Upstream B2 Teacher 39;s Book For Students Book

[Kerrie Gingrich]

Background: Nevada has had consistently high rates of youth suicide in the past decade with 21.2 deaths by suicide per 100,000 population (ages 15-24), over the national rate of 14.5 deaths per 100,000 in 2019. National strategies, state agendas, and best practices in the field prioritize research on upstream strategies to prevent suicide. One such strategy is the use of social emotional learning (SEL) programs for youth to help increase and enhance protective factors against suicide, helping them to cope with negative life events. Research has identified leading outcomes of SEL programs as the improvement of attitudes, behaviors, and academic performance in students. These areas of improvement are linked with increasing protective factors and decreasing risk factors for mental illness, substance abuse, and ultimately, suicide.

Results: Paired t-tests of student assessment data (n=197) revealed significant increases in mindfulness among students in the immediate intervention group, who received the program at the beginning of the school year. Significant increases in social emotional competence scales (Self-Regulation, Social Competence, Empathy, and Responsibility) were also found for students in the delayed intervention group, who received the program in the Spring of 2017. Minimal, non-significant differences were found when comparing racial/ethnic and gender groups for each of the assessment tools. Observation, interview, and focus group data revealed the program was not implemented with fidelity to its intended structure. Both program implementers and classroom teachers agreed that many adjustments would need to be made for this, or similar, programs in order for the implementation to be feasible and appropriate in a classroom setting. While much of the program content was deemed helpful and important for students to learn, it was agreed that the delivery should be more flexible and better tailored to the age, culture, and community environment of the students receiving the program.

Discussion: Program effectiveness cannot be fully and accurately assessed without first ensuring full fidelity of program implementation. Results of this analysis and evaluation revealed that buy-in from all stakeholders - including teachers, program facilitators, school administrators, students, and families - is essential to successful program implementation and reliable data collection. Recommendations are provided for consideration during future implementation efforts. Ultimately, this SEL program is an innovative strategy for bringing social emotional learning into the classroom; with continued improvement, implementation, and evaluation, it may prove to be an effective, universal upstream strategy for suicide prevention in schools.

Knight, Maria Amaris, "Social Emotional Learning as a Universal Upstream Approach to Youth Suicide Prevention: A Secondary Data Analysis of a Prevention Program Evaluation" (2021). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 4161.

According to a 2019 CDC study involving 13,667 students, 1 in 5 report of being bullied on school property within the last year and roughly 8 percent of high school students surveyed indicated they had been in a physical fight on school property at least one or more times within the last year.

These events have cast a spotlight on school safety and have put teachers, students and administrators squarely at the center of taking steps to create a positive school environment. It is widely known that a safe and supportive learning environment has a profound, positive impact on the academic success, mental health, and social well-being of students.

The 21st century has seen a 19 percent increase in violent events on school property. Experts attribute this increase to distinct factors including severe and long-term bullying experienced by the perpetrator, non-compliance and withdrawal side effects of psychiatric medications, social media, exposure to violent content, access to weapons, and a lack of mental health resources.

One of the most effective approaches to stemming the school violence crisis is a scalable community approach using upstream violence prevention. This approach refers to preventing violence before it starts by giving members of the school community the tools and accountability to ensure a safe environment for all.

One way that schools and districts are setting a stable foundation for violence prevention is through educator and student training. From game-like training simulations to videos and digital content delivered via on demand modules, schools are trying to get ahead of the behaviors and attitudes that lead to incidences and violent situations on school grounds.

By giving students the tools to understand their emotions, teaching growth through resiliency and understanding when to seek out help for themselves or a peer in distress, districts are finding powerful, lasting support from online training that can be integrated into a school curriculum.

Create a roll out plan: To ensure the training is integrated into the curriculum and that students have adequate time to complete it, each school/district should appoint a team that will manage the roll out the training program.

Establish benchmarks & measure: To demonstrate the effectiveness of the training, schools or districts should establish how they will measure outcomes. This could be measured by the number of students and educators trained over a school year or the decrease/ increase in the number of violent incidences on school grounds.

For school and district technology leaders, the end of the school year also means the end of billions of dollars of federal COVID-19 relief funding that was available to K-12 schools through various packages

Top teachers across the country say they face major hurdles in the classroom -- including staffing shortages, the pinch of low pay and addressing students' mental health -- many of which stem from closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, a recent ABC News survey found.

\"I think teachers are just the fabric of our communities,\" Rebecka Peterson, the 2023 educator of the year, told ABC News earlier this year. \"And I think we have to think of big and small ways that we can wrap our arms around teachers and remind them how important they are to us individually and to us as communities.\"

Thirty-five out of the 55 teachers answered and the rest elected not to participate, according to a spokesperson for the Council of Chief State School Officers, which runs the state teacher of the year program.

Despite emerging cultural flashpoints in the classroom like instruction on LGBTQ topics, book bans and the appropriateness of discussing critical race theory, the teachers instead pointed to student mental health, low pay and burnout as causes for concern.

Nine respondents said what deserves the most attention is how to reach students who may be struggling amid broader emotional challenges, whether it's what they called a youth mental health crisis or trauma brought on by the pandemic.

\"Meeting the needs of all students is a responsibility that educators are proud to take on, but it is challenging and takes a lot of work, energy, and dedication,\" Bernstein, a professional learning coach, wrote in the survey.

He and other educators stressed how cultivating relationships is also a solution for a problem they described as largely created by social isolation and distance learning when schools shuttered three years ago to limit the health risks of COVID-19.

\"By building solid relationships and comprehensively investing in education, we have a better chance of ensuring that every student can achieve their full potential and contribute to the success of our society,\" wrote Alabama fifth-grade teacher Reggie LeDon White.

\"We as teachers need the support to be able to handle the traumatic experiences that our students are coming to school with,\" Rountree wrote \"Teachers are constantly swimming upstream to meet students where they are, but after the pandemic we do not even know where to begin. However, one place to start would be to prepare our new teachers on what to expect and how they can be severely helpful to our veteran teachers. Giving all teachers the tools to be successful increases the [professional] lifespan of a teacher 2 times over.\"

\"Shortages have always been fairly normal, but the past few years have seen the shortages drastically increase,\" wrote Alaska first-grade teacher Harlee Harvey, a 2023 national finalist. \"This provides issues for several reasons. First, students are without highly qualified teachers in their classrooms, which will negatively impact the quality of instruction. Second, it puts an additional burden on teachers and paraeducators who have stayed, increasing the stress of their jobs and the likelihood that they will step away from our schools as well,\" she added.

\"Since most university driven teaching programs are located in larger cities, many teachers aren't familiar with rural communities to begin with,\" White wrote. \"When these new teachers start job searching and find rural job postings, they are often less attractive because in states with Local Education Agency control, salaries are not competitive with larger communities.\"

In New Jersey, where state officials have said special education, science and math teachers are in high demand, Christine Girtain called for better funding practices that would help instructors earn more amid the shortage.

The National Education Association (NEA) found that teachers make thousands less than they did a decade ago when adjusted for inflation. The average salary of classroom teachers declined by an estimated 6.4% over the past decade, according to NEA data.

\"Teachers should not have to work 2nd & 3rd jobs to afford to live,\" Girtain, a high school science teacher and director of authentic science research, wrote. \"We need larger nationwide investment in funding education and paying teachers a living wage.\"

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