Safe and Supportive Schools Self-Reflection Tool

Welcome to the revised Safe and Supportive Schools Implementation Guide & Self-Reflection Tool. The goal of the self-reflection Tool is to catalyze a reflective and creative inquiry-based, year-long or multi-year process to create and enhance a school`s work to become more safe and supportive for the entire school community (including but not limited to: students, staff, families, and community partners). This tool is intended to assist with documenting current practices that support students` behavioral health ranging from the whole school community to individual students that require more intensive supports. It also examines the role of various school professionals and staff in providing these supports. This process enables schools to identify their most pressing local priorities and create action plans that can be incorporated into School Improvement Plans to address these priorities. It may be helpful to revisit your school`s responses to this tool on a regular (e.g., quarterly, annual) basis to review progress and continually work towards full implementation on a range of practices that address and remove the barriers to learning.

Resources

Safe and Supportive Schools Self-Reflection Tool

Source

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

Creating Positive Learning Environments: Recommendations and Resources to Support the Social Emotional Well-being of Students, Staff, and Families

Even in the midst of a pandemic, educators can create a safe and healthy learning environment that is joyful, engaging, and equitable for every child. On August 3, 2020 DESE released Creating Positive Learning Environments: Recommendations to Support the Social Emotional Well-being of Students, Staff and Families. This document includes a series of recommendations and sample resources and is designed to help districts and schools prioritize and support the social emotional well-being of students, staff, and families as they prepare for the new school year. DESE supported this guidance with a webinar to unpack the document and provide additional supports.

Resources

• Creating Positive Learning Environments: Recommendations to Support the Social Emotional Well-being of Students, Staff and Families (document)

• Webinar to Navigate the New Social Emotional Recommendations and Resources: Presentation Slides and Webinar Recording

Source

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

The School & Main Institute

Building Systems to Support the Whole Child Amid COVID-19

DESE offered a webinar, hosted by the Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy and the Center for Optimized Student Support at Boston College, focused on systems to remotely identify and organize a response to students’ strengths and needs in this moment of crisis. In particular, the webinar focused on successfully closing out the academic year while simultaneously beginning to plan for supporting students through the summer and into the fall. District and school presenters included Somerville Public Schools and the Parker Elementary School in New Bedford.

Resources

Presentation Slides

Source

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy, Center for Optimized Student Support at Boston College

Supporting the SEL and Mental Health Needs of Students and Educators in the COVID-19 Era

DESE partnered with Education Development Center (EDC), Transforming Education, and Walker Cares to offer an optional 90-minute webinar about how districts can address the mental health needs of students and support their social and emotional learning (SEL) needs during the COVID-19 school closures. The partners followed up with a webinar focused on district-systems to support student and educator mental health during COVID-19. In addition to the webinars, the partners organized a set of resources, ideas, and supports for schools and districts.

Access All Resources

Webinars:

Supporting Students’ SEL and Mental Health Needs During COVID-19: Webinar Slides

• Webinar slides with speaker notes

• Watch the webinar recording

Establishing District-Wide Systems to Support the Mental Health Needs of Students and Educators during COVID-19

• Webinar recording on 4/17/20

• Webinar recording on 4/24/20

Massachusetts Resources:

• Mental Health and Wellbeing: Resources from School Districts across the Commonwealth

• Network of Care Massachusetts: Finding Behavioral Health Services

National COVID-19 School Resources:

• Information and Resources for Schools and School Personnel: US Department of Education: COVID-19 (“Coronavirus”)

• Health Crisis Resources: National Association of School Psychologists (NASP)

• COVID-19 Resources: National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH)

• Talking to kids about Coronavirus: Child Mind Institute

• Creating a PBIS Behavior Teaching Matrix for Remote Instruction: Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions (PBIS)

• 4 Resources to Support Students During the Pandemic through PBIS

• Behavioral Health Care Resources COVID-19: Resources from behavioral health care practitioners across the country

• The Training and Access Project (TAP) is an initiative within Boston Children’s Hospital Neighborhood Partnerships (BCHNP) that offers free online training modules related to addressing students’ social, emotional, behavioral, and mental health needs.

Crisis Support Resources:

• Samaritans: 1-877-870-4673 | https://samaritanshope.org/

• Crisis Text Line – Text “HOME” to 741741

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255 | https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

• National Sexual Assault Hotline": 1-800-656-4673 | https://www.rainn.org/

• National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 | https://www.thehotline.org/

• The Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386 | https://www.thetrevorproject.org/

• Trans Lifeline: 1-877-565-8860 | https://www.translifeline.org/

Telehealth Resources:

• OCR Issues Bulletin on Civil Rights Laws and HIPAA Flexibilities That Apply During the COVID-19 Emergency

• FERPA and the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

• HIPAA, Civil Rights, and COVID-19 

Source

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Education Development Center (EDC), Transforming Education, and Walker Cares

2019 MTSS Leadership Institute Materials

Welcome to the September 26 & 27th MTSS Leadership Institute. This professional development opportunity focused on giving district teams the opportunity to learn about the new MTSS blueprint and discuss how to lead within an MTSS framework. Please see below for breakout session material links.

Resource Links

Access all breakout sessions.

Access the keynote speaker and breakout sessions.

Access the MTSS Blueprint.

Source

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

Leading with Access & Equity 2018 Conference Materials

Welcome to the November 1, 2018 Leading with Access & Equity Conference! This annual professional development opportunity focuses on systems and strategies to meet students’ holistic needs and ensure that every child has equitable access to a world-class education. The event represents a collaboration across multiple offices and initiatives at DESE and focuses on topics including, but not limited to: creating a pipeline of diverse educators, developing multi-tiered systems of support, equitable access to high quality curriculum, bilingual education, ensuring racial and cultural equity, effectively engaging families, student mobility, approaches to addressing students’ mental health needs, integrating social emotional and academic learning, and more. Please see below for breakout session material links.

Resource Links

Access all breakout session materials.

Access the 2019 Leading with Access & Equity Conference materials.

Source

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

Leading with Access & Equity 2019 Conference Materials

Welcome to the October 24, 2019 Leading with Access & Equity Conference! Please see below for breakout session material links.

View the incredible performance from the Springfield High School of Science and Technology (SciTech) Band!

Resource Links

Breakout Session Materials:

• Session A2:  Building a Prenatal through Post-Secondary Family Engagement Framework:  An Opportunity for Communities to Strengthen and Align Family Engagement Practices

• Session B2:  Drafting and Implementing a Revised District Code of Conduct

• Session C2:  Reducing Anxiety and Increasing Engagement in the Classroom

• Session D2:  Six Components of Integrating Social-Emotional Learning into Daily Classroom Practice

• Session E2:  Using Psychosocial and Behavioral Data to Support Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

• Session A1: A Diagnostic Approach in an Integrated Public Preschool: A Framework for Assessing English Learners

• Session B1: Advancing Racial Equity in the Commonwealth

• Session C1:  Building a Multi-Tiered System of Support 

• Session D1:  Building a Prenatal through Post-Secondary Family Engagement Framework:  An Opportunity for  Communities to Strengthen and Align Family Engagement Practices -  One hour version

• Session E1:  Building an Alternative School 

• Session F1:  College and Career Advising and My Career and Academic Plan:  A Whole School Plan for Student Success 

• Session G1:  Culturally Responsive Teams:  4 Strategies to Strengthen Family-School Partnerships on 504 and Special Education Teams 

• Session H1: Deeper Dive into Supporting Students in Foster Care or Experiencing Homelessness

• Session I1:  Educational Equality in Opportunities and Outcomes for ELs:  Bilingual Education Programs 

• Session J1:  Embedding Social and Emotional Learning in Secondary Classrooms 

• Session K1:  Equity and Literacy: Reaching the Brilliant and the Bored - Centering the Literacy Lives of Young People of Color in Our Classrooms

• Session L1:  Hiring for Equity: Disrupting Bias in the Interview and Selection Process 

• Session M1: Impact of Today’s Poverty, Trauma, and Stress on Learning

• Session N1:  Leveraging Prep Partnerships to Diversity the Workforce 

• Session O1:  Promoting Culturally Responsive Education

• Session P1:  School and Youth-Serving Agencies Together to Create Flexible Solutions for "Potentially" Suspended Students 

• Session Q1:  Strengthening and Diversifying Existing Teacher Recruitment and Retention Programs

• Session R1:  Supporting Students in Foster Care or Experiencing Homelessness 101

• Session S1:  Supporting Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students

• Session T1:  The CURATE (CUrriculum RAtings by TEachers) Project:  Broadening Access to High-Quality Curriculum in Massachusetts

• Session U1: The Power of Play in New Bedford Public Schools

• Session V1:  Thinking About Student and Teacher Assignment Strategically

• Session W1:  Tier II Mental Health Services:  Implementing a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Group Programs 

• Session X1:  What Does Equitable Access in Math and Science Classrooms Look Like? 

• Session Y1:  Where Equity and SEL Collide:  Adult Self-Care 

Access all breakout sessions.

Access general conference materials.

Access 2018 convening materials.

Source

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

The School Climate Survey Suite→

The School Climate Survey Suite is a set of four multidimensional surveys to measure student, teacher, administrator, faculty, and family perceptions of school climate. The surveys are brief, reliable, and valid for assessing perceived school climate among students in Grades 3-12. Teams can use each survey separately or in combination to assess perceptions. Each survey includes a set of demographic questions about the participant and a number of questions related to school climate with Likert-scale response option.

Resource Links

School Climate Survey Suite

Source

OSEP Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, University of Oregon

Principles of Effective Practice for Integrated Student Support→

For over half a century, it has been recognized that contexts beyond school – like health, social-emotional well-being, family, and neighborhood – can account for up to two-thirds of the variance in student achievement. Developmental systems theories and neurobiological disciplines have more recently begun to explain the link between these outside factors and educational outcomes. This research provides insight into why experiences like poverty and trauma can inhibit learning, and what can be done to counteract their effects.

Resource Links

Principles of Effective Practice for Integrated Student Support

Source

Boston College Center for Optimized Student Support

Training: Understanding Trauma and the Impact on Learning

This free online training for educators is part of the Clough Foundation Training and Access Project (TAP) Online series, which offers free courses on social-emotional learning and behavioral health in schools. TAP is a part of the Boston Children’s Hospital Neighborhood Partnerships Program (BCHNP). 

Resource Links

TAP Online Training: Understanding Trauma and the Impact on Learning Part 1: Definitions and Effects on the Brain

Source

Open Pediatrics