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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/BrookeEdu\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Brooke Harris-Thomas\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> developed self-confidence and an interest in math at an early age, thanks to encouragement from her dad, who was a math teacher. Those early education experiences not only \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">shaped her as a young student\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> but later in life as a special education teacher in math support and a researcher. Harris-Thomas, who is a postdoctoral research fellow at Purdue University, studies Black girlhood, math and belonging. She said that interpersonal relationships are important in affirming who you are and that belonging is not only a psychological experience, but a physical one too. Harris-Thomas’s lasting question is: “How do we let students’ interest drive us?” when creating places of belonging in schools. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Belonging matters at all ages, and especially as students enter middle and high school – times when their changing brains are acutely influenced by \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62597/curlfriends-new-in-town-reminds-us-that-there-can-be-positives-of-middle-school\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">positive\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/61868/student-podcasters-share-the-dark-realities-of-middle-school-in-america\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">negative\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> emotions. \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59687/middle-schoolers-are-social-what-opportunity-does-that-create-for-learning\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Teens and tweens crave connection\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and school is one of their primary sites for social interaction. According to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/DrMBurnett\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Marketa Burnett\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a developmental psychologist at University of Connecticut, cultivating belonging in an educational environment “needs to be an entire school effort.” Burnett’s work explores how educators and communities can support Black girls’ development holistically.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Curriculum, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62163/are-dress-codes-fair-how-one-middle-school-transformed-its-rules-for-what-students-wear\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">school policies\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, classroom design, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/61775/how-important-was-your-favorite-teacher-to-your-success-researchers-have-done-the-math\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">interactions with teachers\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62409/how-bibliocounseling-can-create-space-for-black-girls-and-girls-of-color-to-connect-in-school\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">relationships with classmates\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> can all add to or subtract from belonging in schools. When Black girls \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63160/5-cognitive-biases-that-shape-classroom-interactions-and-how-to-overcome-them\">encounter bias\u003c/a> in any of those domains, it can reduce their sense of belonging and hurt their \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62841/7-strategies-to-ignite-active-learning-and-help-students-see-its-benefits\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">academic identities\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. That’s why both Harris-Thomas and Burnett emphasized the need to listen to Black girls when assessing how to create belonging in a school setting. According to Harris-Thomas, this honors intersectional identities. In her survey research, Black girls in middle and high school said that seeing friends at school, teachers \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62672/using-picture-books-and-classroom-dialogue-to-honor-and-respect-students-name\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">knowing their names\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and getting opportunities to help peers and contribute to their school were all things that positively influenced their sense of belonging.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Why belonging matters and what gets in the way\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to Harris-Thomas, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62189/school-shapes-teens-identities-and-relationships-what-role-do-teachers-play\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">building interpersonal relationships\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in the school environment is essential to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63086/when-family-tree-projects-frustrate-students-community-maps-are-an-inclusive-alternative\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">affirming students’ identities\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Harris-Thomas is careful not to make generalizations about what will create belonging for all students of a certain identity. “Every Black girl is different,” she said. But there are some commonalities in the experiences that diminish belonging. “If I’m having a negative interaction with my peers, my teachers are not treating me very well, I don’t have that sense of closeness, my sense of belonging likely decreases in that space as well,” Harris-Thomas said. Because belonging is a basic human need as well as a psychological experience, when belonging is absent, it can weigh heavily on students’ cognitive load. “And wrestling with that takes cognitive resources away from [their] academics,” said Harris-Thomas. “It’s a lot to ask.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to Harris-Thomas, when Black girls receive negative messages based on preconceived stereotypes, particularly in the field of math, it can decrease their sense of belonging. When surveying Black girls in grades six to 12 about their school experiences, Burnett found that “they’re aware of racism, they’re aware of sexism, they’re aware of the fact that these things happen because [they are] Black girls.” The girls pointed out experiences that they’d had as early as elementary school. “They talked about stereotypes that were specific to being Black, but also stereotypes specific to being a Black girl,” said Burnett. The girls reported that they heard these stereotypes from their peers, classmates and teachers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>What educators can do\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To begin thinking about how to cultivate belonging among students, Harris-Thomas said teachers can \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60096/why-teachers-must-examine-their-own-ideologies-to-create-identity-affirming-classrooms\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">take a hard look at the school environment and messaging\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. She said it’s important that teachers ask Black girls what belonging means to them. Being able to access help from a teacher or from peers can contribute to creating those safe spaces. Such support acts as “a stepping stone to feeling that sense of competence, which sometimes hinder students from feeling belonging or not,” she said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While the reasons students may not feel like they belong may differ, establishing a sense of belonging early and often is key, said Burnett. “It’s in our discipline policies. It’s in how we enforce \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62163/are-dress-codes-fair-how-one-middle-school-transformed-its-rules-for-what-students-wear\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">dress code\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. It’s in how we talk to students, how we think about \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63058/how-one-district-has-diversified-its-advanced-math-classes-without-the-controversy\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">recommending them for advanced courses\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">,” she said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many of the Black girls that Harris-Thomas worked with during her research \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/54986/how-black-girls-benefit-when-math-has-social-interaction-and-ways-to-learn-together\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">enjoyed group work and interactive work\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Especially when it comes to math, Harris-Thomas pointed out that small group work gives students the opportunity to re-explain concepts or ideas to their peers. This allows students to be supportive of their peers and ultimately enhances their sense of belonging. “It just becomes a more embodied experience,” Harris-Thomas said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Students also welcomed the opportunity to receive help from educators in a way that is flexible. If a student lacks a sense of belonging and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62119/how-extroverted-teachers-can-engage-introverted-students\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">doesn’t feel comfortable to raise their hand in a large group\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, they may benefit from their teacher offering support in smaller group settings or allowing students to stay back and ask individual questions for five minutes after a lesson.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Harris-Thomas said that it’s important to give adolescents \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59104/identity-mastery-belonging-and-efficacy-four-ways-student-agency-can-flourish\">time and space to develop their identities\u003c/a>, especially for Black girls, because “there’s a sense in which society wants to make them adults quicker.” If the perceived age of a student is inflated, an educator’s expectations can differ “and then may not be developmentally appropriate,” Harris-Thomas said. This can lead to harsher discipline for Black girls. “Allowing Black girls to be girls, to make mistakes,” and not misinterpreting their energy and joy contributes to their sense of belonging in a school environment, said Harris-Thomas. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Harris-Thomas also encourages educators to connect with their students by sharing appropriate information about their own lives. This can create a healthy sense of connection between students and educators and helps to let the student know that their teacher is interested in their lives.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Teachers can also encourage goal-oriented thinking by asking Black girls about their future education plans and underscoring the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/58492/how-do-you-cultivate-genius-in-all-students\">brilliance that already exists in this student population\u003c/a>, Burnett said. She hopes that “Black girls see themselves as beautiful and brilliant and worthy,” and that they don’t feel that there are qualifications they must meet for their intersecting identities. “A lot of times people tell [Black girls] how they’re supposed to feel or how they’re supposed to act, or what they’re supposed to want or desire for themselves,” but “we should all take a step back and just listen first,” said Burnett.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to Burnett, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/53512/how-schools-can-help-teachers-understand-and-address-racial-bias\">culturally affirming training\u003c/a> for educators can go a long way toward helping teachers create spaces for belonging in a school setting. Educators can begin to recognize cultural practices and traditions in the classroom, going \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62778/how-to-build-a-black-history-childrens-book-collection-for-your-classroom\">beyond the limited scope of Black History Month\u003c/a> in February. She also said teachers should select resources that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63106/learning-from-student-language-instead-of-prohibiting-it\">reflect their students\u003c/a> and “where students can see themselves in the curriculum and not just be about slavery.” If there isn’t a collective school effort to explore the diversity of Black girlhood, “we’re giving our Black girls these mixed messages, and those messages may end up being louder” than ones that amplify belonging, said Burnett. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cb>Connecting with families to support belonging\u003c/b>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Harris-Thomas taught in K-12 classrooms, she often heard colleagues declare that “parents just don’t care about their children’s success.” This mindset, she said, hinders relationships between teachers and caregivers. “Parents really do want to be involved, really do want to see their children succeed,” said Harris-Thomas. If an educator is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60112/learning-from-students-families-as-a-step-toward-equity-in-literacy-instruction\">dedicated to getting parents involved\u003c/a>, it will allow for more creative approaches to family engagement, she continued. For example, she suggested capitalizing on school events like sports games that parents may already attend as an opportunity to engage with families. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to Burnett, a lot of the work towards belonging for Black girls happens at home with their caregivers, families and communities. Although not all parents can leave work to participate in daytime meetings or events, “that doesn’t mean that they’re less engaged in their child’s learning or feel less excited about the possibilities of what their child can do in the future,” Burnett said. Opening dialogue and asking families for feedback can get everyone working toward an answer to the same question: “How can we ensure that we’re really setting our children up to thrive?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/BrookeEdu\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Brooke Harris-Thomas\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> developed self-confidence and an interest in math at an early age, thanks to encouragement from her dad, who was a math teacher. Those early education experiences not only \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">shaped her as a young student\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> but later in life as a special education teacher in math support and a researcher. Harris-Thomas, who is a postdoctoral research fellow at Purdue University, studies Black girlhood, math and belonging. She said that interpersonal relationships are important in affirming who you are and that belonging is not only a psychological experience, but a physical one too. Harris-Thomas’s lasting question is: “How do we let students’ interest drive us?” when creating places of belonging in schools. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Belonging matters at all ages, and especially as students enter middle and high school – times when their changing brains are acutely influenced by \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62597/curlfriends-new-in-town-reminds-us-that-there-can-be-positives-of-middle-school\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">positive\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/61868/student-podcasters-share-the-dark-realities-of-middle-school-in-america\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">negative\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> emotions. \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59687/middle-schoolers-are-social-what-opportunity-does-that-create-for-learning\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Teens and tweens crave connection\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and school is one of their primary sites for social interaction. According to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/DrMBurnett\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Marketa Burnett\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a developmental psychologist at University of Connecticut, cultivating belonging in an educational environment “needs to be an entire school effort.” Burnett’s work explores how educators and communities can support Black girls’ development holistically.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Curriculum, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62163/are-dress-codes-fair-how-one-middle-school-transformed-its-rules-for-what-students-wear\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">school policies\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, classroom design, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/61775/how-important-was-your-favorite-teacher-to-your-success-researchers-have-done-the-math\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">interactions with teachers\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62409/how-bibliocounseling-can-create-space-for-black-girls-and-girls-of-color-to-connect-in-school\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">relationships with classmates\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> can all add to or subtract from belonging in schools. When Black girls \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63160/5-cognitive-biases-that-shape-classroom-interactions-and-how-to-overcome-them\">encounter bias\u003c/a> in any of those domains, it can reduce their sense of belonging and hurt their \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62841/7-strategies-to-ignite-active-learning-and-help-students-see-its-benefits\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">academic identities\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. That’s why both Harris-Thomas and Burnett emphasized the need to listen to Black girls when assessing how to create belonging in a school setting. According to Harris-Thomas, this honors intersectional identities. In her survey research, Black girls in middle and high school said that seeing friends at school, teachers \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62672/using-picture-books-and-classroom-dialogue-to-honor-and-respect-students-name\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">knowing their names\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and getting opportunities to help peers and contribute to their school were all things that positively influenced their sense of belonging.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Why belonging matters and what gets in the way\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to Harris-Thomas, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62189/school-shapes-teens-identities-and-relationships-what-role-do-teachers-play\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">building interpersonal relationships\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in the school environment is essential to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63086/when-family-tree-projects-frustrate-students-community-maps-are-an-inclusive-alternative\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">affirming students’ identities\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Harris-Thomas is careful not to make generalizations about what will create belonging for all students of a certain identity. “Every Black girl is different,” she said. But there are some commonalities in the experiences that diminish belonging. “If I’m having a negative interaction with my peers, my teachers are not treating me very well, I don’t have that sense of closeness, my sense of belonging likely decreases in that space as well,” Harris-Thomas said. Because belonging is a basic human need as well as a psychological experience, when belonging is absent, it can weigh heavily on students’ cognitive load. “And wrestling with that takes cognitive resources away from [their] academics,” said Harris-Thomas. “It’s a lot to ask.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to Harris-Thomas, when Black girls receive negative messages based on preconceived stereotypes, particularly in the field of math, it can decrease their sense of belonging. When surveying Black girls in grades six to 12 about their school experiences, Burnett found that “they’re aware of racism, they’re aware of sexism, they’re aware of the fact that these things happen because [they are] Black girls.” The girls pointed out experiences that they’d had as early as elementary school. “They talked about stereotypes that were specific to being Black, but also stereotypes specific to being a Black girl,” said Burnett. The girls reported that they heard these stereotypes from their peers, classmates and teachers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>What educators can do\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To begin thinking about how to cultivate belonging among students, Harris-Thomas said teachers can \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60096/why-teachers-must-examine-their-own-ideologies-to-create-identity-affirming-classrooms\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">take a hard look at the school environment and messaging\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. She said it’s important that teachers ask Black girls what belonging means to them. Being able to access help from a teacher or from peers can contribute to creating those safe spaces. Such support acts as “a stepping stone to feeling that sense of competence, which sometimes hinder students from feeling belonging or not,” she said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While the reasons students may not feel like they belong may differ, establishing a sense of belonging early and often is key, said Burnett. “It’s in our discipline policies. It’s in how we enforce \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62163/are-dress-codes-fair-how-one-middle-school-transformed-its-rules-for-what-students-wear\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">dress code\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. It’s in how we talk to students, how we think about \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63058/how-one-district-has-diversified-its-advanced-math-classes-without-the-controversy\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">recommending them for advanced courses\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">,” she said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many of the Black girls that Harris-Thomas worked with during her research \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/54986/how-black-girls-benefit-when-math-has-social-interaction-and-ways-to-learn-together\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">enjoyed group work and interactive work\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Especially when it comes to math, Harris-Thomas pointed out that small group work gives students the opportunity to re-explain concepts or ideas to their peers. This allows students to be supportive of their peers and ultimately enhances their sense of belonging. “It just becomes a more embodied experience,” Harris-Thomas said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Students also welcomed the opportunity to receive help from educators in a way that is flexible. If a student lacks a sense of belonging and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62119/how-extroverted-teachers-can-engage-introverted-students\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">doesn’t feel comfortable to raise their hand in a large group\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, they may benefit from their teacher offering support in smaller group settings or allowing students to stay back and ask individual questions for five minutes after a lesson.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Harris-Thomas said that it’s important to give adolescents \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59104/identity-mastery-belonging-and-efficacy-four-ways-student-agency-can-flourish\">time and space to develop their identities\u003c/a>, especially for Black girls, because “there’s a sense in which society wants to make them adults quicker.” If the perceived age of a student is inflated, an educator’s expectations can differ “and then may not be developmentally appropriate,” Harris-Thomas said. This can lead to harsher discipline for Black girls. “Allowing Black girls to be girls, to make mistakes,” and not misinterpreting their energy and joy contributes to their sense of belonging in a school environment, said Harris-Thomas. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Harris-Thomas also encourages educators to connect with their students by sharing appropriate information about their own lives. This can create a healthy sense of connection between students and educators and helps to let the student know that their teacher is interested in their lives.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Teachers can also encourage goal-oriented thinking by asking Black girls about their future education plans and underscoring the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/58492/how-do-you-cultivate-genius-in-all-students\">brilliance that already exists in this student population\u003c/a>, Burnett said. She hopes that “Black girls see themselves as beautiful and brilliant and worthy,” and that they don’t feel that there are qualifications they must meet for their intersecting identities. “A lot of times people tell [Black girls] how they’re supposed to feel or how they’re supposed to act, or what they’re supposed to want or desire for themselves,” but “we should all take a step back and just listen first,” said Burnett.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to Burnett, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/53512/how-schools-can-help-teachers-understand-and-address-racial-bias\">culturally affirming training\u003c/a> for educators can go a long way toward helping teachers create spaces for belonging in a school setting. Educators can begin to recognize cultural practices and traditions in the classroom, going \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62778/how-to-build-a-black-history-childrens-book-collection-for-your-classroom\">beyond the limited scope of Black History Month\u003c/a> in February. She also said teachers should select resources that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63106/learning-from-student-language-instead-of-prohibiting-it\">reflect their students\u003c/a> and “where students can see themselves in the curriculum and not just be about slavery.” If there isn’t a collective school effort to explore the diversity of Black girlhood, “we’re giving our Black girls these mixed messages, and those messages may end up being louder” than ones that amplify belonging, said Burnett. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cb>Connecting with families to support belonging\u003c/b>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Harris-Thomas taught in K-12 classrooms, she often heard colleagues declare that “parents just don’t care about their children’s success.” This mindset, she said, hinders relationships between teachers and caregivers. “Parents really do want to be involved, really do want to see their children succeed,” said Harris-Thomas. If an educator is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60112/learning-from-students-families-as-a-step-toward-equity-in-literacy-instruction\">dedicated to getting parents involved\u003c/a>, it will allow for more creative approaches to family engagement, she continued. For example, she suggested capitalizing on school events like sports games that parents may already attend as an opportunity to engage with families. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to Burnett, a lot of the work towards belonging for Black girls happens at home with their caregivers, families and communities. Although not all parents can leave work to participate in daytime meetings or events, “that doesn’t mean that they’re less engaged in their child’s learning or feel less excited about the possibilities of what their child can do in the future,” Burnett said. Opening dialogue and asking families for feedback can get everyone working toward an answer to the same question: “How can we ensure that we’re really setting our children up to thrive?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Teacher training programs don't always use research-backed reading methods",
"headTitle": "Teacher training programs don’t always use research-backed reading methods | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>A dozen college students are saying the word “pat” and jotting down notes about the sounds being made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“Puh – AH – tt” \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pay attention to the shapes your mouths make as you pronounce the word, instructs Robin Fuxa, their education professor at Oklahoma State University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She asks her students if they can \u003cem>feel\u003c/em> the way the words sound as they speak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Say it again and see if you feel it in your vocal cords,” Fuxa prompts her reading instruction class, held last October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fuxa is trying to get her students to pay attention to phonics, the reading method that links a sound to a letter. Extensive research has shown phonics is an effective way to teach kids to read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But teacher training programs like this one don’t always prepare educators to use researched-backed reading methods, like phonics. In \u003ca href=\"https://www.nctq.org/review/standard/Reading-Foundations\">a 2023 study\u003c/a>, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) surveyed nearly 700 teacher training programs across the country. Their findings:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Only about a quarter of the teachers who leave teacher preparation programs across our nation enter classrooms prepared to teach kids to read [in a way that’s] aligned to the science and research on reading,” says Heather Peske, president of NCTQ.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rest, she says, are investing money and time into learning methods like “three-cueing” and “balanced literacy,” which aren’t backed by research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thomas Dee, an education professor and researcher at Stanford University, says this disconnect between research and practice has been a long standing issue in education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Things for which there’s good evidence of efficacy don’t always make it into [the] everyday classroom practice of teachers,” Dee says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This comes at a time when reading proficiency among some school-aged children has been declining.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Assessment of Educational Progress, otherwise known as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ltt/?age=9\">Nation’s Report Card\u003c/a>, shows reading scores among 13-year-olds have dropped since 2012, with a sharper dip during and after the pandemic. While test scores for 9-year-olds have mostly held steady since 2012, they too suffered a decline during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>What makes the “science of reading” different\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Dee is a big proponent of the “science of reading,” which incorporates phonics, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency, among other techniques. There is growing evidence that the science of reading is a more effective way to teach students how to read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More effective than, say, “three-cueing,” which is when students rely on context and sentence structure to identify words they don’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Balanced literacy,” formerly known as “whole language,” is another commonly used method of reading instruction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea there was that kids sort of learn to read naturally and we just have to surround them with great literature,” says Ellen McIntyre, dean of the teachers college at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MyIntyre says balanced literacy had some great ideas about how to get students excited about reading, but she found the model was lacking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Really early on, the model didn’t include systematic, explicit teaching of phonics or any of the other foundational skills.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neither three-cueing nor balanced literacy are backed by research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 2023 study from NCTQ found 40% of surveyed schools are still teaching methods that “run counter to the research on effective reading instruction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>How teaching programs adopt “science of reading” methods\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>From 2019-2022, \u003ca href=\"https://www.shankerinstitute.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/ReadingReform%20ShankerInstitute%20FullReport%20072723.pdf\">46 states\u003c/a>, including D.C., have passed reading legislation, according to The Albert Shanker Institute, a nonprofit connected to one of the country’s largest teacher unions, the American Federation of Teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In North Carolina, for example, a 2021 law requires \u003cem>current \u003c/em>teachers to undergo training in the science of reading. To adapt, some colleges and universities with teacher training programs are amending their courses so they’re more in line with the latest research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And they have some guidance: In 2022, the UNC System – the network of public universities in North Carolina – hired an outside company to audit teacher colleges and their use of the science of reading model. The institutions were given an evaluation of “strong,” “good,” “needs improvement” or “inadequate.” Most teacher colleges were labeled as “needs improvement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gerrelyn Patterson, chair of educator preparation at North Carolina A&T State University, a historically Black college, says the school was already teaching science of reading concepts, and even though the audit delivered a “good” score, they made additional changes to their curriculum. This included changes to syllabi, course descriptions and a review of the materials used for assignments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patterson says she and faculty met for hours at a time to review the courses they were teaching. In the end, the committee revised some courses to be more in-depth when it comes to reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The students would say [the courses were] time intensive… they already felt like the literacy classes are very rigorous,” Patterson says. But students told her the revised literacy courses were aligning with other training they got, “so they could see that connection.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/edlite-minorityinst-list-pg11-tab.html__;!!Iwwt!XD7RUOz-CJCckh4n0eluwWGkMU_8TYLRghYXUzM9PWK6NE9JAqywUJX4P2aiRGHI0gmD0hYfkA-Jr7e7%24\">only four-year American Indian and Alaska Native-serving institution\u003c/a>, was not among the campuses that received a “strong” or “good” score from the audit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to the lower evaluation, the university added two additional classes to the curriculum, increasing the required reading courses for students from three to five.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2023, school administrators said that they were planning on hiring an endowed professor of literacy, with a focus on leadership, research and teaching in the science of reading. The person hired in the position will also have funding to conduct literacy research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, not all educators have been on board with the changes at Pembroke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s taken some time to kind of get the buy-in,” says Gretchen Robinson, an education professor there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Robinson, faculty met last spring for weekly feedback sessions. She said some were skeptical of the changes because they were being asked to teach in a way they weren’t used to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The university ended up losing two faculty members in 2023 as a result of the instruction shift.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Teachers pushback on legislating the classroom\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Some educators have been uncomfortable with state legislators making decisions around how reading is taught.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No collective group of legislators have the knowledge to do that,” said Jenifer Jasinski Schneider, a professor of literacy studies at the University of South Florida.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said USF is not changing their way of teaching reading because they’ve always incorporated principles like phonics and vocabulary into their lessons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She acknowledges that there are a lot of K-12 students who are not learning to read, but she thinks there are bigger issues that state legislators should address before taking a critical stance on reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have internet access issues…We have kids that have food insecurity,” Jasinski Schneider said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they want to legislate something, legislate that every kid gets to eat three meals a day, instead of banning a teaching method, right? If they really want to help… make sure schools are over-resourced not under-resourced.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Teacher+training+programs+don%27t+always+use+research-backed+reading+methods&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A dozen college students are saying the word “pat” and jotting down notes about the sounds being made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“Puh – AH – tt” \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pay attention to the shapes your mouths make as you pronounce the word, instructs Robin Fuxa, their education professor at Oklahoma State University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She asks her students if they can \u003cem>feel\u003c/em> the way the words sound as they speak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Say it again and see if you feel it in your vocal cords,” Fuxa prompts her reading instruction class, held last October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fuxa is trying to get her students to pay attention to phonics, the reading method that links a sound to a letter. Extensive research has shown phonics is an effective way to teach kids to read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But teacher training programs like this one don’t always prepare educators to use researched-backed reading methods, like phonics. In \u003ca href=\"https://www.nctq.org/review/standard/Reading-Foundations\">a 2023 study\u003c/a>, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) surveyed nearly 700 teacher training programs across the country. Their findings:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Only about a quarter of the teachers who leave teacher preparation programs across our nation enter classrooms prepared to teach kids to read [in a way that’s] aligned to the science and research on reading,” says Heather Peske, president of NCTQ.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rest, she says, are investing money and time into learning methods like “three-cueing” and “balanced literacy,” which aren’t backed by research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thomas Dee, an education professor and researcher at Stanford University, says this disconnect between research and practice has been a long standing issue in education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Things for which there’s good evidence of efficacy don’t always make it into [the] everyday classroom practice of teachers,” Dee says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This comes at a time when reading proficiency among some school-aged children has been declining.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Assessment of Educational Progress, otherwise known as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ltt/?age=9\">Nation’s Report Card\u003c/a>, shows reading scores among 13-year-olds have dropped since 2012, with a sharper dip during and after the pandemic. While test scores for 9-year-olds have mostly held steady since 2012, they too suffered a decline during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>What makes the “science of reading” different\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Dee is a big proponent of the “science of reading,” which incorporates phonics, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency, among other techniques. There is growing evidence that the science of reading is a more effective way to teach students how to read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More effective than, say, “three-cueing,” which is when students rely on context and sentence structure to identify words they don’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Balanced literacy,” formerly known as “whole language,” is another commonly used method of reading instruction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea there was that kids sort of learn to read naturally and we just have to surround them with great literature,” says Ellen McIntyre, dean of the teachers college at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MyIntyre says balanced literacy had some great ideas about how to get students excited about reading, but she found the model was lacking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Really early on, the model didn’t include systematic, explicit teaching of phonics or any of the other foundational skills.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neither three-cueing nor balanced literacy are backed by research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 2023 study from NCTQ found 40% of surveyed schools are still teaching methods that “run counter to the research on effective reading instruction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>How teaching programs adopt “science of reading” methods\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>From 2019-2022, \u003ca href=\"https://www.shankerinstitute.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/ReadingReform%20ShankerInstitute%20FullReport%20072723.pdf\">46 states\u003c/a>, including D.C., have passed reading legislation, according to The Albert Shanker Institute, a nonprofit connected to one of the country’s largest teacher unions, the American Federation of Teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In North Carolina, for example, a 2021 law requires \u003cem>current \u003c/em>teachers to undergo training in the science of reading. To adapt, some colleges and universities with teacher training programs are amending their courses so they’re more in line with the latest research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And they have some guidance: In 2022, the UNC System – the network of public universities in North Carolina – hired an outside company to audit teacher colleges and their use of the science of reading model. The institutions were given an evaluation of “strong,” “good,” “needs improvement” or “inadequate.” Most teacher colleges were labeled as “needs improvement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gerrelyn Patterson, chair of educator preparation at North Carolina A&T State University, a historically Black college, says the school was already teaching science of reading concepts, and even though the audit delivered a “good” score, they made additional changes to their curriculum. This included changes to syllabi, course descriptions and a review of the materials used for assignments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patterson says she and faculty met for hours at a time to review the courses they were teaching. In the end, the committee revised some courses to be more in-depth when it comes to reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The students would say [the courses were] time intensive… they already felt like the literacy classes are very rigorous,” Patterson says. But students told her the revised literacy courses were aligning with other training they got, “so they could see that connection.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/edlite-minorityinst-list-pg11-tab.html__;!!Iwwt!XD7RUOz-CJCckh4n0eluwWGkMU_8TYLRghYXUzM9PWK6NE9JAqywUJX4P2aiRGHI0gmD0hYfkA-Jr7e7%24\">only four-year American Indian and Alaska Native-serving institution\u003c/a>, was not among the campuses that received a “strong” or “good” score from the audit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to the lower evaluation, the university added two additional classes to the curriculum, increasing the required reading courses for students from three to five.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2023, school administrators said that they were planning on hiring an endowed professor of literacy, with a focus on leadership, research and teaching in the science of reading. The person hired in the position will also have funding to conduct literacy research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, not all educators have been on board with the changes at Pembroke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s taken some time to kind of get the buy-in,” says Gretchen Robinson, an education professor there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Robinson, faculty met last spring for weekly feedback sessions. She said some were skeptical of the changes because they were being asked to teach in a way they weren’t used to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The university ended up losing two faculty members in 2023 as a result of the instruction shift.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Teachers pushback on legislating the classroom\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Some educators have been uncomfortable with state legislators making decisions around how reading is taught.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No collective group of legislators have the knowledge to do that,” said Jenifer Jasinski Schneider, a professor of literacy studies at the University of South Florida.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said USF is not changing their way of teaching reading because they’ve always incorporated principles like phonics and vocabulary into their lessons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She acknowledges that there are a lot of K-12 students who are not learning to read, but she thinks there are bigger issues that state legislators should address before taking a critical stance on reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have internet access issues…We have kids that have food insecurity,” Jasinski Schneider said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they want to legislate something, legislate that every kid gets to eat three meals a day, instead of banning a teaching method, right? If they really want to help… make sure schools are over-resourced not under-resourced.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Teacher+training+programs+don%27t+always+use+research-backed+reading+methods&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chronic absenteeism has surged across the country since the pandemic, with more than \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.returntolearntracker.net/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">one out of four students\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> missing at least 18 days of school a year. That’s more than three lost weeks of instruction a year for more than 10 million school children. An even higher percentage of poor students, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.returntolearntracker.net/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">more than one out of three\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, are chronically absent. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nat Malkus, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, calls chronic absenteeism – not learning loss – “the greatest challenge for public schools.” At a \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/events/chronic-absenteeism-after-the-pandemic/?mkt_tok=NDc1LVBCUS05NzEAAAGRJFftD8ZW5N5b6961lEMZRYB14RTg-KMkKHSePjhGpg8Bhr4iYb8Rwhe-jrER9XKvNBJNr2o4cDMyvx-E_Rzlcmp1HrJtUNYEK6kXyrNpLxsC1w&mkt_tok=NDc1LVBCUS05NzEAAAGRJFftD8ZW5N5b6961lEMZRYB14RTg-KMkKHSePjhGpg8Bhr4iYb8Rwhe-jrER9XKvNBJNr2o4cDMyvx-E_Rzlcmp1HrJtUNYEK6kXyrNpLxsC1w\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Feb. 8, 2024 panel discussion\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Malkus said, “It’s the primary problem because until we do something about that, academic recovery from the pandemic, which is significant, is a pipe dream.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_63144\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 780px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-63144\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/image1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"780\" height=\"325\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/image1.png 780w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/image1-160x67.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/image1-768x320.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The number of students who have missed at least 18 days or 10% of the school year remained stubbornly high after schools reopened. More than one out of three students in high poverty schools were chronically absent in 2022.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One district in the Southeast tried to tackle its post-pandemic surge in absenteeism with a computer dashboard that tracks student data and highlights which students are in trouble or heading toward trouble. Called an early warning system, tracking student data this way has become common at schools around the country. (I’m not identifying the district because a researcher who studied its efforts to boost attendance agreed to keep it anonymous in exchange for sharing the outcomes with the public.) \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The district’s schools had re-opened in the fall of 2020 and were operating fully in person, but students could opt for remote learning upon request. Yet nearly half of the district’s students weren’t attending school regularly during the 2020-21 year, either in person or remotely. One out of six students had crossed the “chronically absent” threshold of 18 or more missed days. That doesn’t count quarantine days at home because the student contracted or was exposed to Covid. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The early warning system color coded each student for absences. Green designated an “on track” student who regularly came to school. Yellow highlighted an “at risk” student who had missed more than 4% of the school year. And red identified “off track” students who had not come to school 10% or more of the time. During the summer of 2021, school staff pored over the colored dots and came up with battle plans to help students return. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research studied what happened the following 2021-22 school year. The results, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/01623737231221503\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">published online in the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis on Feb. 5, 2024\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, were woefully disappointing: the attendance rates of low-income students didn’t improve at all. Low-income students with a track record of missing school continued to miss as much school the next year, despite efforts to help them return. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The only students to improve their attendance rates were higher income students, whose families earned too much to qualify for the free or reduced price lunch program. The attendance of more advantaged students who had been flagged red for “off track” (chronically absent) improved by 1 to 2 percentage points. That’s good, but four out of five of the red “off track” students came from low-income families. Only 20% of the pool of chronically absent students had been helped … a bit.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The selling point for early warning systems is that they can help identify students before they’re derailed, when it’s easier to get back into the routine of going to school. But, distressingly, neither rich nor poor students who had been flagged yellow for being “at risk” saw an improvement in attendance.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yusuf Canbolat, the Harvard fellow, explained to me that early warning systems only flag students. They don’t tell educators how to help students. Every child’s reason for not coming to school is unique. Some are bullied. Others have asthma and their parents are worried about their health. Still others have fallen so behind in their school work that they cannot follow what’s going on in the classroom. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Common approaches, such as calling parents and mailing letters, tend to be more effective with higher-income families, Canbolat explained to me. They are more likely to have the resources to follow through with counseling or tutoring, for example, and help their child return to school. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Low-income families, by contrast, often have larger problems that require assistance schools cannot provide. Many low-income children \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60125/3-things-we-get-wrong-in-responding-to-child-grief-and-how-to-do-better\">lost a parent or a guardian to COVID\u003c/a> and are \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/57511/why-helping-grieving-students-heal-matters-so-much\">still grieving\u003c/a>. Many families in poverty \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59903/when-students-basic-needs-are-met-by-community-schools-learning-can-flourish\">need housing, food, employment, healthcare, transportation or even help with laundry\u003c/a>. That often requires \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62694/schools-mission-shifted-during-the-pandemic-with-more-adding-health-care-shelter-and-adult-ed\">partnerships with community organizations and social service agencies\u003c/a>. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Canbolat said that school staff in this district tried to come up with solutions that were tailored to a child’s circumstances, but giving a family the name of a counseling center isn’t the same as making sure the family is getting the counseling it needs. And there were so many kids flagged for being at risk that the schools could not begin to address their needs at all. Instead, they focused on the most severe chronic absence cases, Canbolat said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, a nonprofit that is working with schools to improve attendance, said that a case management approach to absenteeism isn’t practical when so many students aren’t coming to school. Many schools, she said, might have only one or two social workers focusing on attendance and their caseloads quickly become overloaded. When nearly half of the students in a school have an attendance problem, system-wide approaches are needed, Chang said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One systematic approach, she said, is to stop taking an adversarial tone with families — threatening parents with fines or going to court, or students with suspensions for truancy violations. “That doesn’t work,” Chang said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She recommends that schools create more ways for students to build relationships with adults and classmates at school so that they look forward to being there. That can range from after-school programs and sports to advisory periods and paying high schoolers to mentor elementary school students. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The most important thing is kids need to know that when they walk into school, there’s someone who cares about them,” said Chang.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite the disappointing results of using an early warning system to combat absenteeism, both researchers and experts say the dashboards should not be jettisoned. Chang explained that they still help schools understand the size and the scope of their attendance problem, see patterns and learn if their solutions are working. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was shocked to read in a recent School Pulse Panel survey conducted by the Department of Education in November 2023 that only \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/press_releases/1_18_2024.asp\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">15%\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> of school leaders said they were “extremely concerned” about student absences. In high-poverty neighborhoods, there was more concern, but still only 26%. Given that the number of students who are chronically absent from schools has almost doubled to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.returntolearntracker.net/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">28% from around 15%\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> before the pandemic, everyone should be very concerned. If we don’t find a solution soon, millions of children will be unable to get the education they need to live a productive life. And we will all pay the price.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This story about \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-tracking-student-data-falls-short-in-combating-absenteeism-at-school/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">school early warning systems\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Proof Points newsletter\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chronic absenteeism has surged across the country since the pandemic, with more than \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.returntolearntracker.net/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">one out of four students\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> missing at least 18 days of school a year. That’s more than three lost weeks of instruction a year for more than 10 million school children. An even higher percentage of poor students, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.returntolearntracker.net/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">more than one out of three\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, are chronically absent. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nat Malkus, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, calls chronic absenteeism – not learning loss – “the greatest challenge for public schools.” At a \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/events/chronic-absenteeism-after-the-pandemic/?mkt_tok=NDc1LVBCUS05NzEAAAGRJFftD8ZW5N5b6961lEMZRYB14RTg-KMkKHSePjhGpg8Bhr4iYb8Rwhe-jrER9XKvNBJNr2o4cDMyvx-E_Rzlcmp1HrJtUNYEK6kXyrNpLxsC1w&mkt_tok=NDc1LVBCUS05NzEAAAGRJFftD8ZW5N5b6961lEMZRYB14RTg-KMkKHSePjhGpg8Bhr4iYb8Rwhe-jrER9XKvNBJNr2o4cDMyvx-E_Rzlcmp1HrJtUNYEK6kXyrNpLxsC1w\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Feb. 8, 2024 panel discussion\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Malkus said, “It’s the primary problem because until we do something about that, academic recovery from the pandemic, which is significant, is a pipe dream.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_63144\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 780px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-63144\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/image1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"780\" height=\"325\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/image1.png 780w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/image1-160x67.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/image1-768x320.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The number of students who have missed at least 18 days or 10% of the school year remained stubbornly high after schools reopened. More than one out of three students in high poverty schools were chronically absent in 2022.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One district in the Southeast tried to tackle its post-pandemic surge in absenteeism with a computer dashboard that tracks student data and highlights which students are in trouble or heading toward trouble. Called an early warning system, tracking student data this way has become common at schools around the country. (I’m not identifying the district because a researcher who studied its efforts to boost attendance agreed to keep it anonymous in exchange for sharing the outcomes with the public.) \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The district’s schools had re-opened in the fall of 2020 and were operating fully in person, but students could opt for remote learning upon request. Yet nearly half of the district’s students weren’t attending school regularly during the 2020-21 year, either in person or remotely. One out of six students had crossed the “chronically absent” threshold of 18 or more missed days. That doesn’t count quarantine days at home because the student contracted or was exposed to Covid. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The early warning system color coded each student for absences. Green designated an “on track” student who regularly came to school. Yellow highlighted an “at risk” student who had missed more than 4% of the school year. And red identified “off track” students who had not come to school 10% or more of the time. During the summer of 2021, school staff pored over the colored dots and came up with battle plans to help students return. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research studied what happened the following 2021-22 school year. The results, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/01623737231221503\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">published online in the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis on Feb. 5, 2024\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, were woefully disappointing: the attendance rates of low-income students didn’t improve at all. Low-income students with a track record of missing school continued to miss as much school the next year, despite efforts to help them return. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The only students to improve their attendance rates were higher income students, whose families earned too much to qualify for the free or reduced price lunch program. The attendance of more advantaged students who had been flagged red for “off track” (chronically absent) improved by 1 to 2 percentage points. That’s good, but four out of five of the red “off track” students came from low-income families. Only 20% of the pool of chronically absent students had been helped … a bit.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The selling point for early warning systems is that they can help identify students before they’re derailed, when it’s easier to get back into the routine of going to school. But, distressingly, neither rich nor poor students who had been flagged yellow for being “at risk” saw an improvement in attendance.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yusuf Canbolat, the Harvard fellow, explained to me that early warning systems only flag students. They don’t tell educators how to help students. Every child’s reason for not coming to school is unique. Some are bullied. Others have asthma and their parents are worried about their health. Still others have fallen so behind in their school work that they cannot follow what’s going on in the classroom. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Common approaches, such as calling parents and mailing letters, tend to be more effective with higher-income families, Canbolat explained to me. They are more likely to have the resources to follow through with counseling or tutoring, for example, and help their child return to school. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Low-income families, by contrast, often have larger problems that require assistance schools cannot provide. Many low-income children \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/60125/3-things-we-get-wrong-in-responding-to-child-grief-and-how-to-do-better\">lost a parent or a guardian to COVID\u003c/a> and are \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/57511/why-helping-grieving-students-heal-matters-so-much\">still grieving\u003c/a>. Many families in poverty \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59903/when-students-basic-needs-are-met-by-community-schools-learning-can-flourish\">need housing, food, employment, healthcare, transportation or even help with laundry\u003c/a>. That often requires \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62694/schools-mission-shifted-during-the-pandemic-with-more-adding-health-care-shelter-and-adult-ed\">partnerships with community organizations and social service agencies\u003c/a>. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Canbolat said that school staff in this district tried to come up with solutions that were tailored to a child’s circumstances, but giving a family the name of a counseling center isn’t the same as making sure the family is getting the counseling it needs. And there were so many kids flagged for being at risk that the schools could not begin to address their needs at all. Instead, they focused on the most severe chronic absence cases, Canbolat said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, a nonprofit that is working with schools to improve attendance, said that a case management approach to absenteeism isn’t practical when so many students aren’t coming to school. Many schools, she said, might have only one or two social workers focusing on attendance and their caseloads quickly become overloaded. When nearly half of the students in a school have an attendance problem, system-wide approaches are needed, Chang said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One systematic approach, she said, is to stop taking an adversarial tone with families — threatening parents with fines or going to court, or students with suspensions for truancy violations. “That doesn’t work,” Chang said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She recommends that schools create more ways for students to build relationships with adults and classmates at school so that they look forward to being there. That can range from after-school programs and sports to advisory periods and paying high schoolers to mentor elementary school students. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The most important thing is kids need to know that when they walk into school, there’s someone who cares about them,” said Chang.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite the disappointing results of using an early warning system to combat absenteeism, both researchers and experts say the dashboards should not be jettisoned. Chang explained that they still help schools understand the size and the scope of their attendance problem, see patterns and learn if their solutions are working. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was shocked to read in a recent School Pulse Panel survey conducted by the Department of Education in November 2023 that only \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/press_releases/1_18_2024.asp\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">15%\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> of school leaders said they were “extremely concerned” about student absences. In high-poverty neighborhoods, there was more concern, but still only 26%. Given that the number of students who are chronically absent from schools has almost doubled to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.returntolearntracker.net/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">28% from around 15%\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> before the pandemic, everyone should be very concerned. If we don’t find a solution soon, millions of children will be unable to get the education they need to live a productive life. And we will all pay the price.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This story about \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-tracking-student-data-falls-short-in-combating-absenteeism-at-school/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">school early warning systems\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Proof Points newsletter\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "how-one-district-has-diversified-its-advanced-math-classes-without-the-controversy",
"title": "How One District Diversified Its Advanced Math Classes — Without the Controversy",
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"headTitle": "How One District Diversified Its Advanced Math Classes — Without the Controversy | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This story about math equity was produced by \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=66c306eebb323868c3ce353c1&id=d3ee4c3e04\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hechinger newsletter\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TULSA, Okla. — Amoni and Zoe scattered the contents of a sandwich bag full of fruit-flavored candy across their desks as part of a math lesson on ratios.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“What does it mean to have 50%?” their teacher, Kelly Woodfin, asked the sixth graders in her advanced math class. “What does it mean to have half?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Amoni and Zoe, both 11, ate just one piece of candy each, as they converted the share of green apples or pink strawberries from their bag into fractions, decimals and percents. When they got stumped on a strategy for turning a decimal into a percentage, the pair’s arms shot in the air.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I think, you go two steps over, and to the left,” Amoni said, her voice trailing into a question.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“You’ve been doing this for two weeks, sister,” Woodfin playfully chided her. “I don’t know why you’re doubting yourself.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Years ago, when Woodfin attended \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.unionps.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Union Public Schools\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> from kindergarten through eighth grade, she sat in fairly homogenous classrooms. Woodfin recalled her peers as predominantly white, a legacy of families moving to the suburbs as \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED145054\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tulsa schools\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> desegregated during the 1950s. But when she returned to teach at Union in 2012, the white student population had shrunk to a little more than half of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/scschoolfiles/1967/annual_report_12-13.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">total enrollment\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Until recently, however, students in Union’s advanced math classes remained mostly white. The accelerated track in middle and high school drew mostly from elementary schools in affluent neighborhoods, where students tended to perform better on a pre-algebra placement test that they had one chance to take as fifth graders. But on a recent winter day, only two of Woodfin’s students identified as white and more than a third were still learning English.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_63071\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-63071\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity01-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity01-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity01-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity01-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity01-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity01-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity01-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity01-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kelly Woodfin, once a student at Union Public Schools in Tulsa, Okla., teaches advanced math to a class of sixth graders. \u003ccite>(Shane Bevel for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The transformation of Woodfin’s class rosters represent more than a general shift in \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://oklaschools.com/district/72I009/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">who attends Union schools\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, where today only one in four students is white. It’s also the result of a years-long campaign to identify and promote more students from underrepresented backgrounds into the district’s most challenging math courses.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Elsewhere, concerns about who gets access to advanced math have led districts to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/articles/does-detracking-promote-educational-equity/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">end the tracking\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> of students into different math classes by perceived ability or to remove accelerated classes altogether in the name of equity. Union, by contrast, has attempted to find a middle ground. The district, which overlaps part of Tulsa and its southeast suburbs, continues to track students into separate math classes beginning in sixth grade. But it has also added new ways beyond the one-time placement test for students to qualify for higher level math courses, and increased support — including in-school tutoring and longer class periods — for students who’ve shown promise in the subject.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Enrollment data suggest the effort to make higher-level math accessible to more students had started to yield results before the pandemic. But there have been challenges: In the last few years, fewer students overall have enrolled in advanced math classes, although the declines for Black and Hispanic students have been less steep than for other groups. Anti-teacher sentiment, on top of Oklahoma’s \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/education/addressing-the-teacher-shortage-oklahoma-to-offer-bonuses-up-to-50-000/article_1e6ee1a2-e39e-11ed-85c5-efc1e0044b5c.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">low teacher salaries\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, have made it difficult to hire math educators, administrators here say. At Union High School, an Algebra 2 position remained vacant for more than a year.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the district remains committed to its changes. Recently, principals and veteran math educators have persuaded some former students to join Union’s teaching ranks. Shannan Bittle, a secondary math specialist for Union, said new academic programs — like \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fox23.com/news/local/union-public-schools-starts-new-year-launches-aeronautics-program/article_9b39dde6-3c62-11ee-b26c-23ea4f636a91.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">aviation\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1216770762027851\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">construction\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — could offer students more ways to apply higher levels of math in lucrative jobs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We try really, really hard not to keep people out” of accelerated math, she said. “But we do our best to give them the tools to succeed.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_63061\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-63061\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity11-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity11-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity11-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity11-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity11-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity11-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity11-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity11-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel, right, helps Josue with an exercise on graphing coordinates during Kelly Woodfin’s sixth-grade math class. \u003ccite>(Shane Bevel for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taking algebra or higher in middle school places a student on the path to calculus in high school, which opens the door to selective colleges and is considered a gateway course for many high-paying STEM careers. \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://civilrightsdata.ed.gov/profile/us?surveyYear=2020\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Federal education data\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> shows white students enroll in high school calculus at nearly eight times the rate of their Black peers and about triple the average for Hispanic students.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There are many Black and Latino students and students from low-income backgrounds who have demonstrated an aptitude and are yearning for more — yet they are systemically denied access to advanced math courses,” wrote the authors of a December 2023 \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Advanced-Math-V9.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">report\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> from nonprofits Education Trust and Just Equations. “This practice — and mindset — must change.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Still, approaches school districts have taken to increase diversity in math have inspired controversy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In San Francisco, the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/education/the-lawsuit-that-could-change-california-math-education/article_a5b5e9c8-af1c-11ed-9b0f-07c7d381b5f1.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">school district\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> eliminated accelerated math at middle and high schools in 2014 to end the segregating of classrooms by ability, prompting parental outcry. Three years later, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.boston.com/news/the-boston-globe/2023/07/18/cambridge-schools-are-divided-over-middle-school-algebra/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cambridge Public Schools\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in Massachusetts began dismantling its policy of tracking students into either accelerated or grade-level math. Near Detroit, the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theoaklandpress.com/2023/05/17/troy-board-votes-to-eliminate-middle-school-honors-classes/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Troy school board\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> voted to remove advanced math for middle schools beginning later this year.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_63068\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-63068\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity03-1020x1530.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity03-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity03-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity03-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity03-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity03-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity03-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity03-1920x2880.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity03-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">1/24/24 10:19:25 AM — A student works at her desk during Kelly Woodfin’s 6th grade math class at the Union Schools 6th and 7th Grade Center in Tulsa, Okla.\u003cbr>Photo by Shane Bevel \u003ccite>(Shane Bevel for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Similarly, the California state board of education last year adopted new curriculum guidelines that, among other ideas, encourage schools to delay algebra until ninth grade. The \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr23/yr23rel54.asp\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">board insisted\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the framework “affirms California’s commitment to ensuring equity and excellence in math learning for all students.” But critics — including \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/california-adopts-controversial-new-math-framework-heres-whats-in-it/2023/07\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">math and science professors\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — have suggested it does the opposite, by denying students the academic preparation they need to succeed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I see the value, in theory,” Rebecka Peterson, a Union High math teacher and 2023 \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://ntoy.ccsso.org/rebecka-peterson-2023-national-teacher-of-the-year/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">National Teacher of the Year\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, said of efforts like California’s. But, she added, “Kids are so unique, and one size fits all — as a mom, it’s not what I want for my son.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Peterson started working for Union schools about 12 years ago, teaching math classes ranging from intermediate algebra to advanced placement calculus. Early on, Peterson noticed the demographic split in her classes: “We’re a very culturally rich district, and yet, my calculus classes were mostly white,” she said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She decided to talk with her principal at the time, Lisa Witcher. The pair discovered that, although Union High enrolled students from all 13 elementary campuses, Peterson’s calculus students primarily started at just three — the whitest and wealthiest of Union’s elementaries.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shortly after, district administration tapped Witcher to spearhead a new \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://uhs.unionps.org/college-career/edge\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">early college program\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. She began recruiting students who had completed geometry as freshmen, but found only a tenth of Black freshmen in Union were eligible to enroll in that class. They hadn’t taken the prerequisite, Algebra 1, in eighth grade.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“That sparked some uncomfortable conversations,” said Witcher, who retired from the district in 2021.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ultimately, administrators traced the cause of the narrow pipeline into advanced middle and high school math to the fifth grade. That’s when schools administered a heavily word-based exam, which students had one chance to pass. District officials said the high-stakes exam disadvantaged two growing populations in Union schools: kids who were still learning English, and children from low-income families, whose parents couldn’t afford private tutors.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This discovery prompted a series of changes, beginning about a decade ago. The school district did not eliminate the fifth-grade exam as an entryway into advanced math, but students can now attempt the test multiple times. Elementary schools offer math tutors starting in the third grade, with after-school programs for students struggling in the subject. Teachers can refer promising students for sixth grade advanced math, regardless of how they did on the placement exam. A central administrator also reviews student grades and growth on proficiency exams to automatically enroll students into an accelerated class. (Parents are sent a letter notifying them of the automatic enrollment, at which point they can choose to opt out.) \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We hunt them down from every corner of the school district,” said Todd Nelson, a former math teacher who now oversees data, research and testing for the district.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since 2016, the diversity of students enrolled in the district’s advanced math courses has increased. Hispanic students now make up 29% of enrollment, up from 18%; Black and multiracial students each represent 10% of enrollment, up from about 8% in 2016.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_63064\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-63064\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity07-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity07-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity07-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity07-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity07-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity07-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity07-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity07-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sixth grader Jonathan works a problem on the smart board during Kelly Woodfin’s advanced math class. \u003ccite>(Shane Bevel for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">More recently, however, participation in higher-level math has dipped in Union schools, across all student subgroups. District data show the trend, especially in high school, started before the pandemic. But administrators say the disruption of school lockdowns contributed to a lingering aversion to signing up for challenging courses. Still, the share of Black, Hispanic and multiracial students enrolling in Union’s advanced math classes has fallen at much lower rates than those of Asian and white students.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We see this as the long-term process of the work that we’re doing, as opposed to fixing the problem in one year,” Nelson added.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Woodfin’s sixth grade class, 11-year-old Vianca wasn’t sure how she got into advanced math. She remembered taking a “super hard” test as a fifth grader and registered for regular math in middle school.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I guess I was just placed in here,” she said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vianca said the subject has been a struggle this year. But a recent shift in sixth grade schedules to add more time for math means she has 90 minutes — instead of just 45 — with Woodfin each day.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“She always slows down” when it feels like too much, Vianca said of her teacher. “I can ask for help.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_63063\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-63063\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity08-800x492.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"492\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity08-800x492.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity08-1020x627.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity08-160x98.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity08-768x472.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity08-1536x945.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity08-2048x1260.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity08-1920x1181.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sixth grade teacher Kelly Woodfin uses sports metaphors to help her students during an advanced math at Union Public Schools in Tulsa, Okla. \u003ccite>(Shane Bevel for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Doubling the amount of math that both sixth graders take in Union has come with a cost. Some parents bristled at the reduction of extracurriculars, like art or music. The change required doubling the number of secondary math teachers, and principals already had a hard time recruiting teachers for those subjects. (Last school year, the turnover rate for Oklahoma teachers reached 24%, the highest rate in a decade, according to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://sde.ok.gov/comprehensive-teacher-pay-reform\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">state data\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.)\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The lack of teacher diversity also complicates the district’s overall mission of increasing diversity in advanced math, Bittle acknowledged. Only two out of about 90 middle and high school math teachers identify as Black, and efforts to recruit at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.langston.edu/education-behavioral-sciences\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Langston University\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the state’s only historically Black university, have yet to prove successful. Bittle added that Oklahoma’s low pay for teachers doesn’t help: Schools in neighboring states tend to offer much more than the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://oklahoma.gov/content/dam/ok/en/careertech/educators/agricultural-education/program-funding/Salary%20Schedule%20for%202023-2024.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">roughly $40,000\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> starting salary for teachers in the Sooner State.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Research on the detracking debate presents a complicated picture. About the same time that the district made its changes, one international study suggested steering bright students into accelerated classes could \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/schools-exacerbate-the-growing-achievement-gap-between-rich-and-poor-a-33-country-study-finds/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">exacerbate the rich-poor divide\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in schools. Another paper, published by the Brookings Institution in 2016, found that Black and Hispanic students \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/finding-benefits-tracking/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">scored better on Advanced Placement exams\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in states that tracked more eighth graders into different ability levels in math.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“This will remain murky,” said Kristen Hengtgen, a senior analyst with the Education Trust. “Detracking seems to have good intentions, but we just haven’t seen it work conclusively yet.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_63069\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-63069\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity02-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity02-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity02-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity02-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity02-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity02-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity02-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity02-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sixth grader Jayda works at her desk in an advanced math class in Union Public Schools. The Tulsa-area school district has tried to increase the diversity of students on its accelerated math track. \u003ccite>(Shane Bevel for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Union remains committed to its efforts, though. And in a pin-drop quiet calculus class, where only the hum of the HVAC system disrupted the scratching of pencils, students remained committed to their own hard work.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lizeth Rosas sat in the back row. Wearing bright blue smocks for a nursing program she had later in the day, the 18-year-old scribbled notes on how to find the average value of friction with a given interval.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Any questions?” her teacher invited. “Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Only eight of the 22 students in the class identified as white. Rosas first got into an advanced math as a seventh grader, she said. Last year, to her surprise, a teacher recommended she take the Advanced Placement course.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“In the beginning, I questioned myself — a lot,” she said. “I didn’t know if I was ready. It’s kind of a lot to process, and we move so fast.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rosas plans to work as a licensed practical nurse after graduation, and expects conversions of medications and IV fluids will require math. Her father, who runs his own remodeling company, can’t help with her calculus work, she said. But, her nursing program, part of a \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://tulsatech.edu/about-the-district/locations/high-school-extension-programs/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">high school extension program\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at the nearby Tulsa Technology Center, offers academic tutoring.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I don’t really need it,” Rosas said. “The teachers here are really helpful. They just kind of help me. They remind me I can do it.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This story about \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/how-one-district-has-diversified-its-advanced-math-classes-without-the-controversy/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">math equity\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was produced by \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.us2.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=66c306eebb323868c3ce353c1&id=d3ee4c3e04\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hechinger newsletter\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Fights over ‘detracking’ math classes have roiled other districts. But Union Public Schools, in Oklahoma, took a middle ground, adding tutoring and non-test-based ways for students to qualify for advanced math.",
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"title": "How One District Diversified Its Advanced Math Classes — Without the Controversy | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This story about math equity was produced by \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=66c306eebb323868c3ce353c1&id=d3ee4c3e04\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hechinger newsletter\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TULSA, Okla. — Amoni and Zoe scattered the contents of a sandwich bag full of fruit-flavored candy across their desks as part of a math lesson on ratios.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“What does it mean to have 50%?” their teacher, Kelly Woodfin, asked the sixth graders in her advanced math class. “What does it mean to have half?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Amoni and Zoe, both 11, ate just one piece of candy each, as they converted the share of green apples or pink strawberries from their bag into fractions, decimals and percents. When they got stumped on a strategy for turning a decimal into a percentage, the pair’s arms shot in the air.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I think, you go two steps over, and to the left,” Amoni said, her voice trailing into a question.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“You’ve been doing this for two weeks, sister,” Woodfin playfully chided her. “I don’t know why you’re doubting yourself.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Years ago, when Woodfin attended \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.unionps.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Union Public Schools\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> from kindergarten through eighth grade, she sat in fairly homogenous classrooms. Woodfin recalled her peers as predominantly white, a legacy of families moving to the suburbs as \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED145054\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tulsa schools\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> desegregated during the 1950s. But when she returned to teach at Union in 2012, the white student population had shrunk to a little more than half of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/scschoolfiles/1967/annual_report_12-13.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">total enrollment\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Until recently, however, students in Union’s advanced math classes remained mostly white. The accelerated track in middle and high school drew mostly from elementary schools in affluent neighborhoods, where students tended to perform better on a pre-algebra placement test that they had one chance to take as fifth graders. But on a recent winter day, only two of Woodfin’s students identified as white and more than a third were still learning English.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_63071\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-63071\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity01-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity01-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity01-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity01-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity01-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity01-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity01-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity01-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kelly Woodfin, once a student at Union Public Schools in Tulsa, Okla., teaches advanced math to a class of sixth graders. \u003ccite>(Shane Bevel for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The transformation of Woodfin’s class rosters represent more than a general shift in \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://oklaschools.com/district/72I009/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">who attends Union schools\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, where today only one in four students is white. It’s also the result of a years-long campaign to identify and promote more students from underrepresented backgrounds into the district’s most challenging math courses.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Elsewhere, concerns about who gets access to advanced math have led districts to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/articles/does-detracking-promote-educational-equity/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">end the tracking\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> of students into different math classes by perceived ability or to remove accelerated classes altogether in the name of equity. Union, by contrast, has attempted to find a middle ground. The district, which overlaps part of Tulsa and its southeast suburbs, continues to track students into separate math classes beginning in sixth grade. But it has also added new ways beyond the one-time placement test for students to qualify for higher level math courses, and increased support — including in-school tutoring and longer class periods — for students who’ve shown promise in the subject.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Enrollment data suggest the effort to make higher-level math accessible to more students had started to yield results before the pandemic. But there have been challenges: In the last few years, fewer students overall have enrolled in advanced math classes, although the declines for Black and Hispanic students have been less steep than for other groups. Anti-teacher sentiment, on top of Oklahoma’s \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/education/addressing-the-teacher-shortage-oklahoma-to-offer-bonuses-up-to-50-000/article_1e6ee1a2-e39e-11ed-85c5-efc1e0044b5c.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">low teacher salaries\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, have made it difficult to hire math educators, administrators here say. At Union High School, an Algebra 2 position remained vacant for more than a year.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the district remains committed to its changes. Recently, principals and veteran math educators have persuaded some former students to join Union’s teaching ranks. Shannan Bittle, a secondary math specialist for Union, said new academic programs — like \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fox23.com/news/local/union-public-schools-starts-new-year-launches-aeronautics-program/article_9b39dde6-3c62-11ee-b26c-23ea4f636a91.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">aviation\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1216770762027851\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">construction\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — could offer students more ways to apply higher levels of math in lucrative jobs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We try really, really hard not to keep people out” of accelerated math, she said. “But we do our best to give them the tools to succeed.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_63061\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-63061\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity11-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity11-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity11-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity11-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity11-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity11-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity11-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity11-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Miguel, right, helps Josue with an exercise on graphing coordinates during Kelly Woodfin’s sixth-grade math class. \u003ccite>(Shane Bevel for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taking algebra or higher in middle school places a student on the path to calculus in high school, which opens the door to selective colleges and is considered a gateway course for many high-paying STEM careers. \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://civilrightsdata.ed.gov/profile/us?surveyYear=2020\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Federal education data\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> shows white students enroll in high school calculus at nearly eight times the rate of their Black peers and about triple the average for Hispanic students.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There are many Black and Latino students and students from low-income backgrounds who have demonstrated an aptitude and are yearning for more — yet they are systemically denied access to advanced math courses,” wrote the authors of a December 2023 \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Advanced-Math-V9.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">report\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> from nonprofits Education Trust and Just Equations. “This practice — and mindset — must change.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Still, approaches school districts have taken to increase diversity in math have inspired controversy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In San Francisco, the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/education/the-lawsuit-that-could-change-california-math-education/article_a5b5e9c8-af1c-11ed-9b0f-07c7d381b5f1.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">school district\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> eliminated accelerated math at middle and high schools in 2014 to end the segregating of classrooms by ability, prompting parental outcry. Three years later, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.boston.com/news/the-boston-globe/2023/07/18/cambridge-schools-are-divided-over-middle-school-algebra/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cambridge Public Schools\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in Massachusetts began dismantling its policy of tracking students into either accelerated or grade-level math. Near Detroit, the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theoaklandpress.com/2023/05/17/troy-board-votes-to-eliminate-middle-school-honors-classes/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Troy school board\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> voted to remove advanced math for middle schools beginning later this year.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_63068\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-63068\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity03-1020x1530.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity03-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity03-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity03-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity03-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity03-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity03-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity03-1920x2880.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity03-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">1/24/24 10:19:25 AM — A student works at her desk during Kelly Woodfin’s 6th grade math class at the Union Schools 6th and 7th Grade Center in Tulsa, Okla.\u003cbr>Photo by Shane Bevel \u003ccite>(Shane Bevel for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Similarly, the California state board of education last year adopted new curriculum guidelines that, among other ideas, encourage schools to delay algebra until ninth grade. The \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr23/yr23rel54.asp\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">board insisted\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the framework “affirms California’s commitment to ensuring equity and excellence in math learning for all students.” But critics — including \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/california-adopts-controversial-new-math-framework-heres-whats-in-it/2023/07\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">math and science professors\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — have suggested it does the opposite, by denying students the academic preparation they need to succeed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I see the value, in theory,” Rebecka Peterson, a Union High math teacher and 2023 \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://ntoy.ccsso.org/rebecka-peterson-2023-national-teacher-of-the-year/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">National Teacher of the Year\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, said of efforts like California’s. But, she added, “Kids are so unique, and one size fits all — as a mom, it’s not what I want for my son.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Peterson started working for Union schools about 12 years ago, teaching math classes ranging from intermediate algebra to advanced placement calculus. Early on, Peterson noticed the demographic split in her classes: “We’re a very culturally rich district, and yet, my calculus classes were mostly white,” she said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She decided to talk with her principal at the time, Lisa Witcher. The pair discovered that, although Union High enrolled students from all 13 elementary campuses, Peterson’s calculus students primarily started at just three — the whitest and wealthiest of Union’s elementaries.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shortly after, district administration tapped Witcher to spearhead a new \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://uhs.unionps.org/college-career/edge\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">early college program\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. She began recruiting students who had completed geometry as freshmen, but found only a tenth of Black freshmen in Union were eligible to enroll in that class. They hadn’t taken the prerequisite, Algebra 1, in eighth grade.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“That sparked some uncomfortable conversations,” said Witcher, who retired from the district in 2021.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ultimately, administrators traced the cause of the narrow pipeline into advanced middle and high school math to the fifth grade. That’s when schools administered a heavily word-based exam, which students had one chance to pass. District officials said the high-stakes exam disadvantaged two growing populations in Union schools: kids who were still learning English, and children from low-income families, whose parents couldn’t afford private tutors.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This discovery prompted a series of changes, beginning about a decade ago. The school district did not eliminate the fifth-grade exam as an entryway into advanced math, but students can now attempt the test multiple times. Elementary schools offer math tutors starting in the third grade, with after-school programs for students struggling in the subject. Teachers can refer promising students for sixth grade advanced math, regardless of how they did on the placement exam. A central administrator also reviews student grades and growth on proficiency exams to automatically enroll students into an accelerated class. (Parents are sent a letter notifying them of the automatic enrollment, at which point they can choose to opt out.) \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We hunt them down from every corner of the school district,” said Todd Nelson, a former math teacher who now oversees data, research and testing for the district.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since 2016, the diversity of students enrolled in the district’s advanced math courses has increased. Hispanic students now make up 29% of enrollment, up from 18%; Black and multiracial students each represent 10% of enrollment, up from about 8% in 2016.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_63064\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-63064\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity07-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity07-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity07-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity07-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity07-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity07-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity07-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity07-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sixth grader Jonathan works a problem on the smart board during Kelly Woodfin’s advanced math class. \u003ccite>(Shane Bevel for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">More recently, however, participation in higher-level math has dipped in Union schools, across all student subgroups. District data show the trend, especially in high school, started before the pandemic. But administrators say the disruption of school lockdowns contributed to a lingering aversion to signing up for challenging courses. Still, the share of Black, Hispanic and multiracial students enrolling in Union’s advanced math classes has fallen at much lower rates than those of Asian and white students.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We see this as the long-term process of the work that we’re doing, as opposed to fixing the problem in one year,” Nelson added.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Woodfin’s sixth grade class, 11-year-old Vianca wasn’t sure how she got into advanced math. She remembered taking a “super hard” test as a fifth grader and registered for regular math in middle school.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I guess I was just placed in here,” she said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vianca said the subject has been a struggle this year. But a recent shift in sixth grade schedules to add more time for math means she has 90 minutes — instead of just 45 — with Woodfin each day.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“She always slows down” when it feels like too much, Vianca said of her teacher. “I can ask for help.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_63063\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-63063\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity08-800x492.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"492\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity08-800x492.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity08-1020x627.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity08-160x98.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity08-768x472.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity08-1536x945.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity08-2048x1260.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity08-1920x1181.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sixth grade teacher Kelly Woodfin uses sports metaphors to help her students during an advanced math at Union Public Schools in Tulsa, Okla. \u003ccite>(Shane Bevel for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Doubling the amount of math that both sixth graders take in Union has come with a cost. Some parents bristled at the reduction of extracurriculars, like art or music. The change required doubling the number of secondary math teachers, and principals already had a hard time recruiting teachers for those subjects. (Last school year, the turnover rate for Oklahoma teachers reached 24%, the highest rate in a decade, according to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://sde.ok.gov/comprehensive-teacher-pay-reform\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">state data\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.)\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The lack of teacher diversity also complicates the district’s overall mission of increasing diversity in advanced math, Bittle acknowledged. Only two out of about 90 middle and high school math teachers identify as Black, and efforts to recruit at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.langston.edu/education-behavioral-sciences\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Langston University\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the state’s only historically Black university, have yet to prove successful. Bittle added that Oklahoma’s low pay for teachers doesn’t help: Schools in neighboring states tend to offer much more than the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://oklahoma.gov/content/dam/ok/en/careertech/educators/agricultural-education/program-funding/Salary%20Schedule%20for%202023-2024.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">roughly $40,000\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> starting salary for teachers in the Sooner State.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Research on the detracking debate presents a complicated picture. About the same time that the district made its changes, one international study suggested steering bright students into accelerated classes could \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/schools-exacerbate-the-growing-achievement-gap-between-rich-and-poor-a-33-country-study-finds/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">exacerbate the rich-poor divide\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in schools. Another paper, published by the Brookings Institution in 2016, found that Black and Hispanic students \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/finding-benefits-tracking/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">scored better on Advanced Placement exams\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in states that tracked more eighth graders into different ability levels in math.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“This will remain murky,” said Kristen Hengtgen, a senior analyst with the Education Trust. “Detracking seems to have good intentions, but we just haven’t seen it work conclusively yet.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_63069\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-63069\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity02-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity02-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity02-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity02-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity02-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity02-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity02-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/02/morton-calculus-equity02-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sixth grader Jayda works at her desk in an advanced math class in Union Public Schools. The Tulsa-area school district has tried to increase the diversity of students on its accelerated math track. \u003ccite>(Shane Bevel for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Union remains committed to its efforts, though. And in a pin-drop quiet calculus class, where only the hum of the HVAC system disrupted the scratching of pencils, students remained committed to their own hard work.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lizeth Rosas sat in the back row. Wearing bright blue smocks for a nursing program she had later in the day, the 18-year-old scribbled notes on how to find the average value of friction with a given interval.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Any questions?” her teacher invited. “Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Only eight of the 22 students in the class identified as white. Rosas first got into an advanced math as a seventh grader, she said. Last year, to her surprise, a teacher recommended she take the Advanced Placement course.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“In the beginning, I questioned myself — a lot,” she said. “I didn’t know if I was ready. It’s kind of a lot to process, and we move so fast.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rosas plans to work as a licensed practical nurse after graduation, and expects conversions of medications and IV fluids will require math. Her father, who runs his own remodeling company, can’t help with her calculus work, she said. But, her nursing program, part of a \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://tulsatech.edu/about-the-district/locations/high-school-extension-programs/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">high school extension program\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at the nearby Tulsa Technology Center, offers academic tutoring.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I don’t really need it,” Rosas said. “The teachers here are really helpful. They just kind of help me. They remind me I can do it.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This story about \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/how-one-district-has-diversified-its-advanced-math-classes-without-the-controversy/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">math equity\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was produced by \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.us2.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=66c306eebb323868c3ce353c1&id=d3ee4c3e04\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hechinger newsletter\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "When Adults Learn about Trauma-Informed Practices, Students Can Recover",
"headTitle": "When Adults Learn about Trauma-Informed Practices, Students Can Recover | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When students at Mercer County Intermediate School returned to in-person learning during the 2021-2022 school year, school counselor \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/AmyRiley1994\">Amy Riley\u003c/a> noticed heightened anxiety among the third through fifth grade students in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. Riley attributed this change to isolation, economic disadvantage, and increased social media use during the pandemic. During remote learning – which lasted from March 2020 through June 2021 – some students would be home alone all day because their parents were essential workers; others told Riley that they had one or two parents out of work.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The strain, economically, on some of our families was intense and the kids knew that,” she said. When school was primarily virtual, Riley went from monthly in-classroom counseling lessons to no structured school counseling class at all.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It was really difficult. And honestly, for the first few weeks, I felt useless,” said Riley. So she decided to connect with her students over her YouTube channel. Riley took requests from students, like making slime or doing gymnastics, and fit those into counseling lessons. “There were kids who connected with me through my YouTube channel that would have never walked up to me at school and said anything to me or would have never come to my office,” said Riley.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Prior to the pandemic, they had about one suicide threat assessment per month, which was, according to Riley, typical for a school with a student population of 600. However, during the 2021-2022 school year, when kids were back in school buildings, there were 52 instances of a child threatening suicide. “Before COVID, we had students who had gone through trauma” said Riley, “but after COVID, [suicide risk assessments] just skyrocketed.” This was a crisis and Mercer County Intermediate wasn’t alone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10019926/#:~:text=Feelings%20of%20social%20isolation%20with,followed%20by%20depression%20and%20stress.\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A study published by the Cambridge University Press\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in 2023 found that not only did the pandemic increase social isolation, but the social isolation that children ages 6-17 experienced dramatically increased their rate of diagnosed anxiety. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In order to address the sudden uptick in suicide threat assessments on campus, Riley read \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/about.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the CDC’s Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and was struck by the connection between childhood trauma and health problems later in life. Trauma can be invisible, and one’s experience with it can vary; an event that might cause trauma to a certain individual might not cause trauma to another individual.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>A schoolwide approach to trauma\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Riley saw the benefit of recognizing how childhood trauma – such as neglect, food insecurity, and homelessness – may manifest in the children around her, but decided against \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.acesaware.org/implement-screening/stage-1-prepare-foundation/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">using the ACEs survey to collect data on students\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. “We thought it would be triggering,” said Riley.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instead, she chose to focus on educating the school staff and faculty about ACEs and the variety of outcomes and experiences of their students. They had the urgent goal of bringing down the number of suicide threat assessments and improve the mental health outcomes for all students.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to the CDC, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/fastfact.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">one of the ways to mitigate ACEs\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is to “connect youth to caring adults and activities.” At Riley’s school, she and several colleagues went through a list of all students and matched them with a caring adult on campus, regardless of academics. This kind of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.edutopia.org/video/making-sure-each-child-known\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">adult-student matching\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is a practice recommended by other educators.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While she recognized that teachers are a vital piece of a student’s experience in a school setting, Riley made sure to include other faculty and staff like bus drivers, custodians and lunchroom workers. “We are all on this journey of trying to help our students, helping the whole child,” she said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She saw the difference a schoolwide program could make and said it was a necessity to improve the mental health and mental health response for all students.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As a school counselor, Riley is used to seeing students in her office, who use her sensory wall and de-escalation techniques to regulate their nervous systems and return to the classroom after a triggering event. While Riley tends to see students in her office who have already been triggered, the schoolwide approach is meant to train other adults to recognize and anticipate potential triggers to ensure that students are being cared for in all areas of their school environment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Faculty and staff must also do things that seem obvious and appropriate in working with other people: like using a child’s name every day; no raised voices, ever; and having predictable daily routines. She found that these steps helped the kids better regulate themselves and created a more supportive environment.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Confronting alarming behavior can be tough for adults, too, so she recommended guided language – such as “[student name] is having a hard day” – for faculty and staff to use as a more caring way to alert other adults to concerns about a particular student instead of relying on labels or conjecture.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These schoolwide practices are based on the national initiative by the\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.acf.hhs.gov/blog/2020/07/handle-care\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> U.S. Administration for Children and Families’ “Handle with Care” program\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. HWC provides a systematic approach to informing the responsible adults around children who have experienced a traumatic event or trigger. For Riley and Mercer County Intermediate School, this framework provided the benefit of communication without breaking down the necessary barriers of student confidentiality. According to Riley, the school’s student suicide threat assessments lowered from 52 to 14 in the following 2022-2023 school year thanks, in part, to this program.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Nashville, Tennessee, \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/principalest?lang=en\">Mathew Portell\u003c/a> also saw an increase in suicide threat assessments and suicidal ideation in students as young as five during the 2021-2022 school year. Portell is the founder of the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tienetwork.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Trauma Informed Education Network\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and a former elementary school principal.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Portell’s school resumed in person learning, he was disappointed in the state’s approach to the effects of the pandemic on students. It was “the opposite of what we wish would have happened in trauma-informed work,” he said, noting an \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ncja.org/crimeandjusticenews/school-suspensions-discipline-policies-ramp-up-after-covid-19#:~:text=2%20min-,School%20Suspensions%2C%20Discipline%20Policies%20Ramp%20Up%20After%20COVID%2D19,or%20talking%20back%20to%20teachers.\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">increase in exclusionary practices and punishment\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. He and other educators had to manage \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59211/6-in-10-teachers-experienced-physical-violence-or-verbal-aggression-during-covid\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">disruptive behavior\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> from both students and parents. “We have needed a trauma-informed paradigm shift for decades,” Portell said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We had higher percentages of kids that were coming back dysregulated, are feeling symptoms of stress, even depression, even trauma,” he continued. “There’s an idea that kids don’t know what’s going on; it’s not impacting them; they’re too little. It’s all misinformation. I mean, that’s just not how our bodies and brains operate.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As teachers in his network identified effective strategies to mitigate triggered student behavior, Portell found that routines and predictability made a big difference. “We know that [for] kids who have heightened senses of stress or trauma, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.trepeducator.org/consistency-and-predictability#:~:text=Consistency%20%26%20Predictability,-The%20need%20for&text=Consistency%20and%20predictability%20are%20imperatives,their%20lives%20outside%20of%20school.\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">predictability allows the brain to get into a state of learning\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">,” he said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Supporting teachers to support kids\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What does it take for a schoolwide trauma-informed program to work? Riley said programs must be intentional and have buy-in from educators and school staff. Those programs must also have school-wide support beyond instructional periods, including during meal times and school bus rides.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“A big part of trauma-informed schools is making sure that the teachers feel grounded and supported,” said \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/AlexSVenet\">Alex Shevrin Venet\u003c/a>, educator, professional development facilitator and author of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/57646/how-unconditional-positive-regard-can-help-students-feel-cared-for\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Portell recommends that school counselors and administrators start with a “why” when presenting a new trauma-informed practice program to teachers in order to shift their thinking. “Start with the adults” and create “systems of support that support the adults equally or as much as you support the kids,” he said. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One way Portell has supported teachers is by using what he calls a “tap in and tap out process.” Teachers would communicate via a text chain in the app GroupMe, keeping their phone numbers anonymous. A teacher might say, “I need to tap out,” in which case two other teachers would “tap in” and help with the students and offer support to the teacher. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Portell, like many other educators, noticed an immediate need for \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://teachbetter.com/blog/moving-from-self-care-to-collective-care/#:~:text=Collective%20care%20removes%20the%20responsibility,help%20you%20develop%20firm%20boundaries\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“collective care”\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> after the first year of the pandemic. “Post-pandemic, post racial reckoning, post all of the increase of school shootings, there [was an] insurmountable, incomprehensible amount of stress on teachers,” said Portell. “We’re in a situation where we can’t just self-care our way out of where we’re in right now in education,” he added.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By beginning with the “why” and emphasizing collective care, Portell was able to create buy-in from teachers. However, Portell also values positivity. “As a school culture, you have to have fun through this process. We’ve lost this idea of fun in the community,” he said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Kentucky, Riley created a process for onboarding all staff and faculty involved in a student’s learning day including lunchroom workers and bus drivers. Implementing trauma-informed practices as a new and unfamiliar initiative takes some creativity, so here are some ways that Riley has achieved this: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Changing discipline practices inside and outside the classroom\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Positive messages in bathroom stalls \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A sensory room \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Advanced notice of potentially triggering events\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Allowing access to animals for students on the campus farm\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Allowing for alternative ways for students to participate in assemblies\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A family resource center\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Awareness during natural disaster anniversaries\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">504s and IEP plans for trauma\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Portell recommends \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://revelationsineducation.com/the-book/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lori Desautels’ books\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Connection Over Compliance\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Intentional Neuroplasticity: Moving Our Nervous Systems and Educational System Toward Post-Traumatic Growth\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, both of which provide practical application strategies for trauma-informed practices. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first step a teacher can take toward trauma-informed practices is to start viewing disruptive or emotionally heightened behavior “skill gaps,” said Portell. He recommends that teachers build in “pause time” to their daily planning which can help to address students who might feel overwhelmed. This can be as simple as a morning meeting, or with younger learners, circle time for morning greetings. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another trauma-informed strategy that teachers can use in the classroom is to name and teach de-escalation strategies. Portell suggested looking up de-escalation strategy videos online. His favorites are simple breathing strategies, like \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-3n5iBi4u0\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">star breath\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIbBI-BT9c4\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">rainbow breath\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Once the students are taught these self-regulation strategies, teachers can post simple instructions in the classroom so that students can reference them when needed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For little to no cost, teachers can also create space in their room for students to go when they are feeling overwhelmed. “We refer to them as peace corners,” said Portell.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Be who children need right now,” said Portell. “Meeting that child where they are is more important than the objective you’re trying to teach.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I see a trend that trauma-informed work is not only a necessity, it’s imperative,” he added. “If we know what we’re doing isn’t working, then we have to do something else.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Riley recently changed schools, and as she brings her trauma-informed practices to a new set of staff and students, her word of the year is “resilience.” Including educators in schoolwide trauma-informed practices is doable in many different ways, and allows for more mental health support in schools. According to Venet, “We’re normalizing talking about mental health and we’re normalizing different levels of support.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When students at Mercer County Intermediate School returned to in-person learning during the 2021-2022 school year, school counselor \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/AmyRiley1994\">Amy Riley\u003c/a> noticed heightened anxiety among the third through fifth grade students in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. Riley attributed this change to isolation, economic disadvantage, and increased social media use during the pandemic. During remote learning – which lasted from March 2020 through June 2021 – some students would be home alone all day because their parents were essential workers; others told Riley that they had one or two parents out of work.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The strain, economically, on some of our families was intense and the kids knew that,” she said. When school was primarily virtual, Riley went from monthly in-classroom counseling lessons to no structured school counseling class at all.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It was really difficult. And honestly, for the first few weeks, I felt useless,” said Riley. So she decided to connect with her students over her YouTube channel. Riley took requests from students, like making slime or doing gymnastics, and fit those into counseling lessons. “There were kids who connected with me through my YouTube channel that would have never walked up to me at school and said anything to me or would have never come to my office,” said Riley.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Prior to the pandemic, they had about one suicide threat assessment per month, which was, according to Riley, typical for a school with a student population of 600. However, during the 2021-2022 school year, when kids were back in school buildings, there were 52 instances of a child threatening suicide. “Before COVID, we had students who had gone through trauma” said Riley, “but after COVID, [suicide risk assessments] just skyrocketed.” This was a crisis and Mercer County Intermediate wasn’t alone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10019926/#:~:text=Feelings%20of%20social%20isolation%20with,followed%20by%20depression%20and%20stress.\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A study published by the Cambridge University Press\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in 2023 found that not only did the pandemic increase social isolation, but the social isolation that children ages 6-17 experienced dramatically increased their rate of diagnosed anxiety. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In order to address the sudden uptick in suicide threat assessments on campus, Riley read \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/about.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the CDC’s Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and was struck by the connection between childhood trauma and health problems later in life. Trauma can be invisible, and one’s experience with it can vary; an event that might cause trauma to a certain individual might not cause trauma to another individual.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>A schoolwide approach to trauma\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Riley saw the benefit of recognizing how childhood trauma – such as neglect, food insecurity, and homelessness – may manifest in the children around her, but decided against \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.acesaware.org/implement-screening/stage-1-prepare-foundation/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">using the ACEs survey to collect data on students\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. “We thought it would be triggering,” said Riley.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instead, she chose to focus on educating the school staff and faculty about ACEs and the variety of outcomes and experiences of their students. They had the urgent goal of bringing down the number of suicide threat assessments and improve the mental health outcomes for all students.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to the CDC, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/fastfact.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">one of the ways to mitigate ACEs\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is to “connect youth to caring adults and activities.” At Riley’s school, she and several colleagues went through a list of all students and matched them with a caring adult on campus, regardless of academics. This kind of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.edutopia.org/video/making-sure-each-child-known\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">adult-student matching\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is a practice recommended by other educators.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While she recognized that teachers are a vital piece of a student’s experience in a school setting, Riley made sure to include other faculty and staff like bus drivers, custodians and lunchroom workers. “We are all on this journey of trying to help our students, helping the whole child,” she said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She saw the difference a schoolwide program could make and said it was a necessity to improve the mental health and mental health response for all students.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As a school counselor, Riley is used to seeing students in her office, who use her sensory wall and de-escalation techniques to regulate their nervous systems and return to the classroom after a triggering event. While Riley tends to see students in her office who have already been triggered, the schoolwide approach is meant to train other adults to recognize and anticipate potential triggers to ensure that students are being cared for in all areas of their school environment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Faculty and staff must also do things that seem obvious and appropriate in working with other people: like using a child’s name every day; no raised voices, ever; and having predictable daily routines. She found that these steps helped the kids better regulate themselves and created a more supportive environment.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Confronting alarming behavior can be tough for adults, too, so she recommended guided language – such as “[student name] is having a hard day” – for faculty and staff to use as a more caring way to alert other adults to concerns about a particular student instead of relying on labels or conjecture.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These schoolwide practices are based on the national initiative by the\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.acf.hhs.gov/blog/2020/07/handle-care\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> U.S. Administration for Children and Families’ “Handle with Care” program\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. HWC provides a systematic approach to informing the responsible adults around children who have experienced a traumatic event or trigger. For Riley and Mercer County Intermediate School, this framework provided the benefit of communication without breaking down the necessary barriers of student confidentiality. According to Riley, the school’s student suicide threat assessments lowered from 52 to 14 in the following 2022-2023 school year thanks, in part, to this program.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Nashville, Tennessee, \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/principalest?lang=en\">Mathew Portell\u003c/a> also saw an increase in suicide threat assessments and suicidal ideation in students as young as five during the 2021-2022 school year. Portell is the founder of the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tienetwork.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Trauma Informed Education Network\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and a former elementary school principal.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Portell’s school resumed in person learning, he was disappointed in the state’s approach to the effects of the pandemic on students. It was “the opposite of what we wish would have happened in trauma-informed work,” he said, noting an \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ncja.org/crimeandjusticenews/school-suspensions-discipline-policies-ramp-up-after-covid-19#:~:text=2%20min-,School%20Suspensions%2C%20Discipline%20Policies%20Ramp%20Up%20After%20COVID%2D19,or%20talking%20back%20to%20teachers.\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">increase in exclusionary practices and punishment\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. He and other educators had to manage \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59211/6-in-10-teachers-experienced-physical-violence-or-verbal-aggression-during-covid\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">disruptive behavior\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> from both students and parents. “We have needed a trauma-informed paradigm shift for decades,” Portell said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We had higher percentages of kids that were coming back dysregulated, are feeling symptoms of stress, even depression, even trauma,” he continued. “There’s an idea that kids don’t know what’s going on; it’s not impacting them; they’re too little. It’s all misinformation. I mean, that’s just not how our bodies and brains operate.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As teachers in his network identified effective strategies to mitigate triggered student behavior, Portell found that routines and predictability made a big difference. “We know that [for] kids who have heightened senses of stress or trauma, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.trepeducator.org/consistency-and-predictability#:~:text=Consistency%20%26%20Predictability,-The%20need%20for&text=Consistency%20and%20predictability%20are%20imperatives,their%20lives%20outside%20of%20school.\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">predictability allows the brain to get into a state of learning\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">,” he said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Supporting teachers to support kids\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What does it take for a schoolwide trauma-informed program to work? Riley said programs must be intentional and have buy-in from educators and school staff. Those programs must also have school-wide support beyond instructional periods, including during meal times and school bus rides.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“A big part of trauma-informed schools is making sure that the teachers feel grounded and supported,” said \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/AlexSVenet\">Alex Shevrin Venet\u003c/a>, educator, professional development facilitator and author of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/57646/how-unconditional-positive-regard-can-help-students-feel-cared-for\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Portell recommends that school counselors and administrators start with a “why” when presenting a new trauma-informed practice program to teachers in order to shift their thinking. “Start with the adults” and create “systems of support that support the adults equally or as much as you support the kids,” he said. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One way Portell has supported teachers is by using what he calls a “tap in and tap out process.” Teachers would communicate via a text chain in the app GroupMe, keeping their phone numbers anonymous. A teacher might say, “I need to tap out,” in which case two other teachers would “tap in” and help with the students and offer support to the teacher. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Portell, like many other educators, noticed an immediate need for \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://teachbetter.com/blog/moving-from-self-care-to-collective-care/#:~:text=Collective%20care%20removes%20the%20responsibility,help%20you%20develop%20firm%20boundaries\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“collective care”\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> after the first year of the pandemic. “Post-pandemic, post racial reckoning, post all of the increase of school shootings, there [was an] insurmountable, incomprehensible amount of stress on teachers,” said Portell. “We’re in a situation where we can’t just self-care our way out of where we’re in right now in education,” he added.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By beginning with the “why” and emphasizing collective care, Portell was able to create buy-in from teachers. However, Portell also values positivity. “As a school culture, you have to have fun through this process. We’ve lost this idea of fun in the community,” he said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Kentucky, Riley created a process for onboarding all staff and faculty involved in a student’s learning day including lunchroom workers and bus drivers. Implementing trauma-informed practices as a new and unfamiliar initiative takes some creativity, so here are some ways that Riley has achieved this: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Changing discipline practices inside and outside the classroom\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Positive messages in bathroom stalls \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A sensory room \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Advanced notice of potentially triggering events\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Allowing access to animals for students on the campus farm\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Allowing for alternative ways for students to participate in assemblies\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A family resource center\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Awareness during natural disaster anniversaries\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">504s and IEP plans for trauma\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Portell recommends \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://revelationsineducation.com/the-book/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lori Desautels’ books\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Connection Over Compliance\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Intentional Neuroplasticity: Moving Our Nervous Systems and Educational System Toward Post-Traumatic Growth\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, both of which provide practical application strategies for trauma-informed practices. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first step a teacher can take toward trauma-informed practices is to start viewing disruptive or emotionally heightened behavior “skill gaps,” said Portell. He recommends that teachers build in “pause time” to their daily planning which can help to address students who might feel overwhelmed. This can be as simple as a morning meeting, or with younger learners, circle time for morning greetings. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another trauma-informed strategy that teachers can use in the classroom is to name and teach de-escalation strategies. Portell suggested looking up de-escalation strategy videos online. His favorites are simple breathing strategies, like \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-3n5iBi4u0\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">star breath\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIbBI-BT9c4\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">rainbow breath\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Once the students are taught these self-regulation strategies, teachers can post simple instructions in the classroom so that students can reference them when needed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For little to no cost, teachers can also create space in their room for students to go when they are feeling overwhelmed. “We refer to them as peace corners,” said Portell.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Be who children need right now,” said Portell. “Meeting that child where they are is more important than the objective you’re trying to teach.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I see a trend that trauma-informed work is not only a necessity, it’s imperative,” he added. “If we know what we’re doing isn’t working, then we have to do something else.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Riley recently changed schools, and as she brings her trauma-informed practices to a new set of staff and students, her word of the year is “resilience.” Including educators in schoolwide trauma-informed practices is doable in many different ways, and allows for more mental health support in schools. According to Venet, “We’re normalizing talking about mental health and we’re normalizing different levels of support.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "'Just say no' didn't actually protect students from drugs. Here's what could",
"headTitle": "‘Just say no’ didn’t actually protect students from drugs. Here’s what could | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>College sophomore Elias Myers thinks his friends are lucky to be alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 19-year-old recounts a recent incident in which his friends got ahold of a drug that \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/10/18/1206274353/college-fentanyl-overdose\">test strips showed\u003c/a> was laced with fentanyl, a potent, often deadly, synthetic opioid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s kind of when I decided that caution is not, like, a best practice, but a survival technique,” says the University of California, Berkeley, student.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And yet those survival techniques were never talked about in Myers’ middle and high school drug education classes. In fact Myers says they didn’t mention fentanyl at all. He says those classes failed to prepare him and his peers for an increasingly dangerous drug landscape in which a single high can have deadly consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Myers says everything he learned about fentanyl has been from friends and older siblings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But it didn’t have to be that way. We could have learned safety way ahead of time,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For decades, students like Myers have been told to just say no to drugs. The message was repeated in public service announcements and in classroom presentations. But research shows this approach alone doesn’t work. And now, overdose deaths among teenagers have skyrocketed — largely due to fentanyl. The synthetic opioid was involved in the vast majority of teen overdose deaths in 2021, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://blogs.cdc.gov/nchs/2023/05/03/7338/#:~:text=Fentanyl%20Overdose%20Death%20Rates%20More%20Than%20Tripled%20From%202016%20to%202021,-May%203%2C%202023&text=Drug%20overdose%20death%20rates%20involving,for%20Health%20Statistics%20(NCHS).\">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u003c/a>. Many of those deaths involved fentanyl-laced counterfeit prescription pills that didn’t come from a pharmacy. And the problem has \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/10/18/1206274353/college-fentanyl-overdose\">followed teens onto college campuses\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some experts say drug education that focuses on harm reduction techniques – designed to keep people safe when they do choose to use – could help save lives. Here’s what that looks like.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Teaching safety measures for when students do choose to use\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>“The most important tenet of drug education is to be honest,” says professor Bonnie Halpern-Felsher. “And to have a balanced perspective. We cannot lie, we cannot exaggerate to teens.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Halpern-Felsher directs Stanford University’s REACH Lab, which focuses on understanding, preventing and reducing teen and young adult substance use, among other risky behaviors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her lab maintains a high school curriculum called \u003ca href=\"https://med.stanford.edu/halpern-felsher-reach-lab/preventions-interventions/Safety-First.html\">Safety First\u003c/a> (initially developed by the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance), which encourages young people to abstain from drug use while also providing them with information to reduce their risk of addiction and death if they or their friends do choose to use. The concept is called harm reduction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, Halpern-Felsher says, students need to know the facts about drugs — including their benefits and their harms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, opioids like fentanyl have been used safely in healthcare facilities for decades to treat patients’ pain. But when used recreationally — either purposefully or unknowingly — it’s extremely dangerous, because very small amounts can lead to an overdose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Activities — not just lectures — should be used to demonstrate a lesson, Halpern-Felsher explains. The Safety First curriculum includes an activity that asks students to add sugar to one pitcher of water and salt to another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You cannot see the difference. But one can and potentially will really hurt you. And this is why it’s so important for you to understand that you cannot just simply pick up a drug and go ahead and use it,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The curriculum also \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kKE6QMHG2nSoLgr61ze39KXSvb9tUhYKEE-RnOW7P-Y/edit\">outlines safety measures\u003c/a> for when students or their friends \u003cem>do \u003c/em>choose to use drugs. Messages like:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>If you’re using drugs, the healthiest choice is to stop using, or at least cut down on how much and how often you use.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Ideally, you’re using drugs only as recommended by a doctor or a pharmaceutical label. But if you’re not, don’t take a lot of any drug. Wait and see how it affects you before taking any more.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Consider your mindset before using drugs. What you’re thinking and feeling before and during substance use can affect your experience.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Consider the setting. Where and with whom you’re using drugs can reduce your chance of injury or death.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Check the substance before you use it. Testing a drug for things like fentanyl can reduce the risk of harm. But even test strips aren’t always 100% accurate.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Don’t mix drugs. The effects from combining drugs \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/stopoverdose/polysubstance-use/index.html#:~:text=Mixing%20alcohol%20with%20other%20drugs,%2C%20heart%2C%20and%20other%20organs.&text=It%20may%20be%20hard%20to,you%20could%20save%20a%20life.&text=Try%20to%20keep%20the%20person%20awake%20and%20breathing\">may be stronger and more unpredictable\u003c/a> than one drug alone, and even deadly.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Know how to respond in an emergency: Spot the signs of an overdose. Call 911. Place someone on their side to prevent choking. Administer the opioid reversal medication naloxone, often sold under the brand name Narcan.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Halpern-Felsher knows some people might interpret harm reduction as encouraging teens to use drugs. But she says that’s a misperception.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The most important piece of this curriculum is not to use, but if they are using or if they’re in situations where they might be using, we are just trying to keep them safe,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are few studies that focus on harm reduction drug education programs in schools, and more research is needed to evaluate their efficacy. But experts told NPR that harm reduction could help save lives at a moment when teens are dying at alarming rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36503561/\">A pilot study\u003c/a> of the Safety First curriculum found it significantly increased high school students’ knowledge of harm reduction techniques and behaviors, and found a decrease in overall substance use.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>What harm reduction looks like in the classroom\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Last spring, Cameron McNeely stood in front of a group of high schoolers and told them they had a choice to make: will they or won’t they use drugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not here to judge you for that,” he told the Indianapolis teens. “But hopefully I can present you some information that gets you to understand the consequences of those choices — yes or no — a little bit better, and, hopefully, to get you to steer clear of substance use.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McNeely, 28, is the director of youth education for Overdose Lifeline, an Indianapolis-based nonprofit that created a drug education program, with an emphasis on opioids, for students in grades six through 12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this presentation at Perry Meridian High School, McNeely shared statistics on drug-related deaths, explained how opioids affect the body, emphasized addiction is a disease — not a moral failing — and explained why it’s a good idea to carry naloxone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To hammer that point home, McNeely shared a personal story: One night, while in college, he and his friend took some pills to relax. Shortly after, he noticed his friend had fallen asleep, and it looked like he was struggling to breathe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Little did I know, about five feet away from me, my friend was having an overdose,” McNeely told the students. He called 911 and emergency responders were able to revive his friend with Narcan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It saved his life,” he said. “Narcan buys time, which is the most important thing to have in an overdose.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the presentation, McNeely told NPR he had little to no drug education in high school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody ever told me about how to drink safely and how, if I use pills, you know, they have different effects on you and what those effects are, and how it could just kill you — just one night, bad pill, it could all go down the drain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McNeely’s experience isn’t uncommon. Drug education across the country is ad-hoc, often outdated or not provided at all. In a 2021 National Survey of Drug Use and Health, only about 60% of 12-17-year-olds self-reported that they saw or heard drug or alcohol prevention messaging in school. And there’s no way to track what type of drug education programming is being offered in schools nationwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just wanted to fill in those gaps that I felt as I was growing up in my drug education,” McNeely said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The “just say no” messaging of the past didn’t work\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>McNeely’s presentation is a far cry from the drug education of prior decades — like the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, commonly known by the acronym D.A.R.E. \u003ca href=\"https://crimesolutions.ojp.gov/ratedprograms/99\">Launched in 1983\u003c/a>, D.A.R.E. was taught by police officers in classrooms nationwide. Their presentations warned students about the dangers of substance use and told kids to say no to drugs. It was a message that was repeated in \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/3phzVSysURQ?si=75hvmi1lhPGHnhtz\">PSAs\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMOXxX5_wAA\">cheesy songs\u003c/a>. Former First Lady Nancy Reagan even made it one of her \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQXgVM30mIY\">major\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.reaganfoundation.org/ronald-reagan/nancy-reagan/her-causes/\">causes\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teaching drug abstinence remains popular among some groups, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.dea.gov/onepill/teens\">messaging\u003c/a> to \u003ca href=\"https://www.justthinktwice.gov/living-drug-free\">teenagers\u003c/a> still focuses on the goal that they should be “drug-free.” But numerous studies \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8781009/\">published\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/152055NCJRS.pdf\">in the\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022427894031001001\">1990s\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448384/\">early 2000s\u003c/a> concluded programs like D.A.R.E. had no significant impact on drug use. And one study actually found \u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022427898035004002\">a slight uptick in drug use\u003c/a> among suburban students after participation in D.A.R.E. In 2009, D.A.R.E. rebranded with \u003ca href=\"https://dare.org/education/#posters\">new curriculums\u003c/a> for students dubbed “keepin’ it REAL.” But the programming doesn’t focus on how students can minimize their risk of harm if they do choose to use drugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is clear that just saying no is not sufficient,” says Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “We’d like the theoretical perfect: don’t touch a drug — abstinence. But that’s not necessarily the reality for everyone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Volkow says the failures of past drug education programs haunt current efforts to inform young people of the risks of fentanyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, anti-drug curriculums exaggerated the effects of certain types of substance use, she says. For example: Students were taught that using cannabis would destroy their brain or make them dumb. And while there is data to suggest cannabis use can have detrimental effects — particularly for young people — that messaging didn’t always match students’ lived experiences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>College sophomore Elias Myers remembers the dire warnings. But he also had classmates who used the drug.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I couldn’t understand, like, if these people can smoke weed after class and be totally fine, how can this curriculum be true?” Myers says. “I remember coming away from that in like middle school and early high school feeling really unsatisfied with the education. I remember feeling as though what I was being told perhaps wasn’t the truth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Volkow says that loss of credibility makes it harder to give students life-saving information about drugs now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It has weakened our position because a lot of people know others that take marijuana and they are functioning and they don’t see any evidence of ill effects,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And now the consequences of drug use are deadlier than ever. Teens are dying after taking what they thought was Adderall or Percocet, but turn out to be fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They actually taught us when we were children: If you cry wolf too many times, when the wolf really comes, no one is paying attention,” Volkow says. “And this is, I fear, where we are a little bit with fentanyl, because it is such a dangerous moment in the history of illicit drugs right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Meet young people where they are, not where you want them to be\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Volkow and Bonnie Halpern-Felsher say school curriculums that teach kids how to reduce the harms related to drug use can help save lives — but they’re not a cure-all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Halpern-Felsher says schools alone can’t solve the fentanyl crisis; rather, it requires a cultural shift. Educators, families and communities at large need to start having honest conversations about drug use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And until we do, you know, just having a 50-minute class on fentanyl is not going to be the sole defining moment for anybody.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Myers, in California, serves on the Youth Action Board for Halpern-Felsher’s REACH Lab, and he’s familiar with the Safety First curriculum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it’s realistic,” Myers says of the program. “You’ve got to meet children and teens and youths where they are, rather than meeting them where you want them to be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Myers says he wishes he and his peers had had access to drug curriculums like this when he was in high school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that we would have adopted ideas of safety through school and not through having to actually experience times of danger,” Myers says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that we were very lucky in so many different ways… You hear often about those who don’t experience that luck. And I feel like those lives could have been saved.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Edited by Nicole Cohen\u003cbr>\nVisual design and development by LA Johnson\u003cbr>\nAudio story produced by Janet Woojeong Lee\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Copyright 2023 WFYI Public Media. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.wfyi.org\">WFYI Public Media\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=%27Just+say+no%27+didn%27t+actually+protect+students+from+drugs.+Here%27s+what+could&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>College sophomore Elias Myers thinks his friends are lucky to be alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 19-year-old recounts a recent incident in which his friends got ahold of a drug that \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/10/18/1206274353/college-fentanyl-overdose\">test strips showed\u003c/a> was laced with fentanyl, a potent, often deadly, synthetic opioid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s kind of when I decided that caution is not, like, a best practice, but a survival technique,” says the University of California, Berkeley, student.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And yet those survival techniques were never talked about in Myers’ middle and high school drug education classes. In fact Myers says they didn’t mention fentanyl at all. He says those classes failed to prepare him and his peers for an increasingly dangerous drug landscape in which a single high can have deadly consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Myers says everything he learned about fentanyl has been from friends and older siblings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But it didn’t have to be that way. We could have learned safety way ahead of time,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For decades, students like Myers have been told to just say no to drugs. The message was repeated in public service announcements and in classroom presentations. But research shows this approach alone doesn’t work. And now, overdose deaths among teenagers have skyrocketed — largely due to fentanyl. The synthetic opioid was involved in the vast majority of teen overdose deaths in 2021, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://blogs.cdc.gov/nchs/2023/05/03/7338/#:~:text=Fentanyl%20Overdose%20Death%20Rates%20More%20Than%20Tripled%20From%202016%20to%202021,-May%203%2C%202023&text=Drug%20overdose%20death%20rates%20involving,for%20Health%20Statistics%20(NCHS).\">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u003c/a>. Many of those deaths involved fentanyl-laced counterfeit prescription pills that didn’t come from a pharmacy. And the problem has \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/10/18/1206274353/college-fentanyl-overdose\">followed teens onto college campuses\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some experts say drug education that focuses on harm reduction techniques – designed to keep people safe when they do choose to use – could help save lives. Here’s what that looks like.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Teaching safety measures for when students do choose to use\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>“The most important tenet of drug education is to be honest,” says professor Bonnie Halpern-Felsher. “And to have a balanced perspective. We cannot lie, we cannot exaggerate to teens.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Halpern-Felsher directs Stanford University’s REACH Lab, which focuses on understanding, preventing and reducing teen and young adult substance use, among other risky behaviors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her lab maintains a high school curriculum called \u003ca href=\"https://med.stanford.edu/halpern-felsher-reach-lab/preventions-interventions/Safety-First.html\">Safety First\u003c/a> (initially developed by the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance), which encourages young people to abstain from drug use while also providing them with information to reduce their risk of addiction and death if they or their friends do choose to use. The concept is called harm reduction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, Halpern-Felsher says, students need to know the facts about drugs — including their benefits and their harms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, opioids like fentanyl have been used safely in healthcare facilities for decades to treat patients’ pain. But when used recreationally — either purposefully or unknowingly — it’s extremely dangerous, because very small amounts can lead to an overdose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Activities — not just lectures — should be used to demonstrate a lesson, Halpern-Felsher explains. The Safety First curriculum includes an activity that asks students to add sugar to one pitcher of water and salt to another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You cannot see the difference. But one can and potentially will really hurt you. And this is why it’s so important for you to understand that you cannot just simply pick up a drug and go ahead and use it,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The curriculum also \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kKE6QMHG2nSoLgr61ze39KXSvb9tUhYKEE-RnOW7P-Y/edit\">outlines safety measures\u003c/a> for when students or their friends \u003cem>do \u003c/em>choose to use drugs. Messages like:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>If you’re using drugs, the healthiest choice is to stop using, or at least cut down on how much and how often you use.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Ideally, you’re using drugs only as recommended by a doctor or a pharmaceutical label. But if you’re not, don’t take a lot of any drug. Wait and see how it affects you before taking any more.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Consider your mindset before using drugs. What you’re thinking and feeling before and during substance use can affect your experience.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Consider the setting. Where and with whom you’re using drugs can reduce your chance of injury or death.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Check the substance before you use it. Testing a drug for things like fentanyl can reduce the risk of harm. But even test strips aren’t always 100% accurate.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Don’t mix drugs. The effects from combining drugs \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/stopoverdose/polysubstance-use/index.html#:~:text=Mixing%20alcohol%20with%20other%20drugs,%2C%20heart%2C%20and%20other%20organs.&text=It%20may%20be%20hard%20to,you%20could%20save%20a%20life.&text=Try%20to%20keep%20the%20person%20awake%20and%20breathing\">may be stronger and more unpredictable\u003c/a> than one drug alone, and even deadly.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Know how to respond in an emergency: Spot the signs of an overdose. Call 911. Place someone on their side to prevent choking. Administer the opioid reversal medication naloxone, often sold under the brand name Narcan.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Halpern-Felsher knows some people might interpret harm reduction as encouraging teens to use drugs. But she says that’s a misperception.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The most important piece of this curriculum is not to use, but if they are using or if they’re in situations where they might be using, we are just trying to keep them safe,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are few studies that focus on harm reduction drug education programs in schools, and more research is needed to evaluate their efficacy. But experts told NPR that harm reduction could help save lives at a moment when teens are dying at alarming rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36503561/\">A pilot study\u003c/a> of the Safety First curriculum found it significantly increased high school students’ knowledge of harm reduction techniques and behaviors, and found a decrease in overall substance use.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>What harm reduction looks like in the classroom\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Last spring, Cameron McNeely stood in front of a group of high schoolers and told them they had a choice to make: will they or won’t they use drugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not here to judge you for that,” he told the Indianapolis teens. “But hopefully I can present you some information that gets you to understand the consequences of those choices — yes or no — a little bit better, and, hopefully, to get you to steer clear of substance use.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McNeely, 28, is the director of youth education for Overdose Lifeline, an Indianapolis-based nonprofit that created a drug education program, with an emphasis on opioids, for students in grades six through 12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this presentation at Perry Meridian High School, McNeely shared statistics on drug-related deaths, explained how opioids affect the body, emphasized addiction is a disease — not a moral failing — and explained why it’s a good idea to carry naloxone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To hammer that point home, McNeely shared a personal story: One night, while in college, he and his friend took some pills to relax. Shortly after, he noticed his friend had fallen asleep, and it looked like he was struggling to breathe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Little did I know, about five feet away from me, my friend was having an overdose,” McNeely told the students. He called 911 and emergency responders were able to revive his friend with Narcan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It saved his life,” he said. “Narcan buys time, which is the most important thing to have in an overdose.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the presentation, McNeely told NPR he had little to no drug education in high school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody ever told me about how to drink safely and how, if I use pills, you know, they have different effects on you and what those effects are, and how it could just kill you — just one night, bad pill, it could all go down the drain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McNeely’s experience isn’t uncommon. Drug education across the country is ad-hoc, often outdated or not provided at all. In a 2021 National Survey of Drug Use and Health, only about 60% of 12-17-year-olds self-reported that they saw or heard drug or alcohol prevention messaging in school. And there’s no way to track what type of drug education programming is being offered in schools nationwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just wanted to fill in those gaps that I felt as I was growing up in my drug education,” McNeely said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The “just say no” messaging of the past didn’t work\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>McNeely’s presentation is a far cry from the drug education of prior decades — like the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, commonly known by the acronym D.A.R.E. \u003ca href=\"https://crimesolutions.ojp.gov/ratedprograms/99\">Launched in 1983\u003c/a>, D.A.R.E. was taught by police officers in classrooms nationwide. Their presentations warned students about the dangers of substance use and told kids to say no to drugs. It was a message that was repeated in \u003ca href=\"https://youtu.be/3phzVSysURQ?si=75hvmi1lhPGHnhtz\">PSAs\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMOXxX5_wAA\">cheesy songs\u003c/a>. Former First Lady Nancy Reagan even made it one of her \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQXgVM30mIY\">major\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.reaganfoundation.org/ronald-reagan/nancy-reagan/her-causes/\">causes\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teaching drug abstinence remains popular among some groups, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.dea.gov/onepill/teens\">messaging\u003c/a> to \u003ca href=\"https://www.justthinktwice.gov/living-drug-free\">teenagers\u003c/a> still focuses on the goal that they should be “drug-free.” But numerous studies \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8781009/\">published\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/152055NCJRS.pdf\">in the\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022427894031001001\">1990s\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448384/\">early 2000s\u003c/a> concluded programs like D.A.R.E. had no significant impact on drug use. And one study actually found \u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022427898035004002\">a slight uptick in drug use\u003c/a> among suburban students after participation in D.A.R.E. In 2009, D.A.R.E. rebranded with \u003ca href=\"https://dare.org/education/#posters\">new curriculums\u003c/a> for students dubbed “keepin’ it REAL.” But the programming doesn’t focus on how students can minimize their risk of harm if they do choose to use drugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is clear that just saying no is not sufficient,” says Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “We’d like the theoretical perfect: don’t touch a drug — abstinence. But that’s not necessarily the reality for everyone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Volkow says the failures of past drug education programs haunt current efforts to inform young people of the risks of fentanyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, anti-drug curriculums exaggerated the effects of certain types of substance use, she says. For example: Students were taught that using cannabis would destroy their brain or make them dumb. And while there is data to suggest cannabis use can have detrimental effects — particularly for young people — that messaging didn’t always match students’ lived experiences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>College sophomore Elias Myers remembers the dire warnings. But he also had classmates who used the drug.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I couldn’t understand, like, if these people can smoke weed after class and be totally fine, how can this curriculum be true?” Myers says. “I remember coming away from that in like middle school and early high school feeling really unsatisfied with the education. I remember feeling as though what I was being told perhaps wasn’t the truth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Volkow says that loss of credibility makes it harder to give students life-saving information about drugs now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It has weakened our position because a lot of people know others that take marijuana and they are functioning and they don’t see any evidence of ill effects,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And now the consequences of drug use are deadlier than ever. Teens are dying after taking what they thought was Adderall or Percocet, but turn out to be fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They actually taught us when we were children: If you cry wolf too many times, when the wolf really comes, no one is paying attention,” Volkow says. “And this is, I fear, where we are a little bit with fentanyl, because it is such a dangerous moment in the history of illicit drugs right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Meet young people where they are, not where you want them to be\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Volkow and Bonnie Halpern-Felsher say school curriculums that teach kids how to reduce the harms related to drug use can help save lives — but they’re not a cure-all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Halpern-Felsher says schools alone can’t solve the fentanyl crisis; rather, it requires a cultural shift. Educators, families and communities at large need to start having honest conversations about drug use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And until we do, you know, just having a 50-minute class on fentanyl is not going to be the sole defining moment for anybody.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Myers, in California, serves on the Youth Action Board for Halpern-Felsher’s REACH Lab, and he’s familiar with the Safety First curriculum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it’s realistic,” Myers says of the program. “You’ve got to meet children and teens and youths where they are, rather than meeting them where you want them to be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Myers says he wishes he and his peers had had access to drug curriculums like this when he was in high school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that we would have adopted ideas of safety through school and not through having to actually experience times of danger,” Myers says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that we were very lucky in so many different ways… You hear often about those who don’t experience that luck. And I feel like those lives could have been saved.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Edited by Nicole Cohen\u003cbr>\nVisual design and development by LA Johnson\u003cbr>\nAudio story produced by Janet Woojeong Lee\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Denver Public Schools pledged to pay tutoring vendors based on their results. Did it work?",
"headTitle": "Denver Public Schools pledged to pay tutoring vendors based on their results. Did it work? | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was \u003ca href=\"https://co.chalkbeat.org/2023/9/27/23891674/tutoring-denver-public-schools-outcomes-based-contracts-pandemic-esser\" rel=\"canonical\">originally published\u003c/a> by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/newsletters\">ckbe.at/newsletters\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two outside companies that Denver Public Schools hired to tutor students in an effort to make up for lost learning fell short of some targets that could have earned the companies extra pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though one company fared better than the other, many students didn’t hit the academic benchmarks spelled out in the district’s contracts. Some students struggled with participation, and staffing was a challenge for the company that tutored students in person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was definitely a learning experience,” said Angelin Thompson, the director of expanded academic learning for DPS. “It’s great if you can do it with fidelity and if you have qualified tutors. There are just a lot of components that go into it that make it effective or ineffective.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But because the contracts with the companies linked part of their payments to the achievement of certain targets, DPS isn’t paying for outcomes that weren’t achieved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The concept of outcomes-based contracting is catching on at a time when school districts across the country have more cash to spend and bigger gaps to close.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pandemic-era disruptions caused many students to miss key lessons, which prompted the federal government to invest \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62386/schools-face-a-funding-cliff-how-bad-will-the-fall-be\">billions of dollars of COVID-19 relief funding\u003c/a> in America’s schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/12/9/22165700/learning-loss-tutoring-blueprint-schools\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tutoring quickly emerged as a leading research-based strategy\u003c/a> to catch students up — especially high-impact or high-dosage tutoring, which DPS defined as 36 hours per student.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Colorado lawmakers set aside nearly $5 million in state funding in 2021 for grants to school districts to set up high-impact tutoring programs, and the State Board of Education pumped even more federal COVID relief aid, known as ESSER, into the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Denver Public Schools, the state’s largest district, applied for the grants and won. The tutoring began in fall 2021 and ramped up last school year when \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://co.chalkbeat.org/2022/3/4/22962367/denver-literacy-math-tutoring-pandemic-learning-loss-federal-relief-money\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">DPS signed contracts with two companies\u003c/a>: Cignition and University Instructors. But the program was still pilot-size, serving only about 1,500 students total, or about 2% of all students in DPS.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"hSsHYl\">Younger students made less progress\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>University Instructors struggled the most to meet the benchmarks in its contract.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the 2022-23 school year, the Virginia-based company provided in-person literacy tutoring to DPS students in kindergarten through third grade. Its contract was for a maximum of $1.2 million: $900 per student in base pay with the possibility of $1,500 per student in payments based on hitting target outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The outcomes were based on the mechanics of reading: Did students’ fluency improve, as measured by a test called iStation? How about their vocabulary or phonemic awareness?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answer for many students was no — or at least not enough to meet the benchmarks in the contract. For example, about half of the 641 students tutored by University Instructors met the benchmark in fluency, but only 17% met the benchmark in vocabulary, Thompson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>University Instructors will likely be paid about $826,000, or about 68% of the maximum in its contract, according to calculations by Thompson’s staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staffing challenges contributed to the results, Thompson said. University Instructors struggled at times to hire qualified local tutors and provide substitutes when tutors were out, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another hiccup was more technical. Not all DPS schools use the iStation test that University Instructors’ target outcomes were based on. Thompson’s staff tried to approximate whether students who took other tests met the benchmarks, but she said that wasn’t always possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"gaReCr\">Online tutoring was more successful\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Cignition fared better. District records show DPS paid the California-based company $1.25 million to provide online math tutoring to students in third through eighth grade in 2022-23. Cignition’s contract with DPS was for up to $1.3 million, and the company served 924 students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cignition had four outcomes it was trying to achieve: two based on students’ confidence about math, as measured by surveys before and after tutoring, and two based on students’ academic growth, as measured by test scores before and after tutoring. The company was paid a base rate of $720 per student and could earn $940 per student on top of that if it met all targets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an interview, Cignition provided a detailed breakdown of its results. The majority of students reported higher confidence, with as many as 89% meeting one of the survey-based benchmarks. Fewer students — 72% — met the academic benchmarks, the company said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Cohen, founder and CEO of Cignition, said he’s proud of the outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We care about quality,” he said. “We’re there to help their students that are struggling the most. Some of those students are really, really struggling, and we do everything we can for every student to bring them up as far as they can possibly get in that school year. There’s going to be a range. Not every last one will get to the highest possible grade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike University Instructors, Cignition did not struggle with staffing, according to both the company and DPS. Its model calls for one tutor, who can live anywhere in the country, to work online with a group of four students, giving that group undivided attention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Cignition did report issues with student attendance and schools occasionally canceling virtual tutoring sessions. While DPS was aiming to provide students with at least 36 hours of tutoring, Cignition said 50 hours is the gold standard. Only about 10% of DPS students logged 50 hours, the company said. About half of the students logged 25 hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a time when other school districts across the country \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62041/this-online-tutoring-company-says-it-offers-expert-one-on-one-help-students-often-get-neither\">have had trouble with external tutoring companies\u003c/a>, the state grant allowed DPS to try high-impact tutoring relatively risk-free — an opportunity that Thompson said will inform the district’s tutoring strategy going forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because of the grant, we were able to try these things and learn what works and what doesn’t,” she said. “Now as we plan for what tutoring will look like with Denver Public Schools’ money, we can think about all the things we learned and do it differently.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One aspect DPS will likely keep, Thompson said, is outcomes-based contracting. While the concept has been around for years in industries such as health care and construction, it’s new in K-12 education, with about 13 school districts actively participating, said Brittany Miller, the director of outcomes-based contracting for the Georgia-based Southern Education Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before Miller worked for the foundation, she worked for DPS and helped set up the outcomes-based tutoring contracts. The benefit, she said, is that school districts have a tangible way to judge whether the results are worth the millions of dollars they spend on external vendors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a lack of infrastructure in K-12 education, particularly in the procurement process, to say, ‘After we spent these funds, what happened for kids?’” Miller said. “This shores up a lot of that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Miller said outcomes-based contracting benefits vendors, too, because it sets clear expectations rather than the fuzzy goals that companies sometimes complain about. It also gives the companies the opportunity to earn more money for good performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Toni Rader, vice president of learning quality and operations for Cignition, said the company has been doing outcomes-based contracts with districts since 2021.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We love to do outcomes-based contracts,”\u003cb> \u003c/b>Rader said. “It’s helpful for all parties involved, because it makes it clear what we’re shooting for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for DPS, its state grant goes through this school year. But Thompson said the dollar amount is much lower this year, and there are new restrictions. DPS will have just $400,000 to spend, and only on middle school math tutoring, for which the district will request proposals soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://co.chalkbeat.org/2023/9/27/23891674/tutoring-denver-public-schools-outcomes-based-contracts-pandemic-esser\" rel=\"canonical\">Chalkbeat\u003c/a> is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was \u003ca href=\"https://co.chalkbeat.org/2023/9/27/23891674/tutoring-denver-public-schools-outcomes-based-contracts-pandemic-esser\" rel=\"canonical\">originally published\u003c/a> by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at \u003ca href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/newsletters\">ckbe.at/newsletters\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two outside companies that Denver Public Schools hired to tutor students in an effort to make up for lost learning fell short of some targets that could have earned the companies extra pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though one company fared better than the other, many students didn’t hit the academic benchmarks spelled out in the district’s contracts. Some students struggled with participation, and staffing was a challenge for the company that tutored students in person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was definitely a learning experience,” said Angelin Thompson, the director of expanded academic learning for DPS. “It’s great if you can do it with fidelity and if you have qualified tutors. There are just a lot of components that go into it that make it effective or ineffective.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But because the contracts with the companies linked part of their payments to the achievement of certain targets, DPS isn’t paying for outcomes that weren’t achieved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The concept of outcomes-based contracting is catching on at a time when school districts across the country have more cash to spend and bigger gaps to close.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pandemic-era disruptions caused many students to miss key lessons, which prompted the federal government to invest \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62386/schools-face-a-funding-cliff-how-bad-will-the-fall-be\">billions of dollars of COVID-19 relief funding\u003c/a> in America’s schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/12/9/22165700/learning-loss-tutoring-blueprint-schools\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tutoring quickly emerged as a leading research-based strategy\u003c/a> to catch students up — especially high-impact or high-dosage tutoring, which DPS defined as 36 hours per student.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Colorado lawmakers set aside nearly $5 million in state funding in 2021 for grants to school districts to set up high-impact tutoring programs, and the State Board of Education pumped even more federal COVID relief aid, known as ESSER, into the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Denver Public Schools, the state’s largest district, applied for the grants and won. The tutoring began in fall 2021 and ramped up last school year when \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://co.chalkbeat.org/2022/3/4/22962367/denver-literacy-math-tutoring-pandemic-learning-loss-federal-relief-money\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">DPS signed contracts with two companies\u003c/a>: Cignition and University Instructors. But the program was still pilot-size, serving only about 1,500 students total, or about 2% of all students in DPS.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"hSsHYl\">Younger students made less progress\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>University Instructors struggled the most to meet the benchmarks in its contract.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the 2022-23 school year, the Virginia-based company provided in-person literacy tutoring to DPS students in kindergarten through third grade. Its contract was for a maximum of $1.2 million: $900 per student in base pay with the possibility of $1,500 per student in payments based on hitting target outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The outcomes were based on the mechanics of reading: Did students’ fluency improve, as measured by a test called iStation? How about their vocabulary or phonemic awareness?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answer for many students was no — or at least not enough to meet the benchmarks in the contract. For example, about half of the 641 students tutored by University Instructors met the benchmark in fluency, but only 17% met the benchmark in vocabulary, Thompson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>University Instructors will likely be paid about $826,000, or about 68% of the maximum in its contract, according to calculations by Thompson’s staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staffing challenges contributed to the results, Thompson said. University Instructors struggled at times to hire qualified local tutors and provide substitutes when tutors were out, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another hiccup was more technical. Not all DPS schools use the iStation test that University Instructors’ target outcomes were based on. Thompson’s staff tried to approximate whether students who took other tests met the benchmarks, but she said that wasn’t always possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"gaReCr\">Online tutoring was more successful\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Cignition fared better. District records show DPS paid the California-based company $1.25 million to provide online math tutoring to students in third through eighth grade in 2022-23. Cignition’s contract with DPS was for up to $1.3 million, and the company served 924 students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cignition had four outcomes it was trying to achieve: two based on students’ confidence about math, as measured by surveys before and after tutoring, and two based on students’ academic growth, as measured by test scores before and after tutoring. The company was paid a base rate of $720 per student and could earn $940 per student on top of that if it met all targets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an interview, Cignition provided a detailed breakdown of its results. The majority of students reported higher confidence, with as many as 89% meeting one of the survey-based benchmarks. Fewer students — 72% — met the academic benchmarks, the company said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Cohen, founder and CEO of Cignition, said he’s proud of the outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We care about quality,” he said. “We’re there to help their students that are struggling the most. Some of those students are really, really struggling, and we do everything we can for every student to bring them up as far as they can possibly get in that school year. There’s going to be a range. Not every last one will get to the highest possible grade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike University Instructors, Cignition did not struggle with staffing, according to both the company and DPS. Its model calls for one tutor, who can live anywhere in the country, to work online with a group of four students, giving that group undivided attention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Cignition did report issues with student attendance and schools occasionally canceling virtual tutoring sessions. While DPS was aiming to provide students with at least 36 hours of tutoring, Cignition said 50 hours is the gold standard. Only about 10% of DPS students logged 50 hours, the company said. About half of the students logged 25 hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a time when other school districts across the country \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62041/this-online-tutoring-company-says-it-offers-expert-one-on-one-help-students-often-get-neither\">have had trouble with external tutoring companies\u003c/a>, the state grant allowed DPS to try high-impact tutoring relatively risk-free — an opportunity that Thompson said will inform the district’s tutoring strategy going forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because of the grant, we were able to try these things and learn what works and what doesn’t,” she said. “Now as we plan for what tutoring will look like with Denver Public Schools’ money, we can think about all the things we learned and do it differently.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One aspect DPS will likely keep, Thompson said, is outcomes-based contracting. While the concept has been around for years in industries such as health care and construction, it’s new in K-12 education, with about 13 school districts actively participating, said Brittany Miller, the director of outcomes-based contracting for the Georgia-based Southern Education Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before Miller worked for the foundation, she worked for DPS and helped set up the outcomes-based tutoring contracts. The benefit, she said, is that school districts have a tangible way to judge whether the results are worth the millions of dollars they spend on external vendors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a lack of infrastructure in K-12 education, particularly in the procurement process, to say, ‘After we spent these funds, what happened for kids?’” Miller said. “This shores up a lot of that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Miller said outcomes-based contracting benefits vendors, too, because it sets clear expectations rather than the fuzzy goals that companies sometimes complain about. It also gives the companies the opportunity to earn more money for good performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Toni Rader, vice president of learning quality and operations for Cignition, said the company has been doing outcomes-based contracts with districts since 2021.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We love to do outcomes-based contracts,”\u003cb> \u003c/b>Rader said. “It’s helpful for all parties involved, because it makes it clear what we’re shooting for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for DPS, its state grant goes through this school year. But Thompson said the dollar amount is much lower this year, and there are new restrictions. DPS will have just $400,000 to spend, and only on middle school math tutoring, for which the district will request proposals soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Amid youth mental health crisis, a Colorado district creates a school for students who need more support",
"headTitle": "Amid youth mental health crisis, a Colorado district creates a school for students who need more support | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was \u003ca href=\"https://co.chalkbeat.org/2023/9/19/23881349/traverse-academy-cherry-creek-mental-health-facility-severe-needs-first-of-its-kind\" rel=\"canonical\">originally published\u003c/a> by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://ckbe.at/newsletters\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>ckbe.at/newsletters\u003c/u>\u003c/a>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next month, the Cherry Creek School District will open a first-of-its-kind facility — part school, part therapeutic mental health facility — to meet the needs of students in crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The number of facilities in Colorado that serve students with intense mental health or behavioral needs \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://co.chalkbeat.org/2023/5/11/23716068/special-education-colorado-facility-schools-behavioral-mental-health-last-resort\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">has drastically dwindled over the past 20 years\u003c/a>, leaving many children without critical care. The new Traverse Academy is an effort to address that problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once open, it will serve students ages 10 to 18 who have severe behavioral, social, or emotional challenges, or are experiencing serious depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress syndrome, or suicidal ideation, district officials said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This school will save lives,” said Cherry Creek Superintendent Chris Smith.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_62420\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1680px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-62420\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb4.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1680\" height=\"1110\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb4.jpeg 1680w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb4-800x529.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb4-1020x674.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb4-160x106.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb4-768x507.jpeg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb4-1536x1015.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1680px) 100vw, 1680px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tony Poole, the assistant superintendent of special populations for Cherry Creek School District, shows off one of the transition classrooms at Traverse Academy. \u003ccite>(Melanie Asmar/Chalkbeat)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Officials in the suburban district southeast of Denver gave tours Tuesday of the new building, which was built with $19 million in voter-approved bond funding. It was carefully designed not to feel like a clinic or hospital, said Tony Poole, assistant superintendent of special populations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it doesn’t feel like a traditional school, either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The walls are painted soft greens, blues, and purples, and the corners are rounded. There is a nook under the staircase where students can go if they’re feeling overwhelmed. The windows are oversized, letting in plenty of natural light, with benches underneath where students can sit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside, there are two open-air amphitheater classrooms, a boulder for students to climb, and a painted labyrinth. The main foyer has couches and a coffee bar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we talk about de-institutionalizing mental health, it starts right when you walk through the door and how you feel,” Poole said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_62418\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1680px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-62418\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb2.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1680\" height=\"1110\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb2.jpeg 1680w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb2-800x529.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb2-1020x674.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb2-160x106.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb2-768x507.jpeg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb2-1536x1015.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1680px) 100vw, 1680px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The walls at Traverse Academy are painted soft greens, blues and purples, and the corners are rounded. \u003ccite>(Melanie Asmar/Chalkbeat)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At full capacity, Traverse Academy will serve between 48 and 60 students in grades four through 12. Students will be referred by the social workers or psychologists at their schools, and parents must agree to the placement. Students won’t be at Traverse all year; Poole said a typical stay might be as short as eight weeks or as long as five months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The facility is split into three pods that Traverse calls “home bases”: one for students with severe needs, another for students with moderate needs, and the third to help prepare students to transition back to their middle or high schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The severe and moderate pods have a main classroom with tables for schoolwork, as well as a group therapy room with comfy chairs and beanbags, and two smaller rooms for students to take breaks or receive individual therapy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each student will receive nine hours of individual, group, or family therapy per week, which Poole said is nearly the same amount children get in residential treatment facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are also hidden design features meant to keep students safe. The doors have special hinges that allow them to swing both ways, so students can’t barricade themselves in a room, Poole said, and other features help deter suicide attempts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The transitional pods look different, with square classrooms, a wall of lockers, and fewer therapy rooms. The idea is that students will advance through the pods, their progress signified by different color schemes, as they reacclimate to a traditional school setting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everything is really programmed, down to the bolts, down to the shapes of the walls, down to the way things are secured, so that we are student-centered,” said Traverse Academy Principal Kimberly Avalos, who started her career as a Cherry Creek teacher and rose to work on special education for the entire district, with a focus on students with emotional disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are investing in them and showing them they are important and matter,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_62421\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1680px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-62421\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb5.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1680\" height=\"1110\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb5.jpeg 1680w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb5-800x529.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb5-1020x674.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb5-160x106.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb5-768x507.jpeg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb5-1536x1015.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1680px) 100vw, 1680px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">One of two “innovation rooms” at Traverse Academy. This room – dubbed Messy Mesa – will be used for messy projects such as chemistry experiments, pottery and painting. \u003ccite>(Melanie Asmar/Chalkbeat)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>School psychologist John Smrcka is one of the 30 mental health providers and teachers who will work on the Traverse Academy staff, which will be a mix of Cherry Creek employees and clinical staff from the University of Colorado Department of Psychiatry. Smrcka said he was inspired to apply for the position after realizing how unique Traverse Academy would be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Here in a school setting, we’ll be able to provide treatment,” he said. “As a school psychologist in a typical public school, we’re not supposed to do clinical treatment. We’re just going to help the class manage the behavior — but we’re not going to try and address it at a root level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Traverse is going to be an opportunity to do some things differently,” Smrcka said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former Cherry Creek student Jacob Eggleston will be one of six paraprofessionals at Traverse. Eggleston said he himself struggled with suicide, depression, and anger as a student.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want to be a role model and be an example and point them in the right direction,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Traverse Academy is not set to open until Oct. 23, but Poole said there are already 30 students on a waiting list. Those 30 students haven’t been able to get into the dwindling number of privately run facility schools around the state, and so have been waiting in hospitals or at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This can’t open soon enough,” Poole said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://co.chalkbeat.org/2023/9/19/23881349/traverse-academy-cherry-creek-mental-health-facility-severe-needs-first-of-its-kind\" rel=\"canonical\">\u003cem>Chalkbeat\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was \u003ca href=\"https://co.chalkbeat.org/2023/9/19/23881349/traverse-academy-cherry-creek-mental-health-facility-severe-needs-first-of-its-kind\" rel=\"canonical\">originally published\u003c/a> by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://ckbe.at/newsletters\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>ckbe.at/newsletters\u003c/u>\u003c/a>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next month, the Cherry Creek School District will open a first-of-its-kind facility — part school, part therapeutic mental health facility — to meet the needs of students in crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The number of facilities in Colorado that serve students with intense mental health or behavioral needs \u003ca class=\"Link\" href=\"https://co.chalkbeat.org/2023/5/11/23716068/special-education-colorado-facility-schools-behavioral-mental-health-last-resort\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">has drastically dwindled over the past 20 years\u003c/a>, leaving many children without critical care. The new Traverse Academy is an effort to address that problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once open, it will serve students ages 10 to 18 who have severe behavioral, social, or emotional challenges, or are experiencing serious depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress syndrome, or suicidal ideation, district officials said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This school will save lives,” said Cherry Creek Superintendent Chris Smith.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_62420\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1680px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-62420\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb4.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1680\" height=\"1110\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb4.jpeg 1680w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb4-800x529.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb4-1020x674.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb4-160x106.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb4-768x507.jpeg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb4-1536x1015.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1680px) 100vw, 1680px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tony Poole, the assistant superintendent of special populations for Cherry Creek School District, shows off one of the transition classrooms at Traverse Academy. \u003ccite>(Melanie Asmar/Chalkbeat)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Officials in the suburban district southeast of Denver gave tours Tuesday of the new building, which was built with $19 million in voter-approved bond funding. It was carefully designed not to feel like a clinic or hospital, said Tony Poole, assistant superintendent of special populations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it doesn’t feel like a traditional school, either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The walls are painted soft greens, blues, and purples, and the corners are rounded. There is a nook under the staircase where students can go if they’re feeling overwhelmed. The windows are oversized, letting in plenty of natural light, with benches underneath where students can sit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside, there are two open-air amphitheater classrooms, a boulder for students to climb, and a painted labyrinth. The main foyer has couches and a coffee bar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we talk about de-institutionalizing mental health, it starts right when you walk through the door and how you feel,” Poole said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_62418\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1680px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-62418\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb2.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1680\" height=\"1110\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb2.jpeg 1680w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb2-800x529.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb2-1020x674.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb2-160x106.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb2-768x507.jpeg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb2-1536x1015.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1680px) 100vw, 1680px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The walls at Traverse Academy are painted soft greens, blues and purples, and the corners are rounded. \u003ccite>(Melanie Asmar/Chalkbeat)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At full capacity, Traverse Academy will serve between 48 and 60 students in grades four through 12. Students will be referred by the social workers or psychologists at their schools, and parents must agree to the placement. Students won’t be at Traverse all year; Poole said a typical stay might be as short as eight weeks or as long as five months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The facility is split into three pods that Traverse calls “home bases”: one for students with severe needs, another for students with moderate needs, and the third to help prepare students to transition back to their middle or high schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The severe and moderate pods have a main classroom with tables for schoolwork, as well as a group therapy room with comfy chairs and beanbags, and two smaller rooms for students to take breaks or receive individual therapy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each student will receive nine hours of individual, group, or family therapy per week, which Poole said is nearly the same amount children get in residential treatment facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are also hidden design features meant to keep students safe. The doors have special hinges that allow them to swing both ways, so students can’t barricade themselves in a room, Poole said, and other features help deter suicide attempts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The transitional pods look different, with square classrooms, a wall of lockers, and fewer therapy rooms. The idea is that students will advance through the pods, their progress signified by different color schemes, as they reacclimate to a traditional school setting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everything is really programmed, down to the bolts, down to the shapes of the walls, down to the way things are secured, so that we are student-centered,” said Traverse Academy Principal Kimberly Avalos, who started her career as a Cherry Creek teacher and rose to work on special education for the entire district, with a focus on students with emotional disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are investing in them and showing them they are important and matter,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_62421\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1680px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-62421\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb5.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1680\" height=\"1110\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb5.jpeg 1680w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb5-800x529.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb5-1020x674.jpeg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb5-160x106.jpeg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb5-768x507.jpeg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/09/cb5-1536x1015.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1680px) 100vw, 1680px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">One of two “innovation rooms” at Traverse Academy. This room – dubbed Messy Mesa – will be used for messy projects such as chemistry experiments, pottery and painting. \u003ccite>(Melanie Asmar/Chalkbeat)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>School psychologist John Smrcka is one of the 30 mental health providers and teachers who will work on the Traverse Academy staff, which will be a mix of Cherry Creek employees and clinical staff from the University of Colorado Department of Psychiatry. Smrcka said he was inspired to apply for the position after realizing how unique Traverse Academy would be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Here in a school setting, we’ll be able to provide treatment,” he said. “As a school psychologist in a typical public school, we’re not supposed to do clinical treatment. We’re just going to help the class manage the behavior — but we’re not going to try and address it at a root level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Traverse is going to be an opportunity to do some things differently,” Smrcka said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former Cherry Creek student Jacob Eggleston will be one of six paraprofessionals at Traverse. Eggleston said he himself struggled with suicide, depression, and anger as a student.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I want to be a role model and be an example and point them in the right direction,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Traverse Academy is not set to open until Oct. 23, but Poole said there are already 30 students on a waiting list. Those 30 students haven’t been able to get into the dwindling number of privately run facility schools around the state, and so have been waiting in hospitals or at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This can’t open soon enough,” Poole said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://co.chalkbeat.org/2023/9/19/23881349/traverse-academy-cherry-creek-mental-health-facility-severe-needs-first-of-its-kind\" rel=\"canonical\">\u003cem>Chalkbeat\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "As more teens overdose on fentanyl, schools face a drug crisis unlike any other",
"headTitle": "As more teens overdose on fentanyl, schools face a drug crisis unlike any other | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Before the overdose, Griffin Hoffmann \u003ca href=\"https://www.gofundme.com/f/expenses-for-griffins-family\">was a sophomore\u003c/a>, about to lead his Portland, Ore., high school’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23593247-ghmf-donor-sheet_fill\">tennis team\u003c/a>. Sienna Vaughn \u003ca href=\"https://siennasstory.org/\">was a junior\u003c/a> in Plano, Texas, who participated in Girl Scouts and cheerleading. Laird Ramirez \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/woman-who-lost-son-17-accidental-fentanyl-od-shares-story-with-channel-9/P5HDEZXY2NEITG3X5Z5EJOZZQU/\">was 17 years old \u003c/a> living near Charlotte and competing on his high school’s wrestling team. He was rarely seen without his skateboard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The teens thought they were taking prescription pills for pain and relaxation, drugs like Valium or Percocet, that they bought from friends or from social media. But the pills they took were counterfeits – they hadn’t come from a pharmacy and it turned out they contained fentanyl, a potent, often deadly, synthetic opioid. Just \u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.texas.gov/services/mental-health-substance-use/mental-health-substance-use-resources/fentanyl-one-pill-kills\">2 milligrams can kill you\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Griffin, Sienna and Laird’s deaths are part of a grim crisis happening all across the country. Their stories, taken from local news reports, are among the dozens NPR reviewed, and they illustrate a new challenge for schools this fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Fentanyl’s] infiltration into schools is certainly something that cannot be ignored,” says Alberto Carvalho, the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District. LAUSD is one of the largest districts to stock naloxone, a medicine that reverses opioid overdoses, throughout its schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We cannot close our eyes. We cannot look the other way,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fentanyl was involved in the vast \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7150a2.htm#:~\">majority of all teen overdose deaths\u003c/a> – 84% – in 2021, and the problem has been growing. According to the \u003ca href=\"https://blogs.cdc.gov/nchs/2023/05/03/7338/#:~:text=Fentanyl%20Overdose%20Death%20Rates%20More%20Than%20Tripled%20From%202016%20to%202021,-May%203%2C%202023&text=Drug%20overdose%20death%20rates%20involving,for%20Health%20Statistics%20(NCHS).\">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u003c/a>, fentanyl-related adolescent overdose deaths nearly tripled from 2019 to 2021. And nearly a quarter of those deaths involved counterfeit pills that weren’t prescribed by a doctor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lauren Tanz, an epidemiologist who studies overdose prevention at the CDC, says a number of factors contributed to these alarming numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The combination of more easily available drugs – particularly highly potent drugs like fentanyl that are available via social media and through counterfeit pills – and a mental health crisis among adolescents that was exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic is resulting in an increase in overdose deaths among kids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This academic year, education leaders are grappling with how to approach a drug use crisis unlike any they’ve seen before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If our students are having contact with these substances, considering the devastating implications and consequences,” says Carvalho, “then we need to be active participants in the solution, and not necessarily shy away from it or punt it to somebody else because it falls outside of the realm of traditional education.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Schools can’t do it alone\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>It’s happening all across the country – from Tennessee to Texas; from \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/montgomery-county-public-schools-warns-of-fentanyl-laced-drugs-after-students-overdose/3232794/\">Maryland\u003c/a> to Oregon. In some cases, \u003ca href=\"https://abcnews.go.com/US/teen-girl-charged-murder-after-classmates-die-fentanyl/story?id=99454523\">a single high school\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/wave-teen-fentanyl-overdoses-texas-community-grapples-shock-anger-epid-rcna74266\">school district\u003c/a> has seen multiple fentanyl overdose deaths. School buildings have \u003ca href=\"https://www.kvue.com/article/news/education/students-bring-awareness-fentanyl/269-a14e0257-0979-4fac-abd6-723b799e134a\">posters in the hallways\u003c/a> memorializing students who have died. Social media posts and \u003ca href=\"https://whiteaker.salkeiz.k12.or.us/school/school-news/\">back-to-school messages\u003c/a> from school staff include warnings and pleas to turn in pills students have bought online, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/Ca3NntTlh9l/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=90b822b8-ad6b-4c2f-8f63-126ea368ce26\">no questions asked\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to stocking naloxone – often known by the brand name Narcan – schools have revamped their drug awareness and prevention programs. Some are \u003ca href=\"https://tphnews.com/19959/opinions/editorials/editorial-fentanyl-awareness/\">promoting the use of test strips\u003c/a> to help identify if a pill contains fentanyl, although the small paper tests can still be considered drug paraphernalia and are \u003ca href=\"https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/lifesaving-fentanyl-test-strips-are-being-legalized-in-more-states-180982352/\">illegal in several states\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, warns schools are just one piece of the puzzle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t possibly do this alone. This is not a school crisis. This is a community crisis,” says the former middle school teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So it’s not just educators in schools. It’s parents and families. It’s the communities themselves. It’s every level of government. We have to come together. Too often, the ills of society find the way to our schoolhouse doors, but the resources of society don’t follow them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are multiple bipartisan pieces of federal legislation aimed at supporting schools in dealing with fentanyl, including \u003ca href=\"https://panetta.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-panetta-reintroduces-protecting-kids-fentanyl-act-2023\">one proposed bill that would give money\u003c/a> to schools to stock naloxone and train teachers and nurses in updated drug education.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Mourning families are often leading the charge\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Some families of students who have died have been frustrated with how schools are responding or say schools could do more. Of the 20 largest districts in the country, only five confirmed to NPR that they stocked naloxone in all of their schools last school year. And in schools across the country, drug education is ad-hoc, not standardized and oftentimes outdated. The 2021, the National Survey of Drug Use and Health found only about 60% of surveyed 12-17-year-olds self-reported that they saw or heard drug or alcohol prevention messaging in school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Avery Kalafatas, an 18-year-old from the Bay Area, says she knew nearly nothing about fentanyl until it killed her cousin, Aidan Mullin. He was like an older brother to Kalafatas; the two shared a love of the outdoors and camping. Mullin had an interest in agriculture, and a fondness for growing peppers and playing the guitar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In November of 2020, Mullin, then 18, took what he thought was a Percocet. It contained a lethal dose of fentanyl. His death was a devastating blow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And it took me a while in my grieving process to obviously get past the shock and the sadness of it. But in that process, I was honestly pretty angry that this wasn’t talked about more,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kalafatas began to educate herself about the synthetic opioid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As I became more aware of it through my cousin’s death, I really saw a big need for more education, both among parents, and especially teens.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kalafatas founded the nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://www.project1life.org/about\">Project 1 Life\u003c/a> with a mission to educate adolescents and foster youth-led conversations about fentanyl, the deadly and frighteningly ubiquitous opioid found in so many counterfeit pills. “This isn’t like the drug crisis we were dealing with 20 years ago, it’s a completely different ballgame,” Kalafatas says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A different ballgame because many students aren’t intentionally seeking out the deadly drug they’re overdosing on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ed Ternan, a father from Pasadena, Calif., runs the nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://songforcharlie.org/\">Song for Charlie\u003c/a> with his wife, Mary. They use social media to inform teens about fentanyl-laced counterfeit prescription pills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says the growing fentanyl crisis requires a new approach to how families and educators talk to students about drugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to revive drug education in America. In a way, we need to Narcan drug education – we need to breathe life into it, bring it back,” Ternan says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says they’ve learned from consulting with experts in youth mental health and drug education that the “just say no” message of the past isn’t an effective way to communicate with teenagers. Instead, they craft fact-based messages they hope teenagers will actually pay attention to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than focus on “Don’t do drugs, they might harm you,” Song for Charlie’s messaging is: “You’re getting ripped off. These dealers advertising on social media do not care. They don’t know you, they’re not your friend, and they are lying to you about what they’re selling you,” Ternan explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s what happened to Ternan’s youngest son, Charlie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was very much the calming influence…in our family,” he says. “A very steady, level-headed guy with more of a subtle, dry sense of humor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May 2020, Charlie was on his college campus in northern California. He was weeks away from graduation, and was prepping for a job interview. He was also in pain. Ternan says his son had recently undergone back surgery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Charlie purchased what he thought was a Percocet off of Snapchat. It contained fentanyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He actually took it a couple hours before he was supposed to have a job interview on the phone,” Ternan says. “And so he died very quickly in his room at his frat house waiting for the phone to ring at about four o’clock on a Thursday afternoon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After his son’s death, Ternan says most of the information about fentanyl he could find was buried on government websites and in a smattering of news articles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can put that information in those places for the next 10 years, and Charlie and his friends would never have seen it because that’s not where they are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where they are is on social media. Ternan and his wife funneled their grief into action; they founded their nonprofit and partnered with \u003ca href=\"https://values.snap.com/news/educating-snapchatters-on-the-dangers-of-fentanyl\">social media\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/national-fentanyl-awareness-day\">platforms\u003c/a> to disseminate information about fentanyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ternan says their messages also appeal to teenagers’ strong social bonds. He’s learned that telling teens to warn their friends about fentanyl is more powerful than stoking fear of their own harm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This kind of awareness could save lives. \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7150a2.htm#:~\">The latest research from the CDC found\u003c/a> there were bystanders present at two thirds of teen overdose deaths. Tanz, the CDC researcher, sees this as a potential opportunity for intervention and education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are people that were nearby who could have intervened or responded to the overdose,” she says. “It means we can educate family and friends to recognize warning signs … and that might improve bystander response and prevent deaths.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Peer-to-peer conversations have also been central to Kalafatas’ efforts at Project 1 Life. “Hearing it from someone that’s not an adult, parent, or teacher… makes it much more real,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the fentanyl crisis is an inflection point in our national conversation about drugs,” Ternan explains. “It’s forced us to look in the mirror and acknowledge our shortcomings and say we got to do better.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Kalafatas and Ternan want schools to use some of the lessons they’ve learned to educate students. With schools also struggling to address mental health, learning loss and so many other challenges, they say it’s been an uphill battle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But they also say it’s a necessary one. Schools have the potential to reach millions of kids if they decide to talk to and teach students about the dangers of fentanyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Having these conversations, and having them right, can be the difference between life and death,” Kalafatas says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Reported and written by: Elissa Nadworny and Lee V. Gaines\u003cbr>\nReporting contributed by: Sequoia Carrillo\u003cbr>\nEdited by: Nicole Cohen\u003cbr>\nVisual design and development by: LA Johnson\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=As+more+teens+overdose+on+fentanyl%2C+schools+face+a+drug+crisis+unlike+any+other&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Before the overdose, Griffin Hoffmann \u003ca href=\"https://www.gofundme.com/f/expenses-for-griffins-family\">was a sophomore\u003c/a>, about to lead his Portland, Ore., high school’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23593247-ghmf-donor-sheet_fill\">tennis team\u003c/a>. Sienna Vaughn \u003ca href=\"https://siennasstory.org/\">was a junior\u003c/a> in Plano, Texas, who participated in Girl Scouts and cheerleading. Laird Ramirez \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/woman-who-lost-son-17-accidental-fentanyl-od-shares-story-with-channel-9/P5HDEZXY2NEITG3X5Z5EJOZZQU/\">was 17 years old \u003c/a> living near Charlotte and competing on his high school’s wrestling team. He was rarely seen without his skateboard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The teens thought they were taking prescription pills for pain and relaxation, drugs like Valium or Percocet, that they bought from friends or from social media. But the pills they took were counterfeits – they hadn’t come from a pharmacy and it turned out they contained fentanyl, a potent, often deadly, synthetic opioid. Just \u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.texas.gov/services/mental-health-substance-use/mental-health-substance-use-resources/fentanyl-one-pill-kills\">2 milligrams can kill you\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Griffin, Sienna and Laird’s deaths are part of a grim crisis happening all across the country. Their stories, taken from local news reports, are among the dozens NPR reviewed, and they illustrate a new challenge for schools this fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Fentanyl’s] infiltration into schools is certainly something that cannot be ignored,” says Alberto Carvalho, the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District. LAUSD is one of the largest districts to stock naloxone, a medicine that reverses opioid overdoses, throughout its schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We cannot close our eyes. We cannot look the other way,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fentanyl was involved in the vast \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7150a2.htm#:~\">majority of all teen overdose deaths\u003c/a> – 84% – in 2021, and the problem has been growing. According to the \u003ca href=\"https://blogs.cdc.gov/nchs/2023/05/03/7338/#:~:text=Fentanyl%20Overdose%20Death%20Rates%20More%20Than%20Tripled%20From%202016%20to%202021,-May%203%2C%202023&text=Drug%20overdose%20death%20rates%20involving,for%20Health%20Statistics%20(NCHS).\">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u003c/a>, fentanyl-related adolescent overdose deaths nearly tripled from 2019 to 2021. And nearly a quarter of those deaths involved counterfeit pills that weren’t prescribed by a doctor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lauren Tanz, an epidemiologist who studies overdose prevention at the CDC, says a number of factors contributed to these alarming numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The combination of more easily available drugs – particularly highly potent drugs like fentanyl that are available via social media and through counterfeit pills – and a mental health crisis among adolescents that was exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic is resulting in an increase in overdose deaths among kids.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This academic year, education leaders are grappling with how to approach a drug use crisis unlike any they’ve seen before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If our students are having contact with these substances, considering the devastating implications and consequences,” says Carvalho, “then we need to be active participants in the solution, and not necessarily shy away from it or punt it to somebody else because it falls outside of the realm of traditional education.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Schools can’t do it alone\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>It’s happening all across the country – from Tennessee to Texas; from \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/montgomery-county-public-schools-warns-of-fentanyl-laced-drugs-after-students-overdose/3232794/\">Maryland\u003c/a> to Oregon. In some cases, \u003ca href=\"https://abcnews.go.com/US/teen-girl-charged-murder-after-classmates-die-fentanyl/story?id=99454523\">a single high school\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/wave-teen-fentanyl-overdoses-texas-community-grapples-shock-anger-epid-rcna74266\">school district\u003c/a> has seen multiple fentanyl overdose deaths. School buildings have \u003ca href=\"https://www.kvue.com/article/news/education/students-bring-awareness-fentanyl/269-a14e0257-0979-4fac-abd6-723b799e134a\">posters in the hallways\u003c/a> memorializing students who have died. Social media posts and \u003ca href=\"https://whiteaker.salkeiz.k12.or.us/school/school-news/\">back-to-school messages\u003c/a> from school staff include warnings and pleas to turn in pills students have bought online, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/Ca3NntTlh9l/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=90b822b8-ad6b-4c2f-8f63-126ea368ce26\">no questions asked\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to stocking naloxone – often known by the brand name Narcan – schools have revamped their drug awareness and prevention programs. Some are \u003ca href=\"https://tphnews.com/19959/opinions/editorials/editorial-fentanyl-awareness/\">promoting the use of test strips\u003c/a> to help identify if a pill contains fentanyl, although the small paper tests can still be considered drug paraphernalia and are \u003ca href=\"https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/lifesaving-fentanyl-test-strips-are-being-legalized-in-more-states-180982352/\">illegal in several states\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, warns schools are just one piece of the puzzle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t possibly do this alone. This is not a school crisis. This is a community crisis,” says the former middle school teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So it’s not just educators in schools. It’s parents and families. It’s the communities themselves. It’s every level of government. We have to come together. Too often, the ills of society find the way to our schoolhouse doors, but the resources of society don’t follow them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are multiple bipartisan pieces of federal legislation aimed at supporting schools in dealing with fentanyl, including \u003ca href=\"https://panetta.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-panetta-reintroduces-protecting-kids-fentanyl-act-2023\">one proposed bill that would give money\u003c/a> to schools to stock naloxone and train teachers and nurses in updated drug education.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Mourning families are often leading the charge\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Some families of students who have died have been frustrated with how schools are responding or say schools could do more. Of the 20 largest districts in the country, only five confirmed to NPR that they stocked naloxone in all of their schools last school year. And in schools across the country, drug education is ad-hoc, not standardized and oftentimes outdated. The 2021, the National Survey of Drug Use and Health found only about 60% of surveyed 12-17-year-olds self-reported that they saw or heard drug or alcohol prevention messaging in school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Avery Kalafatas, an 18-year-old from the Bay Area, says she knew nearly nothing about fentanyl until it killed her cousin, Aidan Mullin. He was like an older brother to Kalafatas; the two shared a love of the outdoors and camping. Mullin had an interest in agriculture, and a fondness for growing peppers and playing the guitar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In November of 2020, Mullin, then 18, took what he thought was a Percocet. It contained a lethal dose of fentanyl. His death was a devastating blow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And it took me a while in my grieving process to obviously get past the shock and the sadness of it. But in that process, I was honestly pretty angry that this wasn’t talked about more,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kalafatas began to educate herself about the synthetic opioid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As I became more aware of it through my cousin’s death, I really saw a big need for more education, both among parents, and especially teens.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kalafatas founded the nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://www.project1life.org/about\">Project 1 Life\u003c/a> with a mission to educate adolescents and foster youth-led conversations about fentanyl, the deadly and frighteningly ubiquitous opioid found in so many counterfeit pills. “This isn’t like the drug crisis we were dealing with 20 years ago, it’s a completely different ballgame,” Kalafatas says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A different ballgame because many students aren’t intentionally seeking out the deadly drug they’re overdosing on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ed Ternan, a father from Pasadena, Calif., runs the nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://songforcharlie.org/\">Song for Charlie\u003c/a> with his wife, Mary. They use social media to inform teens about fentanyl-laced counterfeit prescription pills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says the growing fentanyl crisis requires a new approach to how families and educators talk to students about drugs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to revive drug education in America. In a way, we need to Narcan drug education – we need to breathe life into it, bring it back,” Ternan says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says they’ve learned from consulting with experts in youth mental health and drug education that the “just say no” message of the past isn’t an effective way to communicate with teenagers. Instead, they craft fact-based messages they hope teenagers will actually pay attention to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than focus on “Don’t do drugs, they might harm you,” Song for Charlie’s messaging is: “You’re getting ripped off. These dealers advertising on social media do not care. They don’t know you, they’re not your friend, and they are lying to you about what they’re selling you,” Ternan explains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s what happened to Ternan’s youngest son, Charlie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was very much the calming influence…in our family,” he says. “A very steady, level-headed guy with more of a subtle, dry sense of humor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May 2020, Charlie was on his college campus in northern California. He was weeks away from graduation, and was prepping for a job interview. He was also in pain. Ternan says his son had recently undergone back surgery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Charlie purchased what he thought was a Percocet off of Snapchat. It contained fentanyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He actually took it a couple hours before he was supposed to have a job interview on the phone,” Ternan says. “And so he died very quickly in his room at his frat house waiting for the phone to ring at about four o’clock on a Thursday afternoon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After his son’s death, Ternan says most of the information about fentanyl he could find was buried on government websites and in a smattering of news articles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can put that information in those places for the next 10 years, and Charlie and his friends would never have seen it because that’s not where they are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where they are is on social media. Ternan and his wife funneled their grief into action; they founded their nonprofit and partnered with \u003ca href=\"https://values.snap.com/news/educating-snapchatters-on-the-dangers-of-fentanyl\">social media\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/national-fentanyl-awareness-day\">platforms\u003c/a> to disseminate information about fentanyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ternan says their messages also appeal to teenagers’ strong social bonds. He’s learned that telling teens to warn their friends about fentanyl is more powerful than stoking fear of their own harm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This kind of awareness could save lives. \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7150a2.htm#:~\">The latest research from the CDC found\u003c/a> there were bystanders present at two thirds of teen overdose deaths. Tanz, the CDC researcher, sees this as a potential opportunity for intervention and education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are people that were nearby who could have intervened or responded to the overdose,” she says. “It means we can educate family and friends to recognize warning signs … and that might improve bystander response and prevent deaths.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Peer-to-peer conversations have also been central to Kalafatas’ efforts at Project 1 Life. “Hearing it from someone that’s not an adult, parent, or teacher… makes it much more real,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the fentanyl crisis is an inflection point in our national conversation about drugs,” Ternan explains. “It’s forced us to look in the mirror and acknowledge our shortcomings and say we got to do better.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Kalafatas and Ternan want schools to use some of the lessons they’ve learned to educate students. With schools also struggling to address mental health, learning loss and so many other challenges, they say it’s been an uphill battle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But they also say it’s a necessary one. Schools have the potential to reach millions of kids if they decide to talk to and teach students about the dangers of fentanyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Having these conversations, and having them right, can be the difference between life and death,” Kalafatas says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Reported and written by: Elissa Nadworny and Lee V. Gaines\u003cbr>\nReporting contributed by: Sequoia Carrillo\u003cbr>\nEdited by: Nicole Cohen\u003cbr>\nVisual design and development by: LA Johnson\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=As+more+teens+overdose+on+fentanyl%2C+schools+face+a+drug+crisis+unlike+any+other&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Eric Hitchner teaches English on the fourth floor of a 111-year-old high school in Philadelphia. Come September, his classroom will be packed with a new crop of teenagers, but one thing will be the same: the lack of air conditioning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It can get so hot in his room, he says, “no one wants to even move, let alone do some strenuous thinking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He knows firsthand that even when the outside temperatures cool down, his classroom often doesn’t. Last September, when it was in the low 70s in Philadelphia, it was 86 degrees inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His SmartBoard, an interactive teaching device that the school district bought with COVID relief money, tells him the exact temperature and humidity level. He’s clocked it as high as 93 degrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Those things are not inexpensive,” he says. “I would have allocated that money for air conditioning. But nobody asked me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hitchner teaches in one of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-494\">estimated 36,000 public schools nationwide without adequate air conditioning\u003c/a>. As temperatures keep rising around much of the country – July was the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/08/14/1193723648/just-how-hot-was-july-hotter-than-anything-on-record#:~:text=Human%2Ddriven%20climate%20change%20pushed,taking%20began%20in%20the%201800s.\">hottest month on record \u003c/a>in earth’s history — schools are testing different approaches to beat the heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year the Philadelphia school district is starting the school year later than normal. A decision that Oz Hill, the district’s Chief Operating Officer, said was made to “reduce the likelihood that extreme temperatures would impact our ability to provide in-person instruction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As in many districts, school leaders in Philadelphia know that inadequate AC is a problem, but finding solutions can be complicated. Hitchner’s school, for example, was supposed to get AC years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We purchased them, we had them delivered. And then the school district told us that the electric grid couldn’t take that,” he says. “So they sat in storage for all those years and we’ve never had another one installed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It happens more than Jackie Nowicki, a director at the Government Accountability Office, expected. Her team conducted a nationally representative survey and visited 55 schools in 16 districts to look at infrastructure needs. One complaint came up again and again: Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems (HVAC).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report, released in 2020, found that an \u003ca href=\"https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-494\">estimated 41% of districts in the U.S. needed to update or replace HVAC in at least half their schools.\u003c/a> Many put off repairs due to unforeseen consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She recalls how one Maryland district had refitted its schools with air conditioning, but did not update the pipes and insulation that serviced the HVAC systems. The oversight led to moisture and condensation problems in the building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“School officials were concerned that … could lead to air quality and mold problems,” she says. “But to remedy those issues would cost over $1,000,000 for each building.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kate King, the head of the National Association of School Nurses, says her organization is always on alert for heat-related illness during the back-to-school season, but with higher temperatures this year it’s top of mind: “Especially with kids wearing their new fall school clothes … and then going out and running around on the playground.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>King, a nurse for Columbus City Schools in Ohio, says she’s always focused on keeping an eye out for students with chronic illnesses. Conditions like asthma, sickle cell, seizure disorders and diabetes can turn an uncomfortable situation – such as a hot classroom – into a dangerous one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond the health concerns, there are worries about learning loss, as well. \u003ca href=\"https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2016/9/28/21099093/is-it-getting-hot-in-here-if-so-you-re-less-likely-to-pass-a-high-stakes-test\">A study out of Harvard in 2016\u003c/a> looked at data from students in New York City Public Schools. Out of 4.5 million exams taken by almost 1 million students over a decade, the study concluded that students are more likely to fail an exam on a 90-degree day than on a 72-degree day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes, even when the classroom has AC, the temperatures are so hot outside that students lose out on learning time in order to cool off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Damaris Zamudio-Galvan is a first grade teacher at Aventura Community School in southeast Nashville. She’s been back in school since early August, with daily temperatures often between 90 and 100 degrees outside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On one recent day, she faced the difficult task of getting her students to focus for a math lesson right after coming inside from the heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of them just look completely worn out and miserable,” she said. “And I always feel terrible because they’re so tiny.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s had to get creative to keep them focused. There are a few rules: Each student must have to have a water bottle at all times. When they come back inside, they have to fill it up. And before they start their lesson, the whole class pauses for a moment to take some deep breaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=As+classes+resume+in+sweltering+heat%2C+many+schools+lack+air+conditioning+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Eric Hitchner teaches English on the fourth floor of a 111-year-old high school in Philadelphia. Come September, his classroom will be packed with a new crop of teenagers, but one thing will be the same: the lack of air conditioning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It can get so hot in his room, he says, “no one wants to even move, let alone do some strenuous thinking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He knows firsthand that even when the outside temperatures cool down, his classroom often doesn’t. Last September, when it was in the low 70s in Philadelphia, it was 86 degrees inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His SmartBoard, an interactive teaching device that the school district bought with COVID relief money, tells him the exact temperature and humidity level. He’s clocked it as high as 93 degrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Those things are not inexpensive,” he says. “I would have allocated that money for air conditioning. But nobody asked me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hitchner teaches in one of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-494\">estimated 36,000 public schools nationwide without adequate air conditioning\u003c/a>. As temperatures keep rising around much of the country – July was the \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/08/14/1193723648/just-how-hot-was-july-hotter-than-anything-on-record#:~:text=Human%2Ddriven%20climate%20change%20pushed,taking%20began%20in%20the%201800s.\">hottest month on record \u003c/a>in earth’s history — schools are testing different approaches to beat the heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year the Philadelphia school district is starting the school year later than normal. A decision that Oz Hill, the district’s Chief Operating Officer, said was made to “reduce the likelihood that extreme temperatures would impact our ability to provide in-person instruction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As in many districts, school leaders in Philadelphia know that inadequate AC is a problem, but finding solutions can be complicated. Hitchner’s school, for example, was supposed to get AC years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We purchased them, we had them delivered. And then the school district told us that the electric grid couldn’t take that,” he says. “So they sat in storage for all those years and we’ve never had another one installed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It happens more than Jackie Nowicki, a director at the Government Accountability Office, expected. Her team conducted a nationally representative survey and visited 55 schools in 16 districts to look at infrastructure needs. One complaint came up again and again: Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems (HVAC).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report, released in 2020, found that an \u003ca href=\"https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-494\">estimated 41% of districts in the U.S. needed to update or replace HVAC in at least half their schools.\u003c/a> Many put off repairs due to unforeseen consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She recalls how one Maryland district had refitted its schools with air conditioning, but did not update the pipes and insulation that serviced the HVAC systems. The oversight led to moisture and condensation problems in the building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“School officials were concerned that … could lead to air quality and mold problems,” she says. “But to remedy those issues would cost over $1,000,000 for each building.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kate King, the head of the National Association of School Nurses, says her organization is always on alert for heat-related illness during the back-to-school season, but with higher temperatures this year it’s top of mind: “Especially with kids wearing their new fall school clothes … and then going out and running around on the playground.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>King, a nurse for Columbus City Schools in Ohio, says she’s always focused on keeping an eye out for students with chronic illnesses. Conditions like asthma, sickle cell, seizure disorders and diabetes can turn an uncomfortable situation – such as a hot classroom – into a dangerous one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond the health concerns, there are worries about learning loss, as well. \u003ca href=\"https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2016/9/28/21099093/is-it-getting-hot-in-here-if-so-you-re-less-likely-to-pass-a-high-stakes-test\">A study out of Harvard in 2016\u003c/a> looked at data from students in New York City Public Schools. Out of 4.5 million exams taken by almost 1 million students over a decade, the study concluded that students are more likely to fail an exam on a 90-degree day than on a 72-degree day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes, even when the classroom has AC, the temperatures are so hot outside that students lose out on learning time in order to cool off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Damaris Zamudio-Galvan is a first grade teacher at Aventura Community School in southeast Nashville. She’s been back in school since early August, with daily temperatures often between 90 and 100 degrees outside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On one recent day, she faced the difficult task of getting her students to focus for a math lesson right after coming inside from the heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of them just look completely worn out and miserable,” she said. “And I always feel terrible because they’re so tiny.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s had to get creative to keep them focused. There are a few rules: Each student must have to have a water bottle at all times. When they come back inside, they have to fill it up. And before they start their lesson, the whole class pauses for a moment to take some deep breaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=As+classes+resume+in+sweltering+heat%2C+many+schools+lack+air+conditioning+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "New Jersey requires climate change education. A year in, here's how it's going",
"headTitle": "New Jersey requires climate change education. A year in, here’s how it’s going | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Evelyn Lansing, a senior at Hopewell Valley Central High School in Pennington, N.J., brushed purple glaze onto her clay tile as the school year came to an end in June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lansing and her classmates had spent weeks researching the impacts of human-caused climate change on their communities and their own lives. Their bas-relief tiles and the three-dimensional images sculpted onto them represented something each of them learned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lansing’s tile featured a blueberry branch – a nod to the rich agricultural heritage of New Jersey, which has earned it the nickname “the garden state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of those things that we are used to seeing aren’t going to be able to be grown here with the continuing climate change,” said Lansing, who comes from a family that grows their own food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Jersey – a state with roughly 130-miles of coastline – is already confronting multiple climate realities, from more frequent flooding and extreme heat to air pollution from wildfire smoke in Canada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In New Jersey classrooms, students are facing these realities head on. In 2020, the state became the first in the country to adopt \u003ca href=\"https://www.nj.gov/education/standards/climate/learning/gradeband/index.shtml\">standards requiring climate change to be taught across grade levels and in nearly all subjects\u003c/a> in K-12 public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those standards were rolled out last year, including in the ceramics class at Hopewell Valley Central High.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students in the class, like freshman Devin Brown, discovered that climate change threatens the state’s biodiversity. Brown grew up catching and releasing crayfish in New Jersey streams. She learned through her research that climate change is endangering their habitat, so she sculpted a crayfish onto her clay tile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_62264\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2400px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-62264\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/2-images-1-_custom-875fed1d7f166f539870824b7b2d83eec570e074.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2400\" height=\"1348\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/2-images-1-_custom-875fed1d7f166f539870824b7b2d83eec570e074.jpg 2400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/2-images-1-_custom-875fed1d7f166f539870824b7b2d83eec570e074-800x449.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/2-images-1-_custom-875fed1d7f166f539870824b7b2d83eec570e074-1020x573.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/2-images-1-_custom-875fed1d7f166f539870824b7b2d83eec570e074-160x90.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/2-images-1-_custom-875fed1d7f166f539870824b7b2d83eec570e074-768x431.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/2-images-1-_custom-875fed1d7f166f539870824b7b2d83eec570e074-1536x863.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/2-images-1-_custom-875fed1d7f166f539870824b7b2d83eec570e074-2048x1150.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/2-images-1-_custom-875fed1d7f166f539870824b7b2d83eec570e074-1920x1078.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2400px) 100vw, 2400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Hopewell Valley Central High School freshman Devin Brown’s tile shows a crayfish – several species of which are currently endangered – to show how climate change is threatening New Jersey’s biodiversity. Right: Senior Evelyn Lansing’s tile features a blueberry branch, a popular berry in New Jersey, to communicate her concerns about the effects of climate change on agriculture. \u003ccite>(Carolyn McGrath)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I think art is a really powerful way to spread awareness about climate change,” Brown said. “And I think it can really connect to parts of people that studies and articles do not.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown and Lansing’s art teacher Carolyn McGrath said she encourages students to think of art as a tool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How do we use art to address climate change, or how do we use art to explore feelings about climate change or to communicate about climate change or to motivate people to do something about climate change, right? So, this is the power of art,” McGrath said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Setting the standards\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Lauren Madden, a professor of elementary science education at The College of New Jersey, advised the New Jersey Department of Education and First Lady Tammy Murphy’s office as they developed the new standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate change instruction in K-12 schools is long overdue, Madden said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve decided to take young children seriously. We’ve decided that this is something we can unpack in the early years,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To promote climate literacy, especially in the early years of school, climate change education should be accessible, Madden said. Climate change education doesn’t have to be complex for young students to understand what it means.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can really get into a lot of the foundational information, looking at graphs and photographs and maps and places that things have changed over time and get into some of that solution-building at an earlier age,” Madden said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Jersey set aside \u003ca href=\"https://www.njsba.org/news-publications/school-board-notes/february-22-2023-vol-xlvi-no-27/njdoe-allocates-4-5m-in-grants-to-support-climate-change-education-in-schools/\">$4.5 million in grants in 2023 \u003c/a>to support and train educators and ensure students in underserved districts also have access to climate change education. The state has appropriated another $5 million toward climate change education in its 2024 fiscal year budget, New Jersey Department of Education spokesperson Laura Fredrick said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://njclimateeducation.org/\">New Jersey Climate Education Hub\u003c/a> also helps teachers by sharing instructional materials that educators working across different subject areas can use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other states, \u003ca href=\"https://ctmirror.org/2022/05/19/ct-schools-will-soon-be-required-to-teach-climate-change/\">like Connecticut\u003c/a>, are trying to follow in New Jersey’s footsteps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_62265\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-62265\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6741-1-_custom-ac8331614ce52c5278e14e26e4f63d6ee55605de-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1889\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6741-1-_custom-ac8331614ce52c5278e14e26e4f63d6ee55605de-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6741-1-_custom-ac8331614ce52c5278e14e26e4f63d6ee55605de-800x590.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6741-1-_custom-ac8331614ce52c5278e14e26e4f63d6ee55605de-1020x753.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6741-1-_custom-ac8331614ce52c5278e14e26e4f63d6ee55605de-160x118.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6741-1-_custom-ac8331614ce52c5278e14e26e4f63d6ee55605de-768x567.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6741-1-_custom-ac8331614ce52c5278e14e26e4f63d6ee55605de-1536x1134.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6741-1-_custom-ac8331614ce52c5278e14e26e4f63d6ee55605de-2048x1511.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6741-1-_custom-ac8331614ce52c5278e14e26e4f63d6ee55605de-1920x1417.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hopewell Valley Central High School freshman Devin Brown said that learning about climate change this school year has made her feel that she can make a difference. “I just think about how the small things really impact and how everyone has the ability to really impact and help our earth,” she said. \u003ccite>(Seyma Bayram/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>An interdisciplinary approach to climate education\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Now, students learn about climate change not only in McGrath’s ceramics class, but in most subjects including physical education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Suzanne Horsley’s wellness class at Toll Gate Grammar School in Pennington, students sit in a circle in the gym. Horsley’s students are usually outside, but on this day, they are indoors because of wildfire smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We just experienced this week some very interesting air quality, correct?,” Horsley asks the class. The students nod and chant “Yes” in unison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smoke from \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/07/11/1187105458/this-is-canadas-worst-fire-season-in-modern-history-but-its-not-new\">Canadian wildfires\u003c/a> has swept across much of the northeast and other parts of the country this summer, including New Jersey. In Pennington, the air quality index in June had reached hazardous levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are experiencing that and that impacts our health,” Horsley explained to her students. She then launched into a lesson on the carbon cycle and the impacts of air pollution on the cardiorespiratory system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The game Horsley’s students played on that June day helped them understand the impacts of wildfire smoke on air quality and on the body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students were stationed in pairs in colored zones in the gym – yellow, orange and pink. The colors represented different air quality zones, with pink being the worst.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students threw same-colored scarves in the air to their partner who then had to run to catch the scarf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students in the pink zone had to run the farthest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fourth grader Charlie Belli said moving helps him deal with his own anxiety about climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Running around makes me feel, like, less stressed about climate change,” Belli said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_62262\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-62262\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7296-1-_custom-74244e743d6183d44f375e8325862fe354e171f3-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1964\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7296-1-_custom-74244e743d6183d44f375e8325862fe354e171f3-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7296-1-_custom-74244e743d6183d44f375e8325862fe354e171f3-800x614.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7296-1-_custom-74244e743d6183d44f375e8325862fe354e171f3-1020x782.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7296-1-_custom-74244e743d6183d44f375e8325862fe354e171f3-160x123.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7296-1-_custom-74244e743d6183d44f375e8325862fe354e171f3-768x589.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7296-1-_custom-74244e743d6183d44f375e8325862fe354e171f3-1536x1178.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7296-1-_custom-74244e743d6183d44f375e8325862fe354e171f3-2048x1571.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7296-1-_custom-74244e743d6183d44f375e8325862fe354e171f3-1920x1473.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In Suzanne Horsley’s wellness classes at Toll Gate Grammar School in Pennington, N.J., elementary students learn about the health impacts of climate change. They play games that demonstrate what they have learned. \u003ccite>(Seyma Bayram/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/climate-change-psychological-distress-prevalence/\">study published in July\u003c/a> by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found that at least 7% of American adults experience some form of psychological distress due to climate change. Younger adults and Hispanic populations reported the highest levels of psychological distress related to climate change according to the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Climate change, it’s a part of the lives of the students these days, so really every possible subject area that can teach it should be teaching it,” Horsley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She emphasized the importance of teaching climate change across different subject areas – not only because climate change impacts all aspects of young people’s lives, but also because each student has a different learning style.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Teaching it in wellness class in addition to other subject areas allows students who are passionate in one subject or another to find perhaps new knowledge in a way that would be more appropriate for them,” Horsley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Pushback against climate change education\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Not everyone thinks climate change should be taught in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conservative states like Idaho and Texas have pushed back on such instruction in K-12 schools in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Idaho, the \u003ca href=\"https://thegroundtruthproject.org/inside-idahos-long-legislative-battle-over-climate-change-education/\">state legislature repeatedly rejected learning standards\u003c/a> that mentioned climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Texas, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/texas-weakens-climate-science-education-guidelines/\">state board of education issued guidance\u003c/a> to schools last spring encouraging them to highlight the “positive” aspects of the fossil fuel industry in instructional materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After an outcry from the school board earlier this year, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.readingeagle.com/2023/02/09/kutztown-one-book-one-school-literacy-program-halted-after-outcry-over-books-focus-on-climate-change/\">Kutztown School District in Pennsylvania\u003c/a> banned a popular young adult novel about middle schoolers navigating climate disasters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pushback has also extended to college campuses. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/135/sb83\">senate bill in Ohio\u003c/a> this year would require public university and college professors to teach the “scientific strengths and weaknesses” of climate change, despite the overwhelming \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/24/scientific-consensus-on-humans-causing-global-warming-passes-99\">scientific consensus on climate change\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of this is happening despite studies that show most parents in the nation favor climate change being taught in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/04/22/714262267/most-teachers-dont-teach-climate-change-4-in-5-parents-wish-they-did\">2019 NPR and Ipsos poll\u003c/a> found that more than 80% of parents nationwide supported climate change instruction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The resistance to climate change instruction is not an accident, said investigative reporter Katie Worth who wrote \u003ca href=\"https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/miseducation/\">a book on how climate change is taught in America\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She traces the pushback against climate education to the fossil fuel industry and its decades-long effort to sow doubt about climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know from memos that came from the industry that they literally thought about how to get kids to doubt climate change. There was a meeting in which leaders of the fossil fuel industry got together and they discussed ‘how are we going to get our messages in front of kids?’ And they succeeded at that,” Worth said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results of those efforts, she said, are evident in textbooks and learning standards that undermine the science of, or scientific consensus on, climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sowing doubt about climate change, Worth said, allows the fossil fuel industry to maintain its business interests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you seed that into kids, you’re protecting your business in the future, too, because now you’re creating future doubters about climate change and it really pays off,” Worth said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even in New Jersey, where \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.fdu.edu/news/fdu-poll-jersey-residents-support-teaching-climate-change-in-schools/&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1690553109910917&usg=AOvVaw2ae2GgHO4T7_78OP0ktIq1\">70% of residents support climate change education\u003c/a>, some parents oppose it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_62266\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-62266\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7219_custom-f4bdbe099c98bffded85bb20042d8136d830a9ad-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1919\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7219_custom-f4bdbe099c98bffded85bb20042d8136d830a9ad-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7219_custom-f4bdbe099c98bffded85bb20042d8136d830a9ad-800x600.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7219_custom-f4bdbe099c98bffded85bb20042d8136d830a9ad-1020x764.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7219_custom-f4bdbe099c98bffded85bb20042d8136d830a9ad-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7219_custom-f4bdbe099c98bffded85bb20042d8136d830a9ad-768x576.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7219_custom-f4bdbe099c98bffded85bb20042d8136d830a9ad-1536x1151.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7219_custom-f4bdbe099c98bffded85bb20042d8136d830a9ad-2048x1535.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7219_custom-f4bdbe099c98bffded85bb20042d8136d830a9ad-1920x1439.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Albert Morales, assistant principal at Rosa International Middle School in Cherry Hill, N.J., said state-mandated climate change instruction protects teachers and students from efforts to deny climate change education. \u003ccite>(Seyma Bayram/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The state’s standards \u003ca href=\"https://www.nj.gov/education/standards/climate/learning/gradeband/index.shtml\">apply to seven subjects\u003c/a>, with plans to expand into English Language Arts and math classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a public hearing in May, members of a group called \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/groups/440515696704904\">Team Protect Your Children\u003c/a> spoke out against those plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kathleen Kirk was one of them. She took issue with elementary students learning about climate change, which she described as a “theory” during the hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Climate change is based on weak science,” Kirk said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Comments like Kirk’s are why state-mandated climate change instruction is important, said Albert Morales, assistant principal at Rosa International Middle School in Cherry Hill, N.J.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morales said state-mandated climate change instruction protects students and teachers from efforts to deny climate education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because we are a public school and if they are in the standards, then those are things that we are mandated to teach,” Morales said. “So I think the fact that New Jersey has those standards is in a way a protection that allows us to teach about what’s actually happening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Horsley, who teaches the wellness class at Toll Gate Grammar School, said before New Jersey adopted the standards, she worried about teaching climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t want to get in hot water, if you will, in a district that maybe thought this wasn’t appropriate,” Horsley recalled. “So the second it became our standard, it was something I was anxious and quick to jump on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Climate change education resonates with students\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>For students in New Jersey, like junior Lucy Webster at Hopewell Valley Central High, climate change education has been empowering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Webster still thinks about the first time she learned about climate change, long before the state mandate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As a little kid, I was really scared of the changes in the extreme weather that was going on around me and missing school because of hurricanes,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her 5th grade science teacher Helen Corveleyn helped.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_62267\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-62267\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6888_custom-fc114393647094ae8f05a4a66416f3202598b36f-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1919\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6888_custom-fc114393647094ae8f05a4a66416f3202598b36f-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6888_custom-fc114393647094ae8f05a4a66416f3202598b36f-800x600.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6888_custom-fc114393647094ae8f05a4a66416f3202598b36f-1020x764.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6888_custom-fc114393647094ae8f05a4a66416f3202598b36f-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6888_custom-fc114393647094ae8f05a4a66416f3202598b36f-768x576.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6888_custom-fc114393647094ae8f05a4a66416f3202598b36f-1536x1151.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6888_custom-fc114393647094ae8f05a4a66416f3202598b36f-2048x1535.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6888_custom-fc114393647094ae8f05a4a66416f3202598b36f-1920x1439.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left to right: Iris Lautermilch, Tabitha Webster, Lucy Webster and Benjamin Pollara are members of the Youth Environmental Society at Hopewell Valley Central High School in Pennington, N.J. The group wants to see climate change taught in every class at their school. \u003ccite>(Seyma Bayram/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Her telling me why these were happening made me feel like I could do something about it even though I was like 11,” Webster said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, Webster helps lead the Youth Environmental Society at her high school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group, which McGrath mentors, is working on a climate action plan with parents, teachers and students. Their goals include getting their school to transition to electric buses and to train guidance counselors in climate mental health awareness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students also want climate change to be taught in every classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June, the group wrote a letter to the New Jersey Board of Education urging the board to adopt the new English Language Arts and math standards that would include climate change. The board is reviewing the standards and an official vote has not been set.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=New+Jersey+requires+climate+change+education.+A+year+in%2C+here%27s+how+it%27s+going&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Evelyn Lansing, a senior at Hopewell Valley Central High School in Pennington, N.J., brushed purple glaze onto her clay tile as the school year came to an end in June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lansing and her classmates had spent weeks researching the impacts of human-caused climate change on their communities and their own lives. Their bas-relief tiles and the three-dimensional images sculpted onto them represented something each of them learned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lansing’s tile featured a blueberry branch – a nod to the rich agricultural heritage of New Jersey, which has earned it the nickname “the garden state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of those things that we are used to seeing aren’t going to be able to be grown here with the continuing climate change,” said Lansing, who comes from a family that grows their own food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Jersey – a state with roughly 130-miles of coastline – is already confronting multiple climate realities, from more frequent flooding and extreme heat to air pollution from wildfire smoke in Canada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In New Jersey classrooms, students are facing these realities head on. In 2020, the state became the first in the country to adopt \u003ca href=\"https://www.nj.gov/education/standards/climate/learning/gradeband/index.shtml\">standards requiring climate change to be taught across grade levels and in nearly all subjects\u003c/a> in K-12 public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those standards were rolled out last year, including in the ceramics class at Hopewell Valley Central High.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students in the class, like freshman Devin Brown, discovered that climate change threatens the state’s biodiversity. Brown grew up catching and releasing crayfish in New Jersey streams. She learned through her research that climate change is endangering their habitat, so she sculpted a crayfish onto her clay tile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_62264\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2400px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-62264\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/2-images-1-_custom-875fed1d7f166f539870824b7b2d83eec570e074.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2400\" height=\"1348\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/2-images-1-_custom-875fed1d7f166f539870824b7b2d83eec570e074.jpg 2400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/2-images-1-_custom-875fed1d7f166f539870824b7b2d83eec570e074-800x449.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/2-images-1-_custom-875fed1d7f166f539870824b7b2d83eec570e074-1020x573.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/2-images-1-_custom-875fed1d7f166f539870824b7b2d83eec570e074-160x90.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/2-images-1-_custom-875fed1d7f166f539870824b7b2d83eec570e074-768x431.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/2-images-1-_custom-875fed1d7f166f539870824b7b2d83eec570e074-1536x863.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/2-images-1-_custom-875fed1d7f166f539870824b7b2d83eec570e074-2048x1150.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/2-images-1-_custom-875fed1d7f166f539870824b7b2d83eec570e074-1920x1078.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2400px) 100vw, 2400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Hopewell Valley Central High School freshman Devin Brown’s tile shows a crayfish – several species of which are currently endangered – to show how climate change is threatening New Jersey’s biodiversity. Right: Senior Evelyn Lansing’s tile features a blueberry branch, a popular berry in New Jersey, to communicate her concerns about the effects of climate change on agriculture. \u003ccite>(Carolyn McGrath)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I think art is a really powerful way to spread awareness about climate change,” Brown said. “And I think it can really connect to parts of people that studies and articles do not.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brown and Lansing’s art teacher Carolyn McGrath said she encourages students to think of art as a tool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How do we use art to address climate change, or how do we use art to explore feelings about climate change or to communicate about climate change or to motivate people to do something about climate change, right? So, this is the power of art,” McGrath said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Setting the standards\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Lauren Madden, a professor of elementary science education at The College of New Jersey, advised the New Jersey Department of Education and First Lady Tammy Murphy’s office as they developed the new standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate change instruction in K-12 schools is long overdue, Madden said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve decided to take young children seriously. We’ve decided that this is something we can unpack in the early years,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To promote climate literacy, especially in the early years of school, climate change education should be accessible, Madden said. Climate change education doesn’t have to be complex for young students to understand what it means.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can really get into a lot of the foundational information, looking at graphs and photographs and maps and places that things have changed over time and get into some of that solution-building at an earlier age,” Madden said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Jersey set aside \u003ca href=\"https://www.njsba.org/news-publications/school-board-notes/february-22-2023-vol-xlvi-no-27/njdoe-allocates-4-5m-in-grants-to-support-climate-change-education-in-schools/\">$4.5 million in grants in 2023 \u003c/a>to support and train educators and ensure students in underserved districts also have access to climate change education. The state has appropriated another $5 million toward climate change education in its 2024 fiscal year budget, New Jersey Department of Education spokesperson Laura Fredrick said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://njclimateeducation.org/\">New Jersey Climate Education Hub\u003c/a> also helps teachers by sharing instructional materials that educators working across different subject areas can use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other states, \u003ca href=\"https://ctmirror.org/2022/05/19/ct-schools-will-soon-be-required-to-teach-climate-change/\">like Connecticut\u003c/a>, are trying to follow in New Jersey’s footsteps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_62265\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-62265\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6741-1-_custom-ac8331614ce52c5278e14e26e4f63d6ee55605de-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1889\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6741-1-_custom-ac8331614ce52c5278e14e26e4f63d6ee55605de-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6741-1-_custom-ac8331614ce52c5278e14e26e4f63d6ee55605de-800x590.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6741-1-_custom-ac8331614ce52c5278e14e26e4f63d6ee55605de-1020x753.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6741-1-_custom-ac8331614ce52c5278e14e26e4f63d6ee55605de-160x118.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6741-1-_custom-ac8331614ce52c5278e14e26e4f63d6ee55605de-768x567.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6741-1-_custom-ac8331614ce52c5278e14e26e4f63d6ee55605de-1536x1134.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6741-1-_custom-ac8331614ce52c5278e14e26e4f63d6ee55605de-2048x1511.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6741-1-_custom-ac8331614ce52c5278e14e26e4f63d6ee55605de-1920x1417.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hopewell Valley Central High School freshman Devin Brown said that learning about climate change this school year has made her feel that she can make a difference. “I just think about how the small things really impact and how everyone has the ability to really impact and help our earth,” she said. \u003ccite>(Seyma Bayram/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>An interdisciplinary approach to climate education\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Now, students learn about climate change not only in McGrath’s ceramics class, but in most subjects including physical education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Suzanne Horsley’s wellness class at Toll Gate Grammar School in Pennington, students sit in a circle in the gym. Horsley’s students are usually outside, but on this day, they are indoors because of wildfire smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We just experienced this week some very interesting air quality, correct?,” Horsley asks the class. The students nod and chant “Yes” in unison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Smoke from \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/07/11/1187105458/this-is-canadas-worst-fire-season-in-modern-history-but-its-not-new\">Canadian wildfires\u003c/a> has swept across much of the northeast and other parts of the country this summer, including New Jersey. In Pennington, the air quality index in June had reached hazardous levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are experiencing that and that impacts our health,” Horsley explained to her students. She then launched into a lesson on the carbon cycle and the impacts of air pollution on the cardiorespiratory system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The game Horsley’s students played on that June day helped them understand the impacts of wildfire smoke on air quality and on the body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students were stationed in pairs in colored zones in the gym – yellow, orange and pink. The colors represented different air quality zones, with pink being the worst.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students threw same-colored scarves in the air to their partner who then had to run to catch the scarf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students in the pink zone had to run the farthest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fourth grader Charlie Belli said moving helps him deal with his own anxiety about climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Running around makes me feel, like, less stressed about climate change,” Belli said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_62262\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-62262\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7296-1-_custom-74244e743d6183d44f375e8325862fe354e171f3-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1964\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7296-1-_custom-74244e743d6183d44f375e8325862fe354e171f3-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7296-1-_custom-74244e743d6183d44f375e8325862fe354e171f3-800x614.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7296-1-_custom-74244e743d6183d44f375e8325862fe354e171f3-1020x782.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7296-1-_custom-74244e743d6183d44f375e8325862fe354e171f3-160x123.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7296-1-_custom-74244e743d6183d44f375e8325862fe354e171f3-768x589.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7296-1-_custom-74244e743d6183d44f375e8325862fe354e171f3-1536x1178.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7296-1-_custom-74244e743d6183d44f375e8325862fe354e171f3-2048x1571.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7296-1-_custom-74244e743d6183d44f375e8325862fe354e171f3-1920x1473.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In Suzanne Horsley’s wellness classes at Toll Gate Grammar School in Pennington, N.J., elementary students learn about the health impacts of climate change. They play games that demonstrate what they have learned. \u003ccite>(Seyma Bayram/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/climate-change-psychological-distress-prevalence/\">study published in July\u003c/a> by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found that at least 7% of American adults experience some form of psychological distress due to climate change. Younger adults and Hispanic populations reported the highest levels of psychological distress related to climate change according to the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Climate change, it’s a part of the lives of the students these days, so really every possible subject area that can teach it should be teaching it,” Horsley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She emphasized the importance of teaching climate change across different subject areas – not only because climate change impacts all aspects of young people’s lives, but also because each student has a different learning style.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Teaching it in wellness class in addition to other subject areas allows students who are passionate in one subject or another to find perhaps new knowledge in a way that would be more appropriate for them,” Horsley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Pushback against climate change education\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Not everyone thinks climate change should be taught in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conservative states like Idaho and Texas have pushed back on such instruction in K-12 schools in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Idaho, the \u003ca href=\"https://thegroundtruthproject.org/inside-idahos-long-legislative-battle-over-climate-change-education/\">state legislature repeatedly rejected learning standards\u003c/a> that mentioned climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Texas, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/texas-weakens-climate-science-education-guidelines/\">state board of education issued guidance\u003c/a> to schools last spring encouraging them to highlight the “positive” aspects of the fossil fuel industry in instructional materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After an outcry from the school board earlier this year, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.readingeagle.com/2023/02/09/kutztown-one-book-one-school-literacy-program-halted-after-outcry-over-books-focus-on-climate-change/\">Kutztown School District in Pennsylvania\u003c/a> banned a popular young adult novel about middle schoolers navigating climate disasters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pushback has also extended to college campuses. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/135/sb83\">senate bill in Ohio\u003c/a> this year would require public university and college professors to teach the “scientific strengths and weaknesses” of climate change, despite the overwhelming \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/24/scientific-consensus-on-humans-causing-global-warming-passes-99\">scientific consensus on climate change\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of this is happening despite studies that show most parents in the nation favor climate change being taught in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/04/22/714262267/most-teachers-dont-teach-climate-change-4-in-5-parents-wish-they-did\">2019 NPR and Ipsos poll\u003c/a> found that more than 80% of parents nationwide supported climate change instruction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The resistance to climate change instruction is not an accident, said investigative reporter Katie Worth who wrote \u003ca href=\"https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/miseducation/\">a book on how climate change is taught in America\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She traces the pushback against climate education to the fossil fuel industry and its decades-long effort to sow doubt about climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know from memos that came from the industry that they literally thought about how to get kids to doubt climate change. There was a meeting in which leaders of the fossil fuel industry got together and they discussed ‘how are we going to get our messages in front of kids?’ And they succeeded at that,” Worth said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results of those efforts, she said, are evident in textbooks and learning standards that undermine the science of, or scientific consensus on, climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sowing doubt about climate change, Worth said, allows the fossil fuel industry to maintain its business interests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you seed that into kids, you’re protecting your business in the future, too, because now you’re creating future doubters about climate change and it really pays off,” Worth said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even in New Jersey, where \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.fdu.edu/news/fdu-poll-jersey-residents-support-teaching-climate-change-in-schools/&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1690553109910917&usg=AOvVaw2ae2GgHO4T7_78OP0ktIq1\">70% of residents support climate change education\u003c/a>, some parents oppose it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_62266\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-62266\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7219_custom-f4bdbe099c98bffded85bb20042d8136d830a9ad-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1919\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7219_custom-f4bdbe099c98bffded85bb20042d8136d830a9ad-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7219_custom-f4bdbe099c98bffded85bb20042d8136d830a9ad-800x600.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7219_custom-f4bdbe099c98bffded85bb20042d8136d830a9ad-1020x764.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7219_custom-f4bdbe099c98bffded85bb20042d8136d830a9ad-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7219_custom-f4bdbe099c98bffded85bb20042d8136d830a9ad-768x576.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7219_custom-f4bdbe099c98bffded85bb20042d8136d830a9ad-1536x1151.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7219_custom-f4bdbe099c98bffded85bb20042d8136d830a9ad-2048x1535.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_7219_custom-f4bdbe099c98bffded85bb20042d8136d830a9ad-1920x1439.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Albert Morales, assistant principal at Rosa International Middle School in Cherry Hill, N.J., said state-mandated climate change instruction protects teachers and students from efforts to deny climate change education. \u003ccite>(Seyma Bayram/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The state’s standards \u003ca href=\"https://www.nj.gov/education/standards/climate/learning/gradeband/index.shtml\">apply to seven subjects\u003c/a>, with plans to expand into English Language Arts and math classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a public hearing in May, members of a group called \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/groups/440515696704904\">Team Protect Your Children\u003c/a> spoke out against those plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kathleen Kirk was one of them. She took issue with elementary students learning about climate change, which she described as a “theory” during the hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Climate change is based on weak science,” Kirk said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Comments like Kirk’s are why state-mandated climate change instruction is important, said Albert Morales, assistant principal at Rosa International Middle School in Cherry Hill, N.J.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morales said state-mandated climate change instruction protects students and teachers from efforts to deny climate education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because we are a public school and if they are in the standards, then those are things that we are mandated to teach,” Morales said. “So I think the fact that New Jersey has those standards is in a way a protection that allows us to teach about what’s actually happening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Horsley, who teaches the wellness class at Toll Gate Grammar School, said before New Jersey adopted the standards, she worried about teaching climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t want to get in hot water, if you will, in a district that maybe thought this wasn’t appropriate,” Horsley recalled. “So the second it became our standard, it was something I was anxious and quick to jump on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Climate change education resonates with students\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>For students in New Jersey, like junior Lucy Webster at Hopewell Valley Central High, climate change education has been empowering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Webster still thinks about the first time she learned about climate change, long before the state mandate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As a little kid, I was really scared of the changes in the extreme weather that was going on around me and missing school because of hurricanes,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her 5th grade science teacher Helen Corveleyn helped.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_62267\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-62267\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6888_custom-fc114393647094ae8f05a4a66416f3202598b36f-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1919\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6888_custom-fc114393647094ae8f05a4a66416f3202598b36f-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6888_custom-fc114393647094ae8f05a4a66416f3202598b36f-800x600.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6888_custom-fc114393647094ae8f05a4a66416f3202598b36f-1020x764.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6888_custom-fc114393647094ae8f05a4a66416f3202598b36f-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6888_custom-fc114393647094ae8f05a4a66416f3202598b36f-768x576.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6888_custom-fc114393647094ae8f05a4a66416f3202598b36f-1536x1151.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6888_custom-fc114393647094ae8f05a4a66416f3202598b36f-2048x1535.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2023/08/img_6888_custom-fc114393647094ae8f05a4a66416f3202598b36f-1920x1439.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left to right: Iris Lautermilch, Tabitha Webster, Lucy Webster and Benjamin Pollara are members of the Youth Environmental Society at Hopewell Valley Central High School in Pennington, N.J. The group wants to see climate change taught in every class at their school. \u003ccite>(Seyma Bayram/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Her telling me why these were happening made me feel like I could do something about it even though I was like 11,” Webster said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, Webster helps lead the Youth Environmental Society at her high school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group, which McGrath mentors, is working on a climate action plan with parents, teachers and students. Their goals include getting their school to transition to electric buses and to train guidance counselors in climate mental health awareness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students also want climate change to be taught in every classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June, the group wrote a letter to the New Jersey Board of Education urging the board to adopt the new English Language Arts and math standards that would include climate change. The board is reviewing the standards and an official vote has not been set.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=New+Jersey+requires+climate+change+education.+A+year+in%2C+here%27s+how+it%27s+going&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "are-dress-codes-fair-how-one-middle-school-transformed-its-rules-for-what-students-wear",
"title": "Are Dress Codes Fair? How One Middle School Transformed Its Rules for What Students Wear",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2018, following the reveal of a new dress code, students enthusiastically showed up to Alice Deal Middle School in spaghetti straps, flip flops and short hemlines. “It was just on parade,” said Principal Diedre Neal about students’ attire. With time, the strappy, short outfits leveled off. Neal said that while \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59687/middle-schoolers-are-social-what-opportunity-does-that-create-for-learning\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">adolescents revel in novelty\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, their desire to be comfortable won out in the end: “They ran out of completely outrageous things. The completely outrageous things are also not comfortable or feasible.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The decision to reevaluate the dress code arose from the realization that the existing policies were no longer aligned with the needs of the students at Alice Deal, a public middle school in Washington, D.C. Prior to the change, students were pulled out of class if their outfits violated the school dress code. “They had their work. They were engaging. They were learning,” said Neal. “And we took them away from their learning to have a conversation about what they were wearing.” For instance, Zya Kinney, now 23, remembered getting pulled out of class by a teacher and being asked to do the “fingertip test” — a practice where students put their hand by their sides to see if the hemline of their shorts or skirts pass their fingertips. When Kinney’s skirt did not pass her fingertips, she had to change into her gym shorts. “I had to go back to that classroom,” said Kinney, who described herself as an insecure middle schooler. “That is embarrassing.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To reshape the policy in a way that truly supported student learning and wellbeing, Neal embraced a school-wide approach. She knew that for an updated dress code to be successful and work for learners, it required the active involvement from the students and community members it would impact.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Identify the gaps\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The catalyst for changing the dress code at Alice Deal came in the form of a \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/5.1web_Final_nwlc_DressCodeReport.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">dress code report\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> written by Nia Evans from the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) and a group of students in 2018. The report brought to light the discriminatory and harmful effects of dress code policies at schools in D.C. Evans’ research focused on school pushout — when schools use \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/58817/how-changing-schools-culture-of-discipline-paves-the-way-for-inclusivity\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">exclusionary discipline practices\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that result in students leaving school altogether. “What we found in conversations with students, parents and teachers was that dress codes were consistently coming up as a massive contributor to school push out,” Evans said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She recruited over 20 young people ages 12 to 18 to research dress codes with her and produce a report on dress codes featuring the twelve schools they collectively attended in DC. Their findings exposed gender and race stereotypes within dress code policies. “They were using language saying girls need to cover up to avoid distracting boys or Black girls can’t wear head wraps because it’s unprofessional or it’s not neat,” said Evans.These policies resulted in harsh punishments ranging from disrupting classroom time to suspensions. According to a Government Accountability Office \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105348\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">report\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, 90% of dress codes have policies that dictate what girls can wear. The NWLC found that Black girls, who had the highest suspension rate in the country compared to white girls, were being unfairly targeted by school dress codes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uniforms, which are lauded as a way to reduce the appearance of economic disparity, proved to be an imperfect solution. Nearly 20% of the nation’s public schools and preschools require uniforms, according to the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d21/tables/dt21_233.60.asp\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">National Center for Education Statistics\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Over the course of their research, students found that uniforms, often sold at specific stores, can become a financial burden for many families. They can also be limiting from a developmental standpoint. “You’re taking an opportunity away from students to be able to express themselves,” Evans said. The student researchers found that uniforms can alienate non-binary students. “We are enforcing what we think girls should look like and what boys should look like. We’re not creating a lot of space for any type of spectrum,” Evans added.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The student researchers proposed solutions for school leaders looking to improve their dress codes. They recommended the creation of dress code task forces, made up of teachers, administrators, parents, and students, to discuss whether a school’s dress code achieved the intended goals. They emphasized the importance of, allowing students to express their authentic selves, including cultural representations like headwraps and Black hairstyles. Additionally, students called for gender-neutral dress codes that didn’t require students to have to wear specific clothes because of their gender identity. They also suggested taking out vague language such as ‘distracting’ or ‘inappropriate’ from dress code policies, as it often leaves room for teacher bias and subjective interpretation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Collaboration and communication\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At Alice Deal, Principal Neal partnered with parent Deborah Zerwitz to get input from students and families before changing the dress code. Zerwitz drew insights from the NWLC report, as well as from \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.today.com/style/high-school-changes-dress-code-promote-body-positivity-t115656\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">student-centered practices from Evanston Township High School in Illinois\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a school that had changed their dress code the year prior. Recognizing the need to foster a respectful and equitable learning environment, Evanston Township engaged in collaborative discussions involving students, parents, teachers, and administrators to redefine their dress code guidelines. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Neal let parents know in her weekly newsletter that they could attend four listening sessions for students, parents and administrators to voice their ideas and opinions on the dress code. Listening sessions were offered at various times and locations on and off the school campus to make them as accessible as possible. To gather even more student feedback, Zerwitz put up poster boards outside of the school cafeteria with questions like:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“What changes would you make to the dress code?”\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“What do you think about school uniforms?”\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“What should the consequences be for violating a dress code?”\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Students could stick post-it notes to the board with their answers or place anonymous ideas in a shoebox with a slot in it.. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Additionally, Neal and Zerwitz created a task force made up of student and parent volunteers. “Somebody’s got to put pen to paper at some point,” said Zerwitz. “We were trying to identify a core group of people that will actually take all this information and distill it.” The task force used the feedback from the listening sessions and posters to create the new dress code.\u003c/span>\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=KQINC9608676364&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cbr>\n\u003cspan class=\"c-message__edited_label\" dir=\"ltr\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Empowering students and redefining dress code policies\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zerwitz and Neal received diverse feedback about the dress code, with students, particularly girls, expressing their desire to be heard and understood. “They wanted to say how it was making them feel. And they felt awkward. They felt like, ‘Why are these grown ups looking at me every morning and telling me something’s wrong?” Zerwitz said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The consensus from teachers was that they did not like spending time enforcing the dress code. However, some teachers — usually older teachers, Zerwitz said — tended to think the students should dress professionally for school and were in favor of a strict dress code. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Among parents, safety concerns surfaced. For example, a parent of two Black boys said that she likes using the dress code policies as a reason her son cannot wear hoodies to school. Citing concerns about stereotypes and racial profiling, especially considering incidents like the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, the parent explained that she could “breathe a little bit easier when my two Black sons leave the house and they’re not wearing a hood.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With support from the NWLC, Neal, Zerwitz and the task force members worked through these tensions. “Sometimes in wanting to protect our young people, we end up reinforcing the very inequalities that the world puts on them,” said Evans. “The solution to sexual harassment isn’t to get girls to cover up. The solution to police violence and racist violence is not to punish Black boys for wearing hoodies.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Long-term benefits and impact\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The results of the schoolwide effort to change the dress code came at the end of the 2017-18 school year when Alice Deal Middle School introduced a revised, gender non-specific and relaxed dress code. Students were required to cover the core of their bodies with opaque fabric, but there was greater flexibility with articles like crop tops and hoodies. Importantly, teachers were advised not to remove students from class if they violated the dress code. Principal Neal saw a decrease in dress code-related disciplinary actions. Students reported feeling more comfortable expressing their identities, which is\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59008/5-strategies-for-developing-a-school-wide-culture-of-healing\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> associated with overall well-being\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite the positive changes, in interviews last year, some students reported that certain staff members still commented on what they wore. “We’re still working with staff,” said Neal. “I need to check with students and see if people are dress coding them.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The journey to a new dress code was a source of pride for students. In a graduation shortly after the revised dress code was implemented, Zerwitz listened to a student speaker talk about how the class collectively achieved this transformation. It was evident to Zerwitz that the students understood the power of their voices and felt empowered by the impact they had at their school. “Those kids — all of the ones that came to the listening sessions or wrote a note in the little box or whatever — all of them contributed in some way to this,” said Zerwitz. “And, hopefully, [they went to high school] knowing that their voice matters.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Welcome to MindShift. Where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Nimah Gobir.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Every day, when students get ready in the morning, they are faced with a challenge: [dramatic music] deciding what to wear to school that day.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They have to weigh a lot of factors. Like…What makes me feel comfortable? What’s the weather outside? And maybe even What will my crush in 3rd period think about my fit?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 7th grade, when Zya Kinney was in her favorite outfit, you couldn’t tell her nothing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zya Kinney: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wore my red skirt with a spaghetti strap kind of tank top – And I had no leggings on. I was feeling myself! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Zya’s twenty-three now. She was talking about when she was a student at Alice Deal Middle School in Washington, DC. It was ten years ago, but she remembers how putting on the perfect outfit could make her feel good about herself.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zya Kinney:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I would just put on whatever was comfortable and whatever was like kind of cute. And i would have my little pop out moments here and there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One of the reasons Zya remembers the outfit she wore is because it was the day she got dress coded. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That means she was in violation of the school’s rules that dictate what students should and should not wear. There’s usually language about visible skin, footwear and even hair in some cases. Most schools have them, but they can be flawed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Leora Tanenbaum:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The big irony, of course, that lies at the heart of school dress codes is that they are drafted with the intention of eliminating distraction and helping learners. But the opposite actually happens in the end because learners themselves are targeted and therefore they are unable to focus on learning. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s writer and researcher Leora Tanenbaum. She also calls out dress code incidents on her Instagram. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Leora Tanenbaum:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Where they go wrong is when they are gendered. When the codes are created with a presupposition that girls’ bodies pose a distraction to other learners and therefore girls’ bodies need to be covered up in a specific way. And therefore the dress code is drafted in a way that has different language and different rules depending on one’s gender.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> If you violate the dress code, a teacher might call you over to talk with you privately about your clothes or you’ll be sent to the principal’s office. You might have to do the fingertip test where you put your hands by your sides and see if your skirt or shorts go past your fingertips.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Leora Tanenbaum:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It embarrasses the student. It makes her all of a sudden very aware of her physicality in a way that she may not have been at all. The teacher might assume she was aware of her physicality but you can’t assume that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zya was in class when she got dress coded. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zya Kinney: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My teacher gave us some work to do. Like just busy work or whatever. And she’s like, ‘Can I talk to you, you know, outside the classroom?’ You know, I think I’m not even thinking it has something to do with my outfit. She said ” Your skirt is too short.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When Zya put her hands at her sides, her middle fingertips were just barely past her skirt!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zya Kinney:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and, do you know, they made me change it to my gym shorts? I’m walking around here, cute up top, gym down, down…down below, like I’m not looking the same. And I remember being so upset about it because it’s like, Why are you sexualizing a seventh grader? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> To her, it was so much more than having to change clothes. She was trying to fit in and be confident and her school basically told her that she was doing it wrong.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zya Kinney:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I can’t lie and tell you that the popular girls weren’t wearing the skirts and had all the new things. They had the accessories. They had like three different book bags in rotation when I had just the one backpack. And I definitely remember seeing the difference in attention that they would get from guys and stuff like that, and then even their girlfriends. Like I felt like they were always the ones that you chose for stuff or, you know, they were like the most likable people and everything. And while I was, I was okay with myself, but I was also really insecure too. [00:07:01][19.3]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Zya, who’s Black, also noticed something else about the dress codes… \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zya Kinney: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It wasn’t until I started wearing skirts and dresses and I noticed how my white friends wouldn’t have anything said to them about what they have on. And I realized, okay, if I wear a skirt and she wears a skirt, we have on two different skirts.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And Zya was on to something. Here’s researcher and writer Nia Evans.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m basically a Black girl who grew up in D.C. And when I was working at the National Women’s Law Center, we were doing a lot of research about what we call school push out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> School push out is basically when schools use disciplinary actions that exclude students. These discipline practices often end up forcing students out of school altogether.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What we found was that dress codes were consistently coming up as a massive contributor to school push out. That black girls in particular were being unfairly targeted by school dress codes. But not only were they being treated differently in school, they were being removed from schools.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> At the time she was doing this research – around 2018. Black girls had some of the highest suspension rates in the country. So high that the obama administration opened investigations into school discipline policies. back then black girls were 20 times more likely to be suspended than white girls. And to be clear, it was not because Black girls were misbehaving more, it’s because they were being targeted by harsher rules.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We decided to partner with the experts when it comes to dress codes, which is students. We recruited over 20 young people, ages 12 to 18 from 12 different high schools in Washington, D.C., to be our co-researchers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Nia worked with them to produce a report about their experiences with dress codes and how they’re enforced. What they found confirmed Zya’s suspicions: for black students, dress codes hit different.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Dress codes often are steeped in race and gender stereotypes. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They were using language saying, you know, girls need to cover up to avoid from distracting boys or black girls can’t wear head wraps because it’s unprofessional or it’s not neat. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At a high level, a lot of these rules are sort of remnants of racist, sexist ideas and are invested in and are a mechanism to sort of keep students in line and to communicate a certain narrative around what it means to be professional, what it means to be neat, what it means to be successful. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Many schools will defend their dress code saying that they want their students to be prepared to dress for jobs as an adult, but that’s open to interpretation. Different jobs require different clothes. Zya, the 23 year old I spoke to dresses pretty casually for her job at ABC studios because she’s running around delivering scripts to producers all day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When dress codes come into question, sometimes the response is to put kids in uniforms – almost half of schools and preschools use uniforms now. It makes sense… If everyone has to wear the same thing that means no more problems right? Well… not necessarily. Here’s Nia again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">From a growth standpoint, you’re taking an opportunity away from students to be able to express themselves. Uniforms are often gender specific, which means, again, we are enforcing what we think girls should look like, boys should look like. We’re not creating a lot of space for any in between any type of spectrum. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The students that Nia worked with offered a few solutions.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot of them recommended that schools create dress code task force forces, where teachers and administrators and parents and students can come together and really start with the question of what is the goal of this? Why do we have a dress code? What is the point? Is it achieving its goals? And if it’s not, do we need it? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So it really ignited, I think, a long overdue issue in D.C. And we saw a lot of student and parent activism as a result of it. And some teachers and administrators listened. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> News of this report reached the principal at Zya’s former school – Alice Deal middle school. And when we get back from the break we’ll hear about what THE principal did when she took a closer look at her school’s dress code. Her reaction may surprise you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When I talked to Principal Diedre Neal from Alice Deal Middle School she said that moments ago there were three young women in her office. One was wearing ripped jeans, another was wearing a tube top, and another wearing a spaghetti strap tank top. Ordinarily, they all would have gotten dress coded, but something amazing happened: Principal Neal didn’t care. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And that’s significant because dress codes used to be a situation…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Diedre Neal:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Every spring when children wanted to shift from, you know, long pants to shorts and skirts, there would be either commentary or and I’m smiling because there was always a petition. It was always a petition. And I remember saying, “I can’t wait until we solve this issue, and then you can move on and give me a petition for something else.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> After reading the dress code report, Principal Neal recognized that it was probably time for dress codes to change.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Diedre Neal:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Over time, like enforcing it. I would say there was cognitive dissonance.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> People were being sent out of class to address what they had on. So they were in class , they had their work, they were engaging, they were learning, and so we took them away from their learning to have a conversation about what they were wearing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She needed to figure out what it would take to make Alice Deal’s dress code work in favor of learning. To get started, Principal Neal partnered with a parent named Debb Zerwitz.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Debb Zerwitz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We announced that we were going to be creating a task force to review and update the dress code.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They created a little set up outside the school cafeteria .\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Debb Zerwitz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We put up big poster boards with questions like.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Debb Zerwitz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> What changes would you make to the dress code? What do you think about school uniforms? And what should the consequences be for violating a dress code?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They had post-it notes in all these different colors so students could stick their ideas to the poster board. And they had 4 listening sessions where they would get feedback and input from students, administrators and parents. They had conversations with parents who wanted to keep the dress code for really valid reasons. For example, a lot of schools don’t let students wear hoodies. Black parents didn’t want their kids wearing hooded sweatshirts out the door because of Trayvon Martin.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[News clip\u003c/span>\u003c/i> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Reporter: Trayvon Martin was wearing a gray hoodie the night he was killed, a fact that caught the attention of neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. \u003c/span>\u003c/i> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something. \u003c/span>\u003c/i> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dispatcher: Did you see what he was wearing? \u003c/span>\u003c/i> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zimmerman: Yeah. A dark hoodie. Like a gray hoodie. \u003c/span>\u003c/i> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Reporter: A few minutes later Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin, he claims, in self defense.]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One Black parent in one of the listening sessions, said she liked having the support of the school dress code, to keep her child from wearing hoodies . \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Debb Zerwitz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She said I can point to the policy and say you’re going to get in trouble and you’re going to get you’re going to have to change your clothes and it’s going to be embarrassing that that helps me at home if there’s a policy. Who the hell am I to, like, dismiss this mother telling me like, I like the dress code? And this is one of the reasons why. Like, of course I hear you. You know I do.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another thing that surfaced in the listening sessions were some generational differences. In many cases it’s older Black adults telling younger black kids that they need to look more presentable. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In other words, they leaned into respectability politics, a way of trying to navigate prejudice and discrimination by making oneself match the visual standards set by those in power. . It’s basically saying, “Hey, look, we’re just like you, so you should respect us and treat us better!”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nia — she’s the researcher who made the dress code report with students — noticed respectability politics in dress codes too.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You also have a deeper layer of Black teachers and young people and parents who love each other, who are really struggling with how to keep kids safe. And the same way the solution to sexual harassment isn’t to get girls to cover up. The solution to police violence and racist violence is not to punish black boys for wearing hoodies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t think you can dress your way out of racism and sexism. I don’t. And I also think that sometimes in wanting to protect our young people, we end up reinforcing the very inequalities that the world puts on them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Dress codes actually hold a lot of our values and fears and anxieties as a culture. It says a lot about how we want students and young people to move through the world, how we want to protect them, how we want to set them up for success and our baggage as a culture around race and gender and sexuality and different identities. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Based on what she learned from all the feedback , Principal Neal with the help of Deb and the National Women’s Law Center ended up changing their dress code to be more casual and gender nonspecific. Technically, students are required to wear clothing that covers the core of the student’s body including private areas and midriff, with opaque fabric. But no one really says anything about crop tops. Even if a student is in violation of the dress code they are not supposed to be taken out of class. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When the dress code changed, students had an enthusiastic response. All the clothing they couldn’t wear before was on display. Here’s Principal Neal again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Principal Neal: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was just on parade and then they ran out of the completely outrageous things and it leveled off.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A student even mentioned in their graduation speech the way Alice Deal middle school’s student body had worked together to change the dress code. It was clear that being part of creating meaningful change at their school felt really empowering to students. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> To find out what Alice Deal Middle School Students are wearing these days we went straight to the source. These students may be walking down hallways instead of the red carpet, but I still wanted to know “Who are you wearing?” “How did you achieve this look?” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Student 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I like to put on something that’ll make me comfortable and also make me feel good. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Student 2:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Jewelry is a really big part of like, what I wear. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Student 3: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I’m wearing leggings right now, but that’s kind of just because it’s kind of colder right now than it normally is.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Student 2:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I have a lot of bracelets on most of the time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Student 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right now I’m just wearing sweatpants and my Reeboks, which are the shoes that I like to wear because they’re comfortable.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Student 4: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mostly wear crocs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sweatpants. Crocs. Leggings. They sound pretty unburdened. And you know what else….they sound comfy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Student: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I feel like, in a sense, we don’t really have a dress code like we’re allowed to wear what we want. But like to a certain point. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But not all teachers and administrators are fully on board. Some students mentioned that there are still teachers at the school who call them out for what they’re wearing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s one thing to change a policy, but it’s another thing to change the hearts and minds of all the administrators and teachers. Here’s principal Neal talking about next steps.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Diedre Neal: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re still working with staff. I now know that I need to check with students and see if people are dress coding them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some might call what Principal Neal did intellectual humility. It involves recognizing the limits of what you think you know. When Principal Neal learned more from students, parents and research, she realized the dress codes might be doing more harm than good. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>Alice Deal Middle School set out to re-evaluate their dress code and even though they’re still working with teachers on changing their mindsets, it is a step towards better reflecting the needs and identities of their students. It’s important to involve students in the process of creating policies that impact them. While it may not solve every problem, it is an essential step towards finding more equitable and inclusive solutions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you to Lawrence Lanahan, Zya Kinney, Leora Tanenbaum, Nia Evans, Debb Zerwitz, Principal Diedre Neal and students at Alice Deal Middle School\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The MindShift team includes Ki Sung, Kara Newhouse, Marlena Jackson Retondo and me, Nimah Gobir. Our editor is Chris Hambrick, Seth Samuel is our sound designer, Jen Chien is our head of podcasts, and Holly Kernan is KQED’s chief content officer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">MindShift’s intellectual humility series is supported by the Greater Good Science Center’s “Expanding Awareness of the Science of Intellectual Humility” project and the Templeton Foundation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">MindShift is also supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED. Thank you for listening!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2018, following the reveal of a new dress code, students enthusiastically showed up to Alice Deal Middle School in spaghetti straps, flip flops and short hemlines. “It was just on parade,” said Principal Diedre Neal about students’ attire. With time, the strappy, short outfits leveled off. Neal said that while \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59687/middle-schoolers-are-social-what-opportunity-does-that-create-for-learning\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">adolescents revel in novelty\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, their desire to be comfortable won out in the end: “They ran out of completely outrageous things. The completely outrageous things are also not comfortable or feasible.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The decision to reevaluate the dress code arose from the realization that the existing policies were no longer aligned with the needs of the students at Alice Deal, a public middle school in Washington, D.C. Prior to the change, students were pulled out of class if their outfits violated the school dress code. “They had their work. They were engaging. They were learning,” said Neal. “And we took them away from their learning to have a conversation about what they were wearing.” For instance, Zya Kinney, now 23, remembered getting pulled out of class by a teacher and being asked to do the “fingertip test” — a practice where students put their hand by their sides to see if the hemline of their shorts or skirts pass their fingertips. When Kinney’s skirt did not pass her fingertips, she had to change into her gym shorts. “I had to go back to that classroom,” said Kinney, who described herself as an insecure middle schooler. “That is embarrassing.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To reshape the policy in a way that truly supported student learning and wellbeing, Neal embraced a school-wide approach. She knew that for an updated dress code to be successful and work for learners, it required the active involvement from the students and community members it would impact.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Identify the gaps\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The catalyst for changing the dress code at Alice Deal came in the form of a \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/5.1web_Final_nwlc_DressCodeReport.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">dress code report\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> written by Nia Evans from the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) and a group of students in 2018. The report brought to light the discriminatory and harmful effects of dress code policies at schools in D.C. Evans’ research focused on school pushout — when schools use \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/58817/how-changing-schools-culture-of-discipline-paves-the-way-for-inclusivity\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">exclusionary discipline practices\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that result in students leaving school altogether. “What we found in conversations with students, parents and teachers was that dress codes were consistently coming up as a massive contributor to school push out,” Evans said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She recruited over 20 young people ages 12 to 18 to research dress codes with her and produce a report on dress codes featuring the twelve schools they collectively attended in DC. Their findings exposed gender and race stereotypes within dress code policies. “They were using language saying girls need to cover up to avoid distracting boys or Black girls can’t wear head wraps because it’s unprofessional or it’s not neat,” said Evans.These policies resulted in harsh punishments ranging from disrupting classroom time to suspensions. According to a Government Accountability Office \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105348\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">report\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, 90% of dress codes have policies that dictate what girls can wear. The NWLC found that Black girls, who had the highest suspension rate in the country compared to white girls, were being unfairly targeted by school dress codes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uniforms, which are lauded as a way to reduce the appearance of economic disparity, proved to be an imperfect solution. Nearly 20% of the nation’s public schools and preschools require uniforms, according to the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d21/tables/dt21_233.60.asp\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">National Center for Education Statistics\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Over the course of their research, students found that uniforms, often sold at specific stores, can become a financial burden for many families. They can also be limiting from a developmental standpoint. “You’re taking an opportunity away from students to be able to express themselves,” Evans said. The student researchers found that uniforms can alienate non-binary students. “We are enforcing what we think girls should look like and what boys should look like. We’re not creating a lot of space for any type of spectrum,” Evans added.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The student researchers proposed solutions for school leaders looking to improve their dress codes. They recommended the creation of dress code task forces, made up of teachers, administrators, parents, and students, to discuss whether a school’s dress code achieved the intended goals. They emphasized the importance of, allowing students to express their authentic selves, including cultural representations like headwraps and Black hairstyles. Additionally, students called for gender-neutral dress codes that didn’t require students to have to wear specific clothes because of their gender identity. They also suggested taking out vague language such as ‘distracting’ or ‘inappropriate’ from dress code policies, as it often leaves room for teacher bias and subjective interpretation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Collaboration and communication\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At Alice Deal, Principal Neal partnered with parent Deborah Zerwitz to get input from students and families before changing the dress code. Zerwitz drew insights from the NWLC report, as well as from \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.today.com/style/high-school-changes-dress-code-promote-body-positivity-t115656\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">student-centered practices from Evanston Township High School in Illinois\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a school that had changed their dress code the year prior. Recognizing the need to foster a respectful and equitable learning environment, Evanston Township engaged in collaborative discussions involving students, parents, teachers, and administrators to redefine their dress code guidelines. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Neal let parents know in her weekly newsletter that they could attend four listening sessions for students, parents and administrators to voice their ideas and opinions on the dress code. Listening sessions were offered at various times and locations on and off the school campus to make them as accessible as possible. To gather even more student feedback, Zerwitz put up poster boards outside of the school cafeteria with questions like:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“What changes would you make to the dress code?”\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“What do you think about school uniforms?”\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“What should the consequences be for violating a dress code?”\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Students could stick post-it notes to the board with their answers or place anonymous ideas in a shoebox with a slot in it.. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Additionally, Neal and Zerwitz created a task force made up of student and parent volunteers. “Somebody’s got to put pen to paper at some point,” said Zerwitz. “We were trying to identify a core group of people that will actually take all this information and distill it.” The task force used the feedback from the listening sessions and posters to create the new dress code.\u003c/span>\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=KQINC9608676364&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cbr>\n\u003cspan class=\"c-message__edited_label\" dir=\"ltr\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Empowering students and redefining dress code policies\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zerwitz and Neal received diverse feedback about the dress code, with students, particularly girls, expressing their desire to be heard and understood. “They wanted to say how it was making them feel. And they felt awkward. They felt like, ‘Why are these grown ups looking at me every morning and telling me something’s wrong?” Zerwitz said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The consensus from teachers was that they did not like spending time enforcing the dress code. However, some teachers — usually older teachers, Zerwitz said — tended to think the students should dress professionally for school and were in favor of a strict dress code. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Among parents, safety concerns surfaced. For example, a parent of two Black boys said that she likes using the dress code policies as a reason her son cannot wear hoodies to school. Citing concerns about stereotypes and racial profiling, especially considering incidents like the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, the parent explained that she could “breathe a little bit easier when my two Black sons leave the house and they’re not wearing a hood.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With support from the NWLC, Neal, Zerwitz and the task force members worked through these tensions. “Sometimes in wanting to protect our young people, we end up reinforcing the very inequalities that the world puts on them,” said Evans. “The solution to sexual harassment isn’t to get girls to cover up. The solution to police violence and racist violence is not to punish Black boys for wearing hoodies.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cb>Long-term benefits and impact\u003c/b>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The results of the schoolwide effort to change the dress code came at the end of the 2017-18 school year when Alice Deal Middle School introduced a revised, gender non-specific and relaxed dress code. Students were required to cover the core of their bodies with opaque fabric, but there was greater flexibility with articles like crop tops and hoodies. Importantly, teachers were advised not to remove students from class if they violated the dress code. Principal Neal saw a decrease in dress code-related disciplinary actions. Students reported feeling more comfortable expressing their identities, which is\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59008/5-strategies-for-developing-a-school-wide-culture-of-healing\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> associated with overall well-being\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite the positive changes, in interviews last year, some students reported that certain staff members still commented on what they wore. “We’re still working with staff,” said Neal. “I need to check with students and see if people are dress coding them.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The journey to a new dress code was a source of pride for students. In a graduation shortly after the revised dress code was implemented, Zerwitz listened to a student speaker talk about how the class collectively achieved this transformation. It was evident to Zerwitz that the students understood the power of their voices and felt empowered by the impact they had at their school. “Those kids — all of the ones that came to the listening sessions or wrote a note in the little box or whatever — all of them contributed in some way to this,” said Zerwitz. “And, hopefully, [they went to high school] knowing that their voice matters.”\u003c/span>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Welcome to MindShift. Where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Nimah Gobir.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Every day, when students get ready in the morning, they are faced with a challenge: [dramatic music] deciding what to wear to school that day.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They have to weigh a lot of factors. Like…What makes me feel comfortable? What’s the weather outside? And maybe even What will my crush in 3rd period think about my fit?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 7th grade, when Zya Kinney was in her favorite outfit, you couldn’t tell her nothing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zya Kinney: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wore my red skirt with a spaghetti strap kind of tank top – And I had no leggings on. I was feeling myself! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Zya’s twenty-three now. She was talking about when she was a student at Alice Deal Middle School in Washington, DC. It was ten years ago, but she remembers how putting on the perfect outfit could make her feel good about herself.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zya Kinney:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I would just put on whatever was comfortable and whatever was like kind of cute. And i would have my little pop out moments here and there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One of the reasons Zya remembers the outfit she wore is because it was the day she got dress coded. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That means she was in violation of the school’s rules that dictate what students should and should not wear. There’s usually language about visible skin, footwear and even hair in some cases. Most schools have them, but they can be flawed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Leora Tanenbaum:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The big irony, of course, that lies at the heart of school dress codes is that they are drafted with the intention of eliminating distraction and helping learners. But the opposite actually happens in the end because learners themselves are targeted and therefore they are unable to focus on learning. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s writer and researcher Leora Tanenbaum. She also calls out dress code incidents on her Instagram. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Leora Tanenbaum:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Where they go wrong is when they are gendered. When the codes are created with a presupposition that girls’ bodies pose a distraction to other learners and therefore girls’ bodies need to be covered up in a specific way. And therefore the dress code is drafted in a way that has different language and different rules depending on one’s gender.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> If you violate the dress code, a teacher might call you over to talk with you privately about your clothes or you’ll be sent to the principal’s office. You might have to do the fingertip test where you put your hands by your sides and see if your skirt or shorts go past your fingertips.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Leora Tanenbaum:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It embarrasses the student. It makes her all of a sudden very aware of her physicality in a way that she may not have been at all. The teacher might assume she was aware of her physicality but you can’t assume that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zya was in class when she got dress coded. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zya Kinney: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My teacher gave us some work to do. Like just busy work or whatever. And she’s like, ‘Can I talk to you, you know, outside the classroom?’ You know, I think I’m not even thinking it has something to do with my outfit. She said ” Your skirt is too short.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When Zya put her hands at her sides, her middle fingertips were just barely past her skirt!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zya Kinney:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and, do you know, they made me change it to my gym shorts? I’m walking around here, cute up top, gym down, down…down below, like I’m not looking the same. And I remember being so upset about it because it’s like, Why are you sexualizing a seventh grader? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> To her, it was so much more than having to change clothes. She was trying to fit in and be confident and her school basically told her that she was doing it wrong.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zya Kinney:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I can’t lie and tell you that the popular girls weren’t wearing the skirts and had all the new things. They had the accessories. They had like three different book bags in rotation when I had just the one backpack. And I definitely remember seeing the difference in attention that they would get from guys and stuff like that, and then even their girlfriends. Like I felt like they were always the ones that you chose for stuff or, you know, they were like the most likable people and everything. And while I was, I was okay with myself, but I was also really insecure too. [00:07:01][19.3]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Zya, who’s Black, also noticed something else about the dress codes… \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zya Kinney: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It wasn’t until I started wearing skirts and dresses and I noticed how my white friends wouldn’t have anything said to them about what they have on. And I realized, okay, if I wear a skirt and she wears a skirt, we have on two different skirts.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And Zya was on to something. Here’s researcher and writer Nia Evans.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m basically a Black girl who grew up in D.C. And when I was working at the National Women’s Law Center, we were doing a lot of research about what we call school push out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> School push out is basically when schools use disciplinary actions that exclude students. These discipline practices often end up forcing students out of school altogether.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What we found was that dress codes were consistently coming up as a massive contributor to school push out. That black girls in particular were being unfairly targeted by school dress codes. But not only were they being treated differently in school, they were being removed from schools.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> At the time she was doing this research – around 2018. Black girls had some of the highest suspension rates in the country. So high that the obama administration opened investigations into school discipline policies. back then black girls were 20 times more likely to be suspended than white girls. And to be clear, it was not because Black girls were misbehaving more, it’s because they were being targeted by harsher rules.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We decided to partner with the experts when it comes to dress codes, which is students. We recruited over 20 young people, ages 12 to 18 from 12 different high schools in Washington, D.C., to be our co-researchers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Nia worked with them to produce a report about their experiences with dress codes and how they’re enforced. What they found confirmed Zya’s suspicions: for black students, dress codes hit different.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Dress codes often are steeped in race and gender stereotypes. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They were using language saying, you know, girls need to cover up to avoid from distracting boys or black girls can’t wear head wraps because it’s unprofessional or it’s not neat. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At a high level, a lot of these rules are sort of remnants of racist, sexist ideas and are invested in and are a mechanism to sort of keep students in line and to communicate a certain narrative around what it means to be professional, what it means to be neat, what it means to be successful. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Many schools will defend their dress code saying that they want their students to be prepared to dress for jobs as an adult, but that’s open to interpretation. Different jobs require different clothes. Zya, the 23 year old I spoke to dresses pretty casually for her job at ABC studios because she’s running around delivering scripts to producers all day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When dress codes come into question, sometimes the response is to put kids in uniforms – almost half of schools and preschools use uniforms now. It makes sense… If everyone has to wear the same thing that means no more problems right? Well… not necessarily. Here’s Nia again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">From a growth standpoint, you’re taking an opportunity away from students to be able to express themselves. Uniforms are often gender specific, which means, again, we are enforcing what we think girls should look like, boys should look like. We’re not creating a lot of space for any in between any type of spectrum. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The students that Nia worked with offered a few solutions.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot of them recommended that schools create dress code task force forces, where teachers and administrators and parents and students can come together and really start with the question of what is the goal of this? Why do we have a dress code? What is the point? Is it achieving its goals? And if it’s not, do we need it? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So it really ignited, I think, a long overdue issue in D.C. And we saw a lot of student and parent activism as a result of it. And some teachers and administrators listened. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> News of this report reached the principal at Zya’s former school – Alice Deal middle school. And when we get back from the break we’ll hear about what THE principal did when she took a closer look at her school’s dress code. Her reaction may surprise you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> When I talked to Principal Diedre Neal from Alice Deal Middle School she said that moments ago there were three young women in her office. One was wearing ripped jeans, another was wearing a tube top, and another wearing a spaghetti strap tank top. Ordinarily, they all would have gotten dress coded, but something amazing happened: Principal Neal didn’t care. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And that’s significant because dress codes used to be a situation…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Diedre Neal:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Every spring when children wanted to shift from, you know, long pants to shorts and skirts, there would be either commentary or and I’m smiling because there was always a petition. It was always a petition. And I remember saying, “I can’t wait until we solve this issue, and then you can move on and give me a petition for something else.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> After reading the dress code report, Principal Neal recognized that it was probably time for dress codes to change.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Diedre Neal:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Over time, like enforcing it. I would say there was cognitive dissonance.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> People were being sent out of class to address what they had on. So they were in class , they had their work, they were engaging, they were learning, and so we took them away from their learning to have a conversation about what they were wearing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She needed to figure out what it would take to make Alice Deal’s dress code work in favor of learning. To get started, Principal Neal partnered with a parent named Debb Zerwitz.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Debb Zerwitz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We announced that we were going to be creating a task force to review and update the dress code.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They created a little set up outside the school cafeteria .\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Debb Zerwitz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We put up big poster boards with questions like.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Debb Zerwitz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> What changes would you make to the dress code? What do you think about school uniforms? And what should the consequences be for violating a dress code?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They had post-it notes in all these different colors so students could stick their ideas to the poster board. And they had 4 listening sessions where they would get feedback and input from students, administrators and parents. They had conversations with parents who wanted to keep the dress code for really valid reasons. For example, a lot of schools don’t let students wear hoodies. Black parents didn’t want their kids wearing hooded sweatshirts out the door because of Trayvon Martin.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[News clip\u003c/span>\u003c/i> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Reporter: Trayvon Martin was wearing a gray hoodie the night he was killed, a fact that caught the attention of neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. \u003c/span>\u003c/i> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something. \u003c/span>\u003c/i> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dispatcher: Did you see what he was wearing? \u003c/span>\u003c/i> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zimmerman: Yeah. A dark hoodie. Like a gray hoodie. \u003c/span>\u003c/i> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Reporter: A few minutes later Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin, he claims, in self defense.]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One Black parent in one of the listening sessions, said she liked having the support of the school dress code, to keep her child from wearing hoodies . \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Debb Zerwitz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> She said I can point to the policy and say you’re going to get in trouble and you’re going to get you’re going to have to change your clothes and it’s going to be embarrassing that that helps me at home if there’s a policy. Who the hell am I to, like, dismiss this mother telling me like, I like the dress code? And this is one of the reasons why. Like, of course I hear you. You know I do.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another thing that surfaced in the listening sessions were some generational differences. In many cases it’s older Black adults telling younger black kids that they need to look more presentable. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In other words, they leaned into respectability politics, a way of trying to navigate prejudice and discrimination by making oneself match the visual standards set by those in power. . It’s basically saying, “Hey, look, we’re just like you, so you should respect us and treat us better!”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nia — she’s the researcher who made the dress code report with students — noticed respectability politics in dress codes too.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You also have a deeper layer of Black teachers and young people and parents who love each other, who are really struggling with how to keep kids safe. And the same way the solution to sexual harassment isn’t to get girls to cover up. The solution to police violence and racist violence is not to punish black boys for wearing hoodies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t think you can dress your way out of racism and sexism. I don’t. And I also think that sometimes in wanting to protect our young people, we end up reinforcing the very inequalities that the world puts on them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nia Evans:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Dress codes actually hold a lot of our values and fears and anxieties as a culture. It says a lot about how we want students and young people to move through the world, how we want to protect them, how we want to set them up for success and our baggage as a culture around race and gender and sexuality and different identities. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Based on what she learned from all the feedback , Principal Neal with the help of Deb and the National Women’s Law Center ended up changing their dress code to be more casual and gender nonspecific. Technically, students are required to wear clothing that covers the core of the student’s body including private areas and midriff, with opaque fabric. But no one really says anything about crop tops. Even if a student is in violation of the dress code they are not supposed to be taken out of class. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When the dress code changed, students had an enthusiastic response. All the clothing they couldn’t wear before was on display. Here’s Principal Neal again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Principal Neal: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was just on parade and then they ran out of the completely outrageous things and it leveled off.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A student even mentioned in their graduation speech the way Alice Deal middle school’s student body had worked together to change the dress code. It was clear that being part of creating meaningful change at their school felt really empowering to students. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> To find out what Alice Deal Middle School Students are wearing these days we went straight to the source. These students may be walking down hallways instead of the red carpet, but I still wanted to know “Who are you wearing?” “How did you achieve this look?” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Student 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I like to put on something that’ll make me comfortable and also make me feel good. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Student 2:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Jewelry is a really big part of like, what I wear. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Student 3: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I’m wearing leggings right now, but that’s kind of just because it’s kind of colder right now than it normally is.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Student 2:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I have a lot of bracelets on most of the time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Student 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right now I’m just wearing sweatpants and my Reeboks, which are the shoes that I like to wear because they’re comfortable.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Student 4: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mostly wear crocs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sweatpants. Crocs. Leggings. They sound pretty unburdened. And you know what else….they sound comfy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Student: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I feel like, in a sense, we don’t really have a dress code like we’re allowed to wear what we want. But like to a certain point. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But not all teachers and administrators are fully on board. Some students mentioned that there are still teachers at the school who call them out for what they’re wearing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s one thing to change a policy, but it’s another thing to change the hearts and minds of all the administrators and teachers. Here’s principal Neal talking about next steps.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Diedre Neal: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re still working with staff. I now know that I need to check with students and see if people are dress coding them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some might call what Principal Neal did intellectual humility. It involves recognizing the limits of what you think you know. When Principal Neal learned more from students, parents and research, she realized the dress codes might be doing more harm than good. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>Alice Deal Middle School set out to re-evaluate their dress code and even though they’re still working with teachers on changing their mindsets, it is a step towards better reflecting the needs and identities of their students. It’s important to involve students in the process of creating policies that impact them. While it may not solve every problem, it is an essential step towards finding more equitable and inclusive solutions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you to Lawrence Lanahan, Zya Kinney, Leora Tanenbaum, Nia Evans, Debb Zerwitz, Principal Diedre Neal and students at Alice Deal Middle School\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The MindShift team includes Ki Sung, Kara Newhouse, Marlena Jackson Retondo and me, Nimah Gobir. Our editor is Chris Hambrick, Seth Samuel is our sound designer, Jen Chien is our head of podcasts, and Holly Kernan is KQED’s chief content officer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">MindShift’s intellectual humility series is supported by the Greater Good Science Center’s “Expanding Awareness of the Science of Intellectual Humility” project and the Templeton Foundation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">MindShift is also supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED. Thank you for listening!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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