California Safe and Supportive Schools

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

K-12 School District Leaders

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. 

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School Mental Health Matters: Strengthening Local School Mental Health Systems 

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Now more than ever, mental health is a priority for California schools. Learn how the School Health Assessment and Performance Evaluation (SHAPE) System can help schools and districts build capacity for a more comprehensive school mental health system. SHAPE is a free, web-based platform available to schools, districts, and states looking for a suite of resources and tools to facilitate continuous quality improvement. The University of Maryland National Center for School Mental Health presenter will provide an overview of SHAPE, including its assessment tools and resources to support implementation and ongoing monitoring of a comprehensive school mental health system. Del Norte Unified School District will share their experience adopting SHAPE to build districtwide school mental health capacity. 

Featuring Dr. Elizabeth Connors:
Dr. Elizabeth Connors is an assistant professor at Yale University in the Division of Prevention and Community Research and at the Child Study Center. She also collaborates with the University of Maryland National Center for School Mental Health, where she is the Director of Quality Improvement and a developer of The SHAPE System. Dr. Connors received her Ph.D. in clinical child and community psychology, and her work focuses on improving access to high-quality mental health promotion and prevention and intervention services and supports for underserved children, adolescents, young adults, and their families in critical access points such as schools.

Hosted by the CA Center for School Climate and Project Cal-Well.

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Highlighted Resources 

Addressing Mental Health: The Role of Mental Health and Wellness Data in Shaping Student Supports 

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Stress, anxiety, and chronic sadness increased for students in California during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given this, how can schools use available mental health data to better support students? This session will address this question by discussing the newly released California Department of Education Health Indicator Report, which is available for all districts that administer the California Healthy Kids Survey. Presenters will describe several of the mental health and wellness indicators that districts can use to strengthen their support services. To highlight what this looks like in practice, staff from Paradise Unified School District will share their experiences using data to educate and support the mental health and well-being of students through the personal and collective trauma associated with the Camp Fire, which destroyed four schools and damaged several others, impacting the entire community.

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Highlighted Resource:

Presenters

Michael Furlong, PhD is a research professor and a distinguished professor emeritus of school psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He coedited the Handbook of Positive Psychology in Schools: Supporting Process and Practice (2009, 2014, 2022) and collaborates with colleagues on Project Covitality www.covitalityucsb.info, supporting schools’ efforts to foster all students’ social-emotional development.

Tom Hanson, PhD (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.

Scott Lindstrom is co-coordinator of trauma response and recovery for Butte County Office of Education (BCOE) and an advanced trainer of the Nurtured Heart Approach (NHA). He currently coordinates the school-based mental health response to the Camp Fire disaster. Prior to his work with BCOE, he served 30-plus years as a school psychologist and coordinator of student support programs for the Chico Unified School District. In this role, he led the development of a sustained, multitiered support system that served students with school climate; social-emotional learning; restorative practices; positive behavioral interventions and supports; student interventions; and parent supports. For 20 years, Scott served as a trainer and consultant to the California Department of Mental Health for the Early Mental Health Initiative. In addition to his work at BCOE, he offers training and coaching for educators, parents, and mental health professionals in NHA, program development, and trauma-responsive supports.

Carrie Dawes is a 17-year Paradise Unified School District employee in Northern California. The majority of her time has been spent in administration, including as a school principal at the elementary, middle, and high school levels (both comprehensive and continuation). She was the administrator for student services the morning of November 8, 2018, when the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California’s history swept through the town of Paradise and surrounding areas. With her efforts, along with all of the PUSD teachers and staff, 3,401 students were successfully evacuated off the Ridge that morning. The trauma of that day has manifested itself in so many ways for staff, students, and families in the area. After the fire, Carrie became an administrator on special assignment to collaborate with county mental health agencies and to write grants to provide necessary services for the school community. She is honored to be a part of Paradise Unified School District’s commitment to staff and student mental wellness in the aftermath of this disaster.

Restorative Practices: Using Data to Strengthen Your Practice

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Schools throughout California have adopted restorative practices as a means to curb the use of exclusionary discipline, allay racial disparities in discipline, and improve school climate. While research suggests that implementing these practices can drive improvements for students and schools, the literature is replete with examples of schools facing implementation challenges. Many school leaders lack means of tracking staff use of these practices, which constrains their ability to improve implementation. This session provides guidance to school leaders regarding how to use existing data systems to measure school utilization of restorative practices and identify inequities in student exposure to these practices. Together we will consider new, purpose-built data systems that can drive deeper understanding of students’ experiences and catalyze school practice improvements.

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Highlighted resource:

Presenters

Sean Darling-Hammond (he/him) is a PhD candidate at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy. He combines his backgrounds in psychology, sociology, law, policy, and statistics to identify and improve education policies that can help students of all backgrounds thrive. He is currently conducting research using administrative data from the California Department of Education to determine whether student exposure to restorative practices can improve academic, disciplinary, school climate, and mental health outcomes. Sean is also a certified restorative justice circle leader. Before pursuing his PhD, Sean earned his BA in sociology at Harvard, spent 5 years as the director of research at Hattaway Communications (a mission-driven firm in Washington, DC), earned his JD from UC Berkeley, clerked for the District Court of Maryland, and worked in education law and policy.

Sean Darling-Hammond

Lan Nguyen (she/her) is a Program Associate with WestEd’s Resilient and Healthy Schools and Communities content area. She has experience in diverse roles within large K–12 school districts supporting and guiding the implementation of restorative practices programs. As a former high school science teacher and experienced restorative practitioner, Lan is grounded in the daily realities of school and classroom life and has used her knowledge to guide her work with school and district leaders. She has seen firsthand the transformative effects of implementing restorative practices programs on the culture and climate of schools. Lan also has years of experience providing professional development and technical assistance to schools and districts regarding LGBTQ+ issues in education.

Lan Nguyen

Beyond Heroes and Holidays: Expanding Understanding and Practices of Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Approaches

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Research shows that culturally responsive and sustaining practices (CRSP) strengthen students’ social and academic well-being. What’s more, the impact doesn’t end there—CRSP offer similar benefits for adults’ well-being and performance when the practices are woven into the culture of the school district and school community. Although the importance of belonging and connection is widely known, there is often a disconnect in how these states of mind are actualized through practices and behaviors and how they are experienced by students and staff of color. The absence of feeling valued and heard is one of the primary reasons students feel unsupported and staff of color choose to leave the education field. Join us to learn more about CRSP. We will explore and discuss asset-based approaches—both at the individual and system levels—that contribute powerfully to a school community in which everyone feels valued, connected, and successful. Resources and tools to support CRSP implementation will be shared with attendees.

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Highlighted Resources:

Presenters

Erin Browder (she/her) is a Senior Program Associate with WestEd’s Talent Development and Diversity content area. She provides technical assistance and project design for K–12 initiatives related to trauma-informed topics, school improvement, leadership development, social-emotional learning, and culturally responsive and equity-centered approaches that foster safe and supportive schools. Erin brings a diverse skill set to her work, helping schools, districts, and state systems create sustainable change and positive outcomes for students, families, and staff members. She has demonstrated success as an educator and nonprofit leader, creating funding and partnership opportunities among education agencies, healthcare systems, community organizations, and nonprofits across the country.

Erin Browder

Alexis Patterson Williams, PhD, is an associate professor in science education at the University of California, Davis, School of Education, who is focused on the intersection of equity studies, social psychology, social justice, and science education. Previously, she worked as an assistant director of an after-school program, a middle school science teacher, and an intervention instructor at an elementary school in Oakland Unified School District. Alexis is passionate about supporting teachers in creating equitable and just classroom and school environments in order to eliminate the disparate experiences students have as well as to reduce the harm students experience at school.