How My School Turned Tragedy Into an Opportunity for Student and Family Engagement
Imagine not solely waking as much as a pandemic, pressured into an remoted house with out the bodily and emotional assist you want for studying, but additionally discovering that the place you name dwelling has been deemed unlivable. This was the truth for lots of the college students and their households at Luther J. Price Middle School (LJPMS) households after the town of Atlanta condemned property within the Forest Cove neighborhood in 2021.
There had been over 300 households that resided in Forest Cove, and lots of the kids from these households attended our faculty. Even worse, we had been nonetheless within the midst of a pandemic; not solely did we have now to create revolutionary methods to show and attain our youngsters nearly, however we additionally had to make sure that our youngsters and households had been bodily secure, nourished and mentally and emotionally sound to deal with the trauma they only skilled.
The irony right here was not poor property administration that condemned the properties on this neighborhood – the properties had been unlivable for a few years prior. If something, the difficulty make clear the dearth of funding within the native communities the place our college students stay and uncovered the hole in psychological well being assets for college students and their households.
As a faculty, we knew that if our college students and households didn’t have the assist they wanted, scholar studying and engagement can be severely impacted. Over the final two years, I labored with fellow educators and directors at LPJMS to strategize methods to place social-emotional studying on the forefront of our curriculum and scholar and household engagement plan. What began as a frightening activity turned a mission to reignite the eagerness and engagement of our college students whereas strengthening our area people.
Developing a Framework for Student Engagement
As the School and Community Engagement Manager and Parent Liaison, I labored with a crew of LJPMS academics and directors to undertake a framework to re-engage college students and households and restore a way of affection and belonging inside the surrounding neighborhood. We determined that implementing a framework incorporating social-emotional learning (SEL) would assist our college students and households cope and heal from the within out. SEL is outlined as the method of growing self-awareness, self-control, and interpersonal abilities which can be very important for college, work, and life success. When people are geared up with these abilities, they’ll higher deal with on a regular basis challenges and positively enhance all points of their lives, and given the state of affairs that we had been in, there was no higher time than the current.
Once our faculty recognized the necessity for SEL, we had been capable of re-channel our power and deal with the inputs that may get our college students again on monitor. Our instructional areas reworked into classes and platforms the place college students and their leaders may authentically be themselves and thrive in secure and supportive areas. Specifically, each classroom included areas the place college students may decompress, take a break, or meditate to be productive within the classroom setting. Those areas included issues reminiscent of therapeutic natural diffusers, earphones to hearken to calming sounds, books and journals to write down their ideas. Students appreciated these areas and had been capable of make the most of them to self-regulate their feelings, discover wholesome methods to course of trauma and change into extra productive and current learners within the classroom setting.
After we reached the pandemic’s peak and college students may return to the classroom, we additionally knew it might be necessary to assist them determine the importance of their place locally. We needed them to determine optimistic attributes about themselves and then leverage these attributes to construct private, social and tutorial targets. Teachers started constructing classes centered on id formation, and quickly after, college students started to embrace their id and individuality which reworked our classroom and neighborhood tradition.
One of essentially the most impactful methods our college students exhibited their newfound confidence was by advocating for a brand new vitamin program within the college. Over the span of some months, college students captured footage, movies and suggestions from fellow college students to construct their case. When college students introduced their findings to our district leaders, the information revealed that over 70 % of the scholars inside the college weren’t consuming breakfast and lunch. Students made the connection between wholesome consuming habits and scholar efficiency and recognized selections district leaders and academics may make to construct a greater vitamin program for college students.
This presentation resulted within the district adopting a brand new meals program for our district that was culturally acceptable, interesting, and good for college students. When college students noticed the outcomes of the work that they had executed, this affirmed how id, advocacy and doing the work yields optimistic outcomes.
For me, it was heartwarming to see college students discover their confidence after such a tragic occasion and I’m glad I took benefit of the chance to make connections and construct belief with college students in order that we may develop into the neighborhood we sought.
Family Engagement and Support
Just as we knew we couldn’t instruct from a one-size-fits-all mentality, we additionally needed to apply that very same philosophy to scholar households. Our dad and mom yearned to construct upon their information to assist their kids’s studying journey. Witnessing firsthand the stressors a lot of our households skilled allowed our academics and leaders within the studying neighborhood to grasp how we may higher assist our youngsters and the households we serve.
This was the start of my transition from the classroom to a task as a household engagement liaison. I requested to be a conduit to interact with our households to re-establish belief, guarantee households really feel welcomed and construct a stronger connection between our faculty neighborhood and households within the Forest Cove neighborhood.
First, I began by establishing Parent University, a spot the place dad and mom may come and entry assets to create higher situations for themselves and their kids. Parents can entry assets reminiscent of GED coursework, resume writing, monetary literacy and particular person and household remedy. During this time, I additionally leveraged our in-house partnership relationship with Communities in Schools who offered a crew of liaisons in LJPMS that would work with college students and households one-on-one to grasp primary wants and assist them safe housing, medical help and meals.
We additionally made it a degree to enhance our relationship with our exterior neighborhood companions together with COR, a non-profit group that I labored with to supply programming and assist to trauma-impacted college students and households who’re marginalized by poverty and race-based instructional inequities. Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation has been a viable useful resource to our households displaced by the demolition of Forest Cove, along with households who’re coping with landlord/authorized points, or those that are survivors of intimate companion violence. Last however not least, Chris 180 – one of many premier psychological well being, youngster welfare and household organizations within the Southeast – has been available on-site to satisfy the psychological and emotional wants of our college students and employees.
A Community That Heals Together Stays Together
Through this course of, we realized to relinquish what energy we thought we had on this house and change into susceptible. We trusted each other, beloved on each other, and supported one another at a time when a lot was unsure for us all.
This neighborhood exemplified resilience at a time when most would have given up. We tapped into our creativity and realized to work outdoors of the field. We turned foot troopers and fought for the social-emotional studying of our college students and the well-being of our households. If they might not come to us, then we got here to them. While we rejoice the affect of the work we have now executed, we all know should proceed to heal and construct our neighborhood to maintain our college students and households engaged.
Of course, issues won’t ever be what they as soon as had been, however we’re constructing a greater college and neighborhood – extra importantly, we’re constructing leaders. Shifting from a task as an tutorial chief to a faculty and neighborhood engagement chief was a blessing. In this position, I’m able to do work that creates a bridge from the classroom to college students’ properties and communities. While the displacement of our college students and households examined our resolve, I’m grateful to work with colleagues and friends who care about bettering our college students’ circumstances simply as a lot as I do.
