California Safe and Supportive Schools

Peer Learning Exchange- Product Deep Dive: Cultivating Caring Relationships at School: 15 Activities that Promote Staff and Student Connection

County Office of Education Coordinators

Peer Learning Exchange- Product Deep Dive: Cultivating Caring Relationships at School: 15 Activities that Promote Staff and Student Connection

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Join the California Center for School Climate for a deep dive into an upcoming product, Cultivating Caring Relationships at School: 15 Activities that Promote Staff and Student Connection. Students who have access to caring relationships are more academically engaged, display stronger social skills, and exhibit increased positive behavior. Cultivating trust between adults and students can also heighten students’ motivation. During this Peer Learning Exchange, you’ll get a first look and you’ll hear from the authors and youth contributors to the toolkit. Participants will have the opportunity to gain practical strategies, as well as share their own successes and challenges in supporting relationship building in small and large groups with peers from across the state.

Watch this video to learn about an activity in the toolkit!

View the transcript.

View and download the toolkit.

Boredom: Data-informed Practical Implications for Educators

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“I am so bored” is a sentiment student often express. There is a minimal stigma in making this statement, and many students and adults might say, “Of course, schooling can be boring.” Indeed, tired and bored are the conditions students report experiencing most often at school. How should educators evaluate this expression when they hear it and consider what it could indicate about students’ academic and psychosocial development? This presentation introduces two new California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) boredom items added in 2021/22 asking students about school boredom and how much value they place in their academic endeavors.

Using the responses of more than 500,000 secondary students, WestEd and the University of California, Santa Barbara will show how “boredom” could provide helpful insights into students’ social and emotional well-being. Practical information and resources to guide conversations with students will be provided at the webinar.

Watch the recorded webinar

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View the highlighted resources from this webinar

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Presenters: 

Michael Furlong, PhD, is Research Professor/Distinguished Professor Emeritus of School Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (2021/22 UCSB Edward A. Dickson Emeritus Professorship). The National School Mental Health Center awarded him the 2022 School Mental Health Research Award. He provides consultation and support to the California Department of Education and WestEd related to CHKS. A coeditor of the Handbook of Positive Psychology in Schools (2009, 2014, 2022), he collaborates with colleagues on Project Covitality, supporting schools’ efforts to foster all students’ social–emotional development. 

Tom Hanson (he/him) serves as a Senior Advisor for the California Center for School Climate. Tom is a Senior Managing Director at WestEd. He has extensive experience in developing and validating survey instruments designed to measure school climate and other outcomes. He is the Director of the California School Climate, Health, & Learning Survey (CalSCHLS), a comprehensive youth risk-behavior and resilience data-collection service available to all California local education agencies. He has served as a principal investigator of multiple large-scale randomized controlled trials and has been lead methodologist for several studies examining the impacts of education interventions.

What’s New? California Healthy Kids Survey Update

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Join us to learn about changes in the California Healthy Kids Survey designed to be used to support student mental health and wellness. This webinar provides an overview of features of the redesigned survey students and staff will see in 2022–23. We will describe the mental health questions added to the Core module, the new student Behavioral Health and Trauma supplementary modules, and the new staff Trauma-Informed Practice module.

Presenters: 

Tom Hanson (he/him) serves as a Senior Advisor for the California Center for School Climate. Tom is a Senior Managing Director at WestEd. He has extensive experience in developing and validating survey instruments designed to measure school climate and other outcomes. He is the Director of the California School Climate, Health, & Learning Survey (CalSCHLS), a comprehensive youth risk-behavior and resilience data-collection service available to all California local education agencies. He has served as a principal investigator of multiple large-scale randomized controlled trials and has been lead methodologist for several studies examining the impacts of education interventions.

WestEd Research Associate Leslie Poynor is the State Coordinator for the California School Climate, Health, and Learning Survey System, the largest statewide survey of resiliency, protective factors, and risk behaviors in the nation. She provides technical assistance to all levels of education personnel in conducting and using the data from all CalSCHLS surveys in data-driven decision-making, including the California Healthy Kids Survey. She also develops and facilitates professional development and data workshops on creating safe and supportive school climates as well as on the education of the whole child.

Watch the recorded webinar

View the transcript

Download the slides

View resources from this webinar

 

Peer Learning Exchange- Seeking to Understand the Root Causes of Student Absences: The Power of Empathy Interviews

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School climate has a large influence on student well-being and attendance, which in turn affects student outcomes. While chronic absenteeism has been a nationwide issue for as long as it has been measured, this longstanding concern was further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The negative effects of both the pandemic and chronic absenteeism have been especially severe in historically and currently underserved communities and  with students who struggle socially or academically. Examining local attendance data to identify groups of students who are chronically absent is a necessary step in determining who may need support. Whether at a community, school wide, or individual level, we must then do more to understand the many reasons why students may not be attending school regularly. 

 

Marnie Lynch, Senior Director of District and School Support for Solano County Office of Education, will share how her team worked with one school district to conduct empathy interviews with students and school staff to understand root causes of chronic absence within the community. What they learned will help inform the prioritization of tiered supports and improvements in the broader school climate.

Partner: Marnie Lynch, Senior Director of District and School Support, Solano County Office of Education

Highlighted resources:

Peer Learning Exchange- Back to School- Building Positive School Climate From the Start

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Join the CCSC as we partner with Davis Joint Unified School District, who will share highlights and tools from their district’s school climate improvement efforts. They will focus on how they support their schools’ site-based School Climate Committees, prioritizing data-informed decision-making, student voice, and equitable practices. Participants will have the opportunity to share successes and challenges in small and large groups with peers from across the state and to gain practical strategies for supporting a positive school climate at the start of the year. Resources and a framework will be shared that can be used to support your own school climate improvement efforts.

Partnering with Davis Joint Unified School District, featuring Kate Snow, District School Climate Coordinator.

Kate is the Coordinator of School Climate for Davis Joint Unified School District, supporting the district as it endeavors to create environments conducive to learning and working for all. She brings to this work a background in teaching, out of school learning, technology, arts, nonprofit management and consulting, and anti-oppression work, both urban and rural, on both the East and West coasts. She sees school climate work as the interlocking of the personal and the institutional, with opportunities for the liberation of education for both adults and young people through strengthening perception, understanding, and analysis coupled with ideation, action and community.

 

Highlighted resource:

California Center for School Climate: Building Safe, Supportive, and Inclusive School Climates in 2022-23 Webinar

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The California Center for School Climate (CCSC), a project of the CDE operated by WestEd, provides school climate and data use coaching and supports at no cost to LEAs in California. Come hear about all the exciting upcoming professional learning and technical assistance opportunities including school climate collaboratives, data use coaching, peer learning exchanges, and a wide variety of resources available to LEAs. You will also hear from Youth Advisory Team members and a local principal on their experience with CCSC. 

Watch the recorded webinar

View the transcript.

Download the slides.