to Win?\u003c/em> addresses moral reasoning, trash talk, the impact of Name, Image, Likeness deals and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both coaches said that the wider culture makes these lessons harder to teach. Spellman lamented the way some team sports have mutated into vehicles for individual performances, with kids fussing over their metrics to the exclusion of the group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re trying to sell something that’s not being taught in our society,” Bowen said. Stoll reminded me that kids and teenagers need guidance to develop character through sports. They need engaged role models, a supportive environment and formal and informal education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Someone has to teach the moral values, someone has to be there helping the children navigate through life,” Stoll added.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Last fall, a star soccer player at St. Benedicts Academy in New Jersey was suspended for two games after \u003ca href=\"https://www.nj.com/highschoolsports/2025/09/star-player-for-nj-soccer-dynasty-grabbed-photographer-by-throat-during-post-game-fight.html\">brawling\u003c/a> with players from the opposing team and then grabbing a photographer by the throat who caught the tussle on film. A post-game handshake went bad in Louisiana after a high-stakes football game when a player from Natchitoches Central High School \u003ca href=\"https://natchitochesparishjournal.com/2025/11/17/nchs-apologizes-after-unnamed-player-is-arrested-for-postgame-punch/\">punched\u003c/a> an opponent, sending him to the hospital. In Pennsylvania, s prominent soccer coach at Conestoga High School was quietly placed on leave after being caught making prop \u003ca href=\"https://www.inquirer.com/news/conestoga-high-school-david-zimmerman-gambling-20250817.html\">bets\u003c/a> on basketball games with students from the school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bleak stories like these have become so common in youth and high school sports that few stories hold public attention for very long. Ask referees and umpires who oversee youth competitions and they’ll tell you that \u003ca href=\"https://www.espn.com/high-school/story/_/id/40186581/officiating-assault-referees-umpires\">sportsmanship\u003c/a> has worsened, especially among parents; thousands of sports officials have resigned as a result. Even so, according to a 2024 Harris \u003ca href=\"https://firsttee.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Cultivating-the-Next-Generation-of-Character2024.pdf\">poll\u003c/a>, 93 percent of mothers and fathers believe that sports build character in kids. And despite or because of the uptick in misbehavior at kids’ games, parents claim to value character education in sports and want coaches who respect ethics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most school athletic departments design mission statements that define what the school claims to value in its sports programs. Many refer obliquely to honesty, integrity and moral development, laudable attributes that coaches are expected to help develop in their players. \u003ca href=\"https://www.sbp.org/gray-bee-athletics\">St. Benedicts Academy\u003c/a>, for example, asserts that athletics are “about character, camaraderie and embracing values that withstand a lifetime.” But such statements often fail to reflect, or challenge, the reality of competitive school sports, where defeating an opponent can take priority over lessons in integrity and fair play. Hopes among some players of securing \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2021/7/9/name-image-likeness.aspx\">Name, Image and Likeness deals\u003c/a> in college also can reduce high school sports to brand-building opportunities. Talk of team loyalty and selflessness can seem quaint and unrealistic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.uidaho.edu/people/sstoll\">Sharon Stoll\u003c/a>, who runs the Center for Ethics at the University of Idaho, the research is definitive about athletics building what she calls “social character”: teamwork, perseverance, loyalty and work ethic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But these qualities lack a moral dimension; terrorists, after all, can be highly disciplined and hard working. When it comes to beneficence, responsibility, justice and honesty — the foundational principles of ethics — athletes are no more likely to understand and embrace them than kids in the stands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most sports are about motor skills, not moral skills,” Stoll told me. “It doesn’t magically happen because you are walking or biking or jogging,” she added. The central dilemma for coaches is this: what are you willing to do to win?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some schools take deliberate steps to include character education in their sports programs. At the Menlo School in California, for example, water polo coach \u003ca href=\"https://www.menloschool.org/athletics/us-boys-varsity-water-polo/\">Jack Bowen\u003c/a> offers a model for how coaches and schools can make character development central to their teams. Bowen believes that athletic teams offer a natural setting for teaching moral reasoning because ethical quandaries pop up frequently in sports — and kids who play are a captive audience for learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ethics education for the team starts during preseason, when Bowen assigns \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/opinion/sunday/arthur-c-brooks-love-people-not-pleasure.html\">articles\u003c/a> for the players to read. Most of the stories are unrelated to sport. Then he invites the teenagers to talk about what they learned, first in smaller groups and then as a whole team; the smaller groups allow for more emotional risk-taking, Bowen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team also immerses itself in the athletic department’s mission \u003ca href=\"https://www.menloschool.org/athletics/about-menlo-athletics/\">statement\u003c/a> which elevates four central ideas: pursue excellence, celebrate team, honor the game and uphold strong values. The discussion isn’t a one-time event. Rather, Bowen elicits players’ opinions on ethical challenges that emerge throughout the season, striving to reconcile the mission with what they’re doing in practice and during games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the 2025 season, for example, Bowen noticed one of the Menlo players waving sarcastically at a teenager from the opposing team when that player fouled out. Because he cared for the teenager’s development and believes in the principles that guide the team, Bowen pulled his own player out of the pool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had to do it and the team understood,” Bowen said. It wasn’t a punishment, he added. Afterwards, the coach and player talked at length about what happened and how mocking an opponent, even subtly, dishonored the game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.roxburylatin.org/athletics/staff/\">Sean Spellman\u003c/a>, the head basketball coach at the Roxbury Latin School in Massachusetts, emphasizes a less formal concept of character building on his teams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It starts with the philosophy of the school and knowing and loving each one of the athletes,” Spellman told me. “There’s a genuine care and connection there, regardless of how they are as a defensive basketball player.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, he handed out a 65-question survey to the team that went beyond sports. Who do they admire? When do they feel their best — and worst? During one weekly film session, which Spellman uses to connect personally with the players, he introduced “Teammate Jeopardy” to encourage kids to learn about each other. Like Bowen, Spellman engages the team in collective conversations: What does it mean to have pride and be part of the Roxbury Latin community? What do we value here? While transparent about the adolescents’ play, Spellman assures the teenagers that their basketball skills don’t diminish their value to the group as a person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He strives to make the character dimension of sports tangible, even during the tensest moments of a game. Spellman will “burn a timeout,” as he put it, to remind the players during tight plays that it’s how they handle the high-stakes experiences that matter most, because they’ll have many more to grapple with as they age. “I cherish what this high school sports experience is,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coaches need help figuring out how to balance competing goals. To that end, a graduate student of Dr. Stoll’s, Samantha Lewis, launched a \u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/show/5GF0vTbQfK2qDivtGB6ksw\">podcast\u003c/a> to help them talk through some of the ethical issues they’ll encounter. \u003cem>The Coach’s Dilemma: What Will You Do to Win?\u003c/em> addresses moral reasoning, trash talk, the impact of Name, Image, Likeness deals and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both coaches said that the wider culture makes these lessons harder to teach. Spellman lamented the way some team sports have mutated into vehicles for individual performances, with kids fussing over their metrics to the exclusion of the group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re trying to sell something that’s not being taught in our society,” Bowen said. Stoll reminded me that kids and teenagers need guidance to develop character through sports. They need engaged role models, a supportive environment and formal and informal education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Sometimes you meet a person and just know: \u003cem>You. \u003c/em>I want to be friends with\u003cem> you. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conversation flows. They make you laugh. You want to know more about them. So you say, “Hey, we should get together sometime!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.katvellos.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>Kat Vellos\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, author of \u003ca href=\"https://weshouldgettogether.com/book\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, has a better idea. Schedule an \u003cem>actual\u003c/em> time to hang out. “Pull out your calendar, pick a time, pick a thing to do together and follow through,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“‘Sometime’ is vague,” she says. “The more specific you are, the more likely you’re going to get together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If it’s been awhile since you’ve sought out a new friend and you’re feeling a bit rusty, try developing what Vellos calls “friendship intuition.” That means knowing who to prioritize, how to spend time together and what to do if the vibes just aren’t there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a conversation with Life Kit, Vellos shares insights on how to turn a stranger into a friend, based on scientific research and her work as a friendship coach. In that role, she helps people who are having a hard time making friends where they live, and talks to city leaders and urban planners about designing spaces for connection. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Let’s talk about how to spot a friend in the wild. Maybe this is in a community space or a group dinner. How do you know if this person has friend potential? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Notice who you feel warmth with, who you feel safe around. Also notice if they show curiosity about getting to know you more too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not necessarily the most exciting person in the room. They might have a lot of charisma and magnetic charm, but they might not make you feel grounded.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Let’s say you meet someone who seems cool. How might you ask them to hang out? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A common mistake that people make when they’re trying to build a new friendship is they wait too long to see that new acquaintance again. And in that time, the spark can fizzle out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s research about how long it takes to convert an acquaintance into a friend. It comes from the work of \u003ca href=\"https://coms.ku.edu/people/jeffrey-hall\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>Jeffrey Hall\u003c/u>\u003c/a>\u003cu>,\u003c/u> [a professor of communication studies] at University of Kansas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He quantified \u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0265407518761225\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>how many hours it takes\u003c/u>\u003c/a> to convert a stranger into a friend: More than 30 for a casual friend. [Those hours] really need to be compressed, preferably in those first several weeks of meeting each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This research confirms what your intuition might say, which is: If you spend a lot of time together when the relationship is new, it’s more likely to stick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lot of times, adults will follow some kind of arbitrary rule that says you can’t hang out two days in a row, or you can’t see somebody more than once a week. Unfortunately, this is why so many friendships fizzle out.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>As for what to do together, you suggest picking an activity that’s memorable. \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Coffee dates are fine. A lot of people default to them for a first date. But coffee is forgettable. It doesn’t feel important. It’s easy to cancel and it doesn’t give you a lot of fodder for conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So pick something that’s a little more interesting. It’s going to amp up the excitement, [and people are more likely] not to cancel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So if you tell me you’re into knitting, I might be like, “Hey, there’s this exhibit of really cool yarn art. Do you wanna go?” You’re probably more likely to say yes because it’s something you actually care about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s another benefit. \u003ca href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320082393_Sharing_Extraordinary_Experiences_Fosters_Feelings_of_Closeness\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>Researchers at Cornell University\u003c/u>\u003c/a> found that when people who don’t know each other very well do an out-of-the-ordinary experience together, that bonds them a lot faster than doing a run-of-the-mill activity, like just another coffee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When we do something a little unusual, that novelty draws both of your attention and gives you a memory you can have together. [Going to] a classic car show or a vegan food truck festival is going to be a lot more memorable than that latte.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>What if you start hanging out and realize you don’t actually like them? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s OK not to take this train all the way to the bestie station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Decide if you actually want to stop seeing them, or if you simply want to move them into the outer ring of connection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There really are rings. There’s your inner circle. The next ring is friends you might invite to a birthday party. The next ring is [people you’d] be happy to see randomly, but don’t seek out. Then it’s [people] who you’re OK with being strangers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Let’s say you do have a new friend. It’s going well. You’ve been out a few times. What are some ways to make the friendship stick? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>I often say there’s four seeds of connection: compatibility, frequency, proximity and commitment. I describe this in my book. If these four elements are present, it is more likely that this friendship is going to last.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first one is compatibility. Hopefully there’s enough mutual interest and chemistry there that you want to keep going. Then it’s frequency. How often are you seeing each other? Proximity is how much time you can spend in person, face-to-face. How close can you be?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over time, if you’re both committed, you both become dedicated to the friendship.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The story was edited by Meghan Keane. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"mailto:LifeKit@npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>LifeKit@npr.org\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Listen to Life Kit on \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3LdRb0X\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Apple Podcasts\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3K3xVln\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Spotify\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, and sign up for our \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3xN1tB9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. Follow us on Instagram: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nprlifekit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>@nprlifekit\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Sometimes you meet a person and just know: \u003cem>You. \u003c/em>I want to be friends with\u003cem> you. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conversation flows. They make you laugh. You want to know more about them. So you say, “Hey, we should get together sometime!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.katvellos.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>Kat Vellos\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, author of \u003ca href=\"https://weshouldgettogether.com/book\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, has a better idea. Schedule an \u003cem>actual\u003c/em> time to hang out. “Pull out your calendar, pick a time, pick a thing to do together and follow through,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“‘Sometime’ is vague,” she says. “The more specific you are, the more likely you’re going to get together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If it’s been awhile since you’ve sought out a new friend and you’re feeling a bit rusty, try developing what Vellos calls “friendship intuition.” That means knowing who to prioritize, how to spend time together and what to do if the vibes just aren’t there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a conversation with Life Kit, Vellos shares insights on how to turn a stranger into a friend, based on scientific research and her work as a friendship coach. In that role, she helps people who are having a hard time making friends where they live, and talks to city leaders and urban planners about designing spaces for connection. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Let’s talk about how to spot a friend in the wild. Maybe this is in a community space or a group dinner. How do you know if this person has friend potential? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Notice who you feel warmth with, who you feel safe around. Also notice if they show curiosity about getting to know you more too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not necessarily the most exciting person in the room. They might have a lot of charisma and magnetic charm, but they might not make you feel grounded.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Let’s say you meet someone who seems cool. How might you ask them to hang out? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A common mistake that people make when they’re trying to build a new friendship is they wait too long to see that new acquaintance again. And in that time, the spark can fizzle out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s research about how long it takes to convert an acquaintance into a friend. It comes from the work of \u003ca href=\"https://coms.ku.edu/people/jeffrey-hall\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>Jeffrey Hall\u003c/u>\u003c/a>\u003cu>,\u003c/u> [a professor of communication studies] at University of Kansas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He quantified \u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0265407518761225\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>how many hours it takes\u003c/u>\u003c/a> to convert a stranger into a friend: More than 30 for a casual friend. [Those hours] really need to be compressed, preferably in those first several weeks of meeting each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This research confirms what your intuition might say, which is: If you spend a lot of time together when the relationship is new, it’s more likely to stick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lot of times, adults will follow some kind of arbitrary rule that says you can’t hang out two days in a row, or you can’t see somebody more than once a week. Unfortunately, this is why so many friendships fizzle out.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>As for what to do together, you suggest picking an activity that’s memorable. \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Coffee dates are fine. A lot of people default to them for a first date. But coffee is forgettable. It doesn’t feel important. It’s easy to cancel and it doesn’t give you a lot of fodder for conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So pick something that’s a little more interesting. It’s going to amp up the excitement, [and people are more likely] not to cancel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So if you tell me you’re into knitting, I might be like, “Hey, there’s this exhibit of really cool yarn art. Do you wanna go?” You’re probably more likely to say yes because it’s something you actually care about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s another benefit. \u003ca href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320082393_Sharing_Extraordinary_Experiences_Fosters_Feelings_of_Closeness\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>Researchers at Cornell University\u003c/u>\u003c/a> found that when people who don’t know each other very well do an out-of-the-ordinary experience together, that bonds them a lot faster than doing a run-of-the-mill activity, like just another coffee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When we do something a little unusual, that novelty draws both of your attention and gives you a memory you can have together. [Going to] a classic car show or a vegan food truck festival is going to be a lot more memorable than that latte.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>What if you start hanging out and realize you don’t actually like them? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s OK not to take this train all the way to the bestie station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Decide if you actually want to stop seeing them, or if you simply want to move them into the outer ring of connection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There really are rings. There’s your inner circle. The next ring is friends you might invite to a birthday party. The next ring is [people you’d] be happy to see randomly, but don’t seek out. Then it’s [people] who you’re OK with being strangers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Let’s say you do have a new friend. It’s going well. You’ve been out a few times. What are some ways to make the friendship stick? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>I often say there’s four seeds of connection: compatibility, frequency, proximity and commitment. I describe this in my book. If these four elements are present, it is more likely that this friendship is going to last.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first one is compatibility. Hopefully there’s enough mutual interest and chemistry there that you want to keep going. Then it’s frequency. How often are you seeing each other? Proximity is how much time you can spend in person, face-to-face. How close can you be?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over time, if you’re both committed, you both become dedicated to the friendship.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The story was edited by Meghan Keane. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"mailto:LifeKit@npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>LifeKit@npr.org\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Listen to Life Kit on \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3LdRb0X\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Apple Podcasts\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3K3xVln\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Spotify\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, and sign up for our \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3xN1tB9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. Follow us on Instagram: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nprlifekit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>@nprlifekit\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The teaching profession is one of the most female-dominated in the United States. Among elementary school teachers, 89 percent are women, and in kindergarten, that number is almost 97 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many sociologists, writers and parents have questioned whether this imbalance hinders young boys at the start of their education. Are female teachers less understanding of boys’ need to horse around? Or would male role models inspire boys to learn their letters and times tables? Some advocates point to research that lays out why boys ought to do better with male teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a new national analysis finds no evidence that boys perform or behave better with male teachers in elementary school. This challenges a widespread belief that boys thrive more when taught by men, and it raises questions about efforts, such as \u003ca href=\"https://www.nyc.gov/site/ymi/teach/nyc-men-teach.page\">one in New York City\u003c/a>, to spend extra to recruit them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was surprised,” said Paul Morgan, a professor at the University at Albany and a co-author of the study. “I’ve raised two boys, and my assumption would be that having male teachers is beneficial because boys tend to be more rambunctious, more active, a little less easy to direct in academic tasks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not saying gender matching doesn’t work,” Morgan added. “We’re saying we’re not observing it in K through fifth grade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middle and high school students might see more benefits. Earlier research is mixed and inconclusive. A \u003ca href=\"https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/teachers-and-gender-gaps-student-achievement\">2007 analysis\u003c/a> by Stanford professor Thomas Dee found academic benefits for eighth-grade boys and girls when taught by teachers of their same gender. And studies where researchers observe and interview a small number of students often show how students feel more supported by same-gender teachers. Yet many quantitative studies, like this newest one, have failed to detect measurable benefits for boys. At least 10 since 2014 have found zero or minimal effects. Benefits for girls are more consistent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This latest study, “Fixed Effect Estimates of Teacher-Student Gender Matching During Elementary School,” is a working paper not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal.* Morgan and co-author Eric Hu, a research scientist at Albany, shared a draft with me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morgan and Hu analyzed a U.S. Education Department dataset that followed a nationally representative group of 8,000 students from kindergarten in 2010 through fifth grade in 2017. Half were boys and half were girls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than two-thirds — 68 percent — of the 4,000 boys never had a male teacher in those years while 32 percent had at least one. (The study focused only on main classroom teachers, not extras like gym or music.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the 1,300 boys who had both male and female teachers, the researchers compared each boy’s performance and behavior across those years. For instance, if Jacob had female teachers in kindergarten, first, second and fifth grades, but male teachers in third and fourth, his average scores and behavior were compared between the teachers of different genders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers found no differences in reading, math or science achievement — or in behavioral and social measures. Teachers rated students on traits like impulsiveness, cooperation, anxiety, empathy and self-control. The children also took annual executive function tests. The results did not vary by the teacher’s gender.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most studies on male teachers focus on older students. The authors noted one other elementary-level study, in Florida, that also found no academic benefit for boys. This new research confirms that finding and adds that there seems to be no behavioral or social benefits either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For students at these young ages, 11 and under, the researchers also didn’t find academic benefits for girls with female teachers. But there were two non-academic ones: Girls taught by women showed stronger interpersonal skills (getting along, helping others, caring about feelings) and a greater eagerness to learn (represented by skills such as keeping organized and following rules).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the researchers combined race and gender, the results grew more complex. Black girls taught by Black women scored higher on an executive function test but lower in science. Asian boys taught by Asian men scored higher on executive function but had lower ratings on interpersonal skills. Black boys showed no measurable differences when taught by Black male teachers. (Previous research has sometimes \u003ca href=\"https://hub.jhu.edu/2018/11/12/black-students-black-teachers-college-gap/\">found benefits\u003c/a> for Black students taught by Black teachers and \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-black-and-white-teachers-from-hbcus-are-better-math-instructors-study-finds/\">sometimes hasn’t.\u003c/a>)**\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if data show no academic or behavioral benefits for students, there may still be compelling reasons to diversify the teaching workforce, just as in other professions. But we shouldn’t expect these efforts to move the needle on student outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you had scarce resources and were trying to place your bets,” Morgan said, “then based on this study, maybe elementary school isn’t where you should focus your recruitment efforts” to hire more men.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To paraphrase Boyz II Men, it’s so hard to say goodbye — to the idea that young boys need male teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>*Clarification: The article has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal but has undergone some peer review.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>**Correction: An earlier version incorrectly characterized how researchers analyzed what happened to students of different races. The researchers focused only on the gender of the teachers, but drilled down to see how students of different races responded to teachers of different genders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This story about \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-male-teachers-elementary-school/\">\u003cem>male teachers\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"headline": "Does Having a Male Teacher Make a Difference? Not as Much as Some Think",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The teaching profession is one of the most female-dominated in the United States. Among elementary school teachers, 89 percent are women, and in kindergarten, that number is almost 97 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many sociologists, writers and parents have questioned whether this imbalance hinders young boys at the start of their education. Are female teachers less understanding of boys’ need to horse around? Or would male role models inspire boys to learn their letters and times tables? Some advocates point to research that lays out why boys ought to do better with male teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a new national analysis finds no evidence that boys perform or behave better with male teachers in elementary school. This challenges a widespread belief that boys thrive more when taught by men, and it raises questions about efforts, such as \u003ca href=\"https://www.nyc.gov/site/ymi/teach/nyc-men-teach.page\">one in New York City\u003c/a>, to spend extra to recruit them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was surprised,” said Paul Morgan, a professor at the University at Albany and a co-author of the study. “I’ve raised two boys, and my assumption would be that having male teachers is beneficial because boys tend to be more rambunctious, more active, a little less easy to direct in academic tasks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not saying gender matching doesn’t work,” Morgan added. “We’re saying we’re not observing it in K through fifth grade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middle and high school students might see more benefits. Earlier research is mixed and inconclusive. A \u003ca href=\"https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/teachers-and-gender-gaps-student-achievement\">2007 analysis\u003c/a> by Stanford professor Thomas Dee found academic benefits for eighth-grade boys and girls when taught by teachers of their same gender. And studies where researchers observe and interview a small number of students often show how students feel more supported by same-gender teachers. Yet many quantitative studies, like this newest one, have failed to detect measurable benefits for boys. At least 10 since 2014 have found zero or minimal effects. Benefits for girls are more consistent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This latest study, “Fixed Effect Estimates of Teacher-Student Gender Matching During Elementary School,” is a working paper not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal.* Morgan and co-author Eric Hu, a research scientist at Albany, shared a draft with me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morgan and Hu analyzed a U.S. Education Department dataset that followed a nationally representative group of 8,000 students from kindergarten in 2010 through fifth grade in 2017. Half were boys and half were girls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than two-thirds — 68 percent — of the 4,000 boys never had a male teacher in those years while 32 percent had at least one. (The study focused only on main classroom teachers, not extras like gym or music.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the 1,300 boys who had both male and female teachers, the researchers compared each boy’s performance and behavior across those years. For instance, if Jacob had female teachers in kindergarten, first, second and fifth grades, but male teachers in third and fourth, his average scores and behavior were compared between the teachers of different genders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers found no differences in reading, math or science achievement — or in behavioral and social measures. Teachers rated students on traits like impulsiveness, cooperation, anxiety, empathy and self-control. The children also took annual executive function tests. The results did not vary by the teacher’s gender.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most studies on male teachers focus on older students. The authors noted one other elementary-level study, in Florida, that also found no academic benefit for boys. This new research confirms that finding and adds that there seems to be no behavioral or social benefits either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For students at these young ages, 11 and under, the researchers also didn’t find academic benefits for girls with female teachers. But there were two non-academic ones: Girls taught by women showed stronger interpersonal skills (getting along, helping others, caring about feelings) and a greater eagerness to learn (represented by skills such as keeping organized and following rules).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the researchers combined race and gender, the results grew more complex. Black girls taught by Black women scored higher on an executive function test but lower in science. Asian boys taught by Asian men scored higher on executive function but had lower ratings on interpersonal skills. Black boys showed no measurable differences when taught by Black male teachers. (Previous research has sometimes \u003ca href=\"https://hub.jhu.edu/2018/11/12/black-students-black-teachers-college-gap/\">found benefits\u003c/a> for Black students taught by Black teachers and \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-black-and-white-teachers-from-hbcus-are-better-math-instructors-study-finds/\">sometimes hasn’t.\u003c/a>)**\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if data show no academic or behavioral benefits for students, there may still be compelling reasons to diversify the teaching workforce, just as in other professions. But we shouldn’t expect these efforts to move the needle on student outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you had scarce resources and were trying to place your bets,” Morgan said, “then based on this study, maybe elementary school isn’t where you should focus your recruitment efforts” to hire more men.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To paraphrase Boyz II Men, it’s so hard to say goodbye — to the idea that young boys need male teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>*Clarification: The article has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal but has undergone some peer review.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>**Correction: An earlier version incorrectly characterized how researchers analyzed what happened to students of different races. The researchers focused only on the gender of the teachers, but drilled down to see how students of different races responded to teachers of different genders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This story about \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-male-teachers-elementary-school/\">\u003cem>male teachers\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>When the school year began in Virginia this fall, teenagers entering public high schools have something new on their curriculum: instruction on how to better understand and avoid the risks of gambling. Funded by the state’s very own gambling industry, the lessons aim to educate students on luck and chance, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/65812/what-every-parent-should-know-about-online-gambling\">the risks of addiction, the nature of online betting\u003c/a> and other messages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These education measures come into effect seven years after the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on gambling within states. Since the court’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-476_dbfi.pdf\">\u003cem>Murphy\u003c/em>\u003c/a> decision, 38 states now permit wagering in various forms, much of it online. And while most states require players to be at least 21, many younger people have found a way in. According to the Massachusetts Department of Public \u003ca href=\"https://www.mass.gov/info-details/teens-gambling-its-a-risk\">Health\u003c/a>, 60-80% of teenagers report having gambled at least once over the past year by the time they reach high school. Problem gambling can start as young as 10, and 4-8% of young people struggle with it, versus just 1% of adults. Teenage gambling is also associated with use of illegal \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncpgambling.org/help-treatment/faqs-what-is-problem-gambling/\">drugs\u003c/a>, and gambling addiction is more apt to lead to \u003ca href=\"https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/problem-gamblers-have-highest-suicide-rate-of-any-addiction-disorder-studies-show\">suicide\u003c/a> than addiction to drugs or alcohol.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s startling about Virginia’s initiative was its original resistance to addressing problem gambling in any context. Along with eight other states, Virginia initially had earmarked scant \u003ca href=\"https://virginiamercury.com/2024/09/03/how-virginia-is-addressing-the-dark-side-of-gambling/\">funding\u003c/a> for research or support services for problem gamblers. But just two years after the state authorized online sports gambling, citizens began to stew over the fusillade of ads for DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM, especially as word spread about tax advantages the industry had secured. Parents called to share stories of young people swept up in wagering. Sam Rasoul, a delegate from the state’s 38\u003csup>th\u003c/sup> district, introduced legislation that promptly passed in 2022. “The political appetite was right,” said \u003ca href=\"https://consultbds.com/about/\">Brianne Doura-Schawohl\u003c/a>, a public health advocate who helped craft the legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://dbhds.virginia.gov/pgts-committee/\">Anne Rogers\u003c/a> oversaw the creation of the educational materials. The head of gambling prevention efforts throughout the state, Rogers worked with Virginia’s 40 community service boards to find effective lessons that would educate teenagers without teaching them how to gamble or entice them to give it a try. They settled on two primary materials: the \u003ca href=\"https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hazelden.org%2Fstore%2Fitem%2F557330%3FStacked-Deck-Second-Edition&data=05%7C02%7Clinda%40flanagansnj.com%7C1a8f3b2d9edf4fdb02b308ddd363c13a%7C7d18c35e6a6640dcb037e7323831f1db%7C0%7C0%7C638899147811795431%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=W3Tt8kpYHMcgDLSY90eCxCJc2MjX4RqU%2BWasjkFLbCU%3D&reserved=0\">Stacked Deck curriculum\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8507822/\">“Who Really Wins?,”\u003c/a> a gambling prevention program designed in Croatia. Teachers suggested that school schedules wouldn’t allow for the recommended 7 to 8 sessions, so Rogers condensed the material into a single 90-minute lesson, some of it interactive, that could be divided up further as needed. The state also offers a free web-based \u003ca href=\"https://www.train.org/virginia/course/1130510/details\">system\u003c/a> on gambling that is available to anyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 90 minutes cover several subjects: understanding gaming, gambling and the laws around them; brain development; media literacy; the impact on physical and emotional health; signs of problem gambling; financial literacy; and how to keep from developing a problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We avoided discussion of myths vs facts,” Rogers explained, because research shows that students remember myths and confuse them with facts. Pulling from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62742/just-say-no-didnt-actually-protect-students-from-drugs-heres-what-could\">failures of the anti-drug D.A.R.E. Program\u003c/a>, the gambling materials tell kids what gambling is without showing them how to do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not teaching them how to gamble,” Rogers said. Small tests between sections indicate whether kids understand what they’ve been taught.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What are the prospects of more states picking this up?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of interest in states wanting to replicate what Virginia is doing,” Rogers said; Massachusetts and New Jersey are considering legislation now. At the same time, the lack of federal leadership impedes state efforts, because there’s no national plan to address problem gambling that states can simply adopt. Governments also can be slow to react to threats that don’t seem to pose imminent dangers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The school systems haven’t caught up with the health system, and the health system hasn’t caught up with the trends in the gambling industry,” Doura-Schawohl explained, noting that it took about 30 years to get action on the health risks associated with tobacco, alcohol and opioids. The fact that states receive revenue from legalized gambling also dampens enthusiasm for tough regulation; gambling proceeds provide a fresh source of state funds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone who studies gambling addiction believes that mandatory, school-based lessons focusing on prohibition are the best approach to preventing problem gambling. \u003ca href=\"https://bri.ucla.edu/people/timothy-fong/\">Timothy Fong\u003c/a>, a psychiatrist and co-director of UCLA’s Gambling Studies Program, and who is passionate about studying all-things-gambling, told me that “addiction and loneliness feed off each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The young people who get swept up into addictive behaviors are looking for quick ways to obtain financial and social success; they can’t resist the promise of “easy” money coming to them from their own devices. “They think, ‘I need money fast in order to feel good about myself”,” Fong said. “What’s missing in their lives is developing kindness, empathy, gratitude, compassion and strengthening civics and pride in themselves and their communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, young people need a grounding in financial literary and probability, but it would be more effective to address false expectations and fantasies about striking it rich through betting, he added. Kids need connection with other humans more than immersion in anti-gambling curriculum, especially adult mentors who can counteract the messaging of social media and misinformation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no magic bullet,” Rogers said, acknowledging that tackling the problem will require more than one 90-minute session on the perils of gambling. Kids need tools on how to succeed and better ways of minimizing stress. “This is just one piece,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.jonathandcohen.com/\">Jonathan Cohen\u003c/a>, author of \u003cem>Losing Big: America’s Reckless Bet On Spots Gambling\u003c/em>, told me that school principals have begun calling him, asking for guidance on how to handle their emerging problems, like middle school kids talking openly about gambling and bragging about their wins. Cohen believes parents and schools need to talk to kids about gambling, at the very least to challenge the dominant narrative propagated by social media influencers and celebrities on TV: that wagering is glamorous and fun and no harm can come from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For her part, Doura-Schawohl is troubled by the pace of reform. “A lot of kids are going to die while policy makers wait around and figure out if we should do something, and what they should do,” she said. “And that’s a terrifying fact.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When the school year began in Virginia this fall, teenagers entering public high schools have something new on their curriculum: instruction on how to better understand and avoid the risks of gambling. Funded by the state’s very own gambling industry, the lessons aim to educate students on luck and chance, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/65812/what-every-parent-should-know-about-online-gambling\">the risks of addiction, the nature of online betting\u003c/a> and other messages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These education measures come into effect seven years after the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on gambling within states. Since the court’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-476_dbfi.pdf\">\u003cem>Murphy\u003c/em>\u003c/a> decision, 38 states now permit wagering in various forms, much of it online. And while most states require players to be at least 21, many younger people have found a way in. According to the Massachusetts Department of Public \u003ca href=\"https://www.mass.gov/info-details/teens-gambling-its-a-risk\">Health\u003c/a>, 60-80% of teenagers report having gambled at least once over the past year by the time they reach high school. Problem gambling can start as young as 10, and 4-8% of young people struggle with it, versus just 1% of adults. Teenage gambling is also associated with use of illegal \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncpgambling.org/help-treatment/faqs-what-is-problem-gambling/\">drugs\u003c/a>, and gambling addiction is more apt to lead to \u003ca href=\"https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/problem-gamblers-have-highest-suicide-rate-of-any-addiction-disorder-studies-show\">suicide\u003c/a> than addiction to drugs or alcohol.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s startling about Virginia’s initiative was its original resistance to addressing problem gambling in any context. Along with eight other states, Virginia initially had earmarked scant \u003ca href=\"https://virginiamercury.com/2024/09/03/how-virginia-is-addressing-the-dark-side-of-gambling/\">funding\u003c/a> for research or support services for problem gamblers. But just two years after the state authorized online sports gambling, citizens began to stew over the fusillade of ads for DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM, especially as word spread about tax advantages the industry had secured. Parents called to share stories of young people swept up in wagering. Sam Rasoul, a delegate from the state’s 38\u003csup>th\u003c/sup> district, introduced legislation that promptly passed in 2022. “The political appetite was right,” said \u003ca href=\"https://consultbds.com/about/\">Brianne Doura-Schawohl\u003c/a>, a public health advocate who helped craft the legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://dbhds.virginia.gov/pgts-committee/\">Anne Rogers\u003c/a> oversaw the creation of the educational materials. The head of gambling prevention efforts throughout the state, Rogers worked with Virginia’s 40 community service boards to find effective lessons that would educate teenagers without teaching them how to gamble or entice them to give it a try. They settled on two primary materials: the \u003ca href=\"https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hazelden.org%2Fstore%2Fitem%2F557330%3FStacked-Deck-Second-Edition&data=05%7C02%7Clinda%40flanagansnj.com%7C1a8f3b2d9edf4fdb02b308ddd363c13a%7C7d18c35e6a6640dcb037e7323831f1db%7C0%7C0%7C638899147811795431%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=W3Tt8kpYHMcgDLSY90eCxCJc2MjX4RqU%2BWasjkFLbCU%3D&reserved=0\">Stacked Deck curriculum\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8507822/\">“Who Really Wins?,”\u003c/a> a gambling prevention program designed in Croatia. Teachers suggested that school schedules wouldn’t allow for the recommended 7 to 8 sessions, so Rogers condensed the material into a single 90-minute lesson, some of it interactive, that could be divided up further as needed. The state also offers a free web-based \u003ca href=\"https://www.train.org/virginia/course/1130510/details\">system\u003c/a> on gambling that is available to anyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 90 minutes cover several subjects: understanding gaming, gambling and the laws around them; brain development; media literacy; the impact on physical and emotional health; signs of problem gambling; financial literacy; and how to keep from developing a problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We avoided discussion of myths vs facts,” Rogers explained, because research shows that students remember myths and confuse them with facts. Pulling from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62742/just-say-no-didnt-actually-protect-students-from-drugs-heres-what-could\">failures of the anti-drug D.A.R.E. Program\u003c/a>, the gambling materials tell kids what gambling is without showing them how to do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not teaching them how to gamble,” Rogers said. Small tests between sections indicate whether kids understand what they’ve been taught.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What are the prospects of more states picking this up?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of interest in states wanting to replicate what Virginia is doing,” Rogers said; Massachusetts and New Jersey are considering legislation now. At the same time, the lack of federal leadership impedes state efforts, because there’s no national plan to address problem gambling that states can simply adopt. Governments also can be slow to react to threats that don’t seem to pose imminent dangers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The school systems haven’t caught up with the health system, and the health system hasn’t caught up with the trends in the gambling industry,” Doura-Schawohl explained, noting that it took about 30 years to get action on the health risks associated with tobacco, alcohol and opioids. The fact that states receive revenue from legalized gambling also dampens enthusiasm for tough regulation; gambling proceeds provide a fresh source of state funds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone who studies gambling addiction believes that mandatory, school-based lessons focusing on prohibition are the best approach to preventing problem gambling. \u003ca href=\"https://bri.ucla.edu/people/timothy-fong/\">Timothy Fong\u003c/a>, a psychiatrist and co-director of UCLA’s Gambling Studies Program, and who is passionate about studying all-things-gambling, told me that “addiction and loneliness feed off each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The young people who get swept up into addictive behaviors are looking for quick ways to obtain financial and social success; they can’t resist the promise of “easy” money coming to them from their own devices. “They think, ‘I need money fast in order to feel good about myself”,” Fong said. “What’s missing in their lives is developing kindness, empathy, gratitude, compassion and strengthening civics and pride in themselves and their communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, young people need a grounding in financial literary and probability, but it would be more effective to address false expectations and fantasies about striking it rich through betting, he added. Kids need connection with other humans more than immersion in anti-gambling curriculum, especially adult mentors who can counteract the messaging of social media and misinformation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no magic bullet,” Rogers said, acknowledging that tackling the problem will require more than one 90-minute session on the perils of gambling. Kids need tools on how to succeed and better ways of minimizing stress. “This is just one piece,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.jonathandcohen.com/\">Jonathan Cohen\u003c/a>, author of \u003cem>Losing Big: America’s Reckless Bet On Spots Gambling\u003c/em>, told me that school principals have begun calling him, asking for guidance on how to handle their emerging problems, like middle school kids talking openly about gambling and bragging about their wins. Cohen believes parents and schools need to talk to kids about gambling, at the very least to challenge the dominant narrative propagated by social media influencers and celebrities on TV: that wagering is glamorous and fun and no harm can come from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"soldout": {
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