Creating Safe, Equitable, Engaging Schools brings together the collective wisdom of more than thirty experts from a variety of fields to show how school leaders can create communities that support the social, emotional, and academic needs of all students. It offers an essential guide for making sense of the myriad frameworks, resources, and tools available to create a continuous improvement system. Filled with recommendations gleaned from research and ongoing work in every US state and territory, this book is a critical resource for understanding and adopting evidence-based practices and making programmatic decisions to ensure the ideal conditions for learning, growth, and development. "Creating Safe, Equitable, Engaging Schools is an essential read for teachers, principals, district leaders, and organizations that work with schools to create challenging and supportive environments for all students." --Paul Cruz, superintendent, Austin Independent School District "Osher and colleagues not only connect the dots between big ideas--deeper learning, trauma, social and emotional learning, evidence-based programs, comprehensive community planning--but they model the continuous improvement approach in the way ideas are ordered across and within the chapters. This is a masterful volume: comprehensive, accessible, and way overdue." --Karen J. Pittman, cofounder, president and CEO, The Forum for Youth Investment "This book provides a very usable road map for creating safe, healthy, equitable, and caring schools. The editors and contributors successfully integrate research, practice, and policy to help educators develop and implement effective and sustainable models to nurture caring schools that all children and educators deserve." --Mark T. Greenberg, Bennett Chair of Prevention Research, Pennsylvania State University David Osher is vice president and an institute fellow at American Institutes for Research. Deborah Moroney is a managing director at American Institutes for Research and is director of the youth development and supportive learning environments practice area. Sandra Williamson is a vice president for policy, practice, and systems change at American Institutes for Research.

Educators must both respond to the impact of trauma, and prevent trauma at school. Trauma-informed initiatives tend to focus on the challenging behaviors of students and ascribe them to circumstances that students are facing outside of school. This approach ignores the reality that inequity itself causes trauma, and that schools often heighten inequities when implementing trauma-informed practices that are not based in educational equity. In this fresh look at trauma-informed practice, Alex Shevrin Venet urges educators to shift equity to the center as they consider policies and professional development. Using a framework of six principles for equity-centered trauma-informed education, Venet offers practical action steps that teachers and school leaders can take from any starting point, using the resources and influence at their disposal to make shifts in practice, pedagogy, and policy. Overthrowing inequitable systems is a process, not an overnight change. But transformation is possible when educators work together, and teachers can do more than they realize from within their own classrooms.

This practitioner-focused guide to creating identity-safe classrooms presents four categories of core instructional practices: Child-centered teaching ; Classroom relationships ; Caring environments ; Cultivating diversity. The book presents a set of strategies that can be implemented immediately by teachers. It includes a wealth of vignettes taken from identity-safe classrooms as well as reflective exercises that can be completed by individual teachers or teacher teams.

This book draws on an extensive international literature and policy context, from a wide range of fields of enquiry, to challenge the orthodoxies and systemic issues that serve to marginalise children and young people and lead the way for schools to become more equitable, inclusive and compassionate in their practice. With a particular focus on children with social, emotional and behavioural/mental health needs, it critiques policy and practice as they pertain to behaviour management and school discipline in the UK and the USA, and offers alternative perspectives based on collaborative and relational approaches to promoting positive behaviour and building community. Each chapter features reflection points to provoke discussion as well as offering additional suggested reading, culminating in a discussion of the role of school leaders in leading for social justice. Ultimately, this book will be of benefit to scholars, researchers and students working in the fields of behaviour management, inclusion and special needs education, and education, policy and politics more broadly. It will also offer substantial appeal to education professionals, school leaders and those with a locus on the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people.

Welcome to Identity Safe Classrooms! In identity safe classrooms, students facing negative stereotypes or viewed as different are "seen," accepted, and valued for who and what they are. Their identity is embraced as an asset not a barrier for school success. Identity safety is a research-based set of practices that counter the harmful effects of stereotype threat and allow our students to reach their full capacity for learning, foster positive relationships, and better appreciate the full spectrum of human differences. The second of a two-volume set, Identity Safe Classrooms, Grades 6-12, is a call for educators to come together and realize a vision of schools as transformative places of opportunity and equity for all students. Inside you’ll find: Design principles for promoting belonging and a welcoming classroom environment Compelling evidence from identity safety research on ways to mitigate stereotype threat along with counter-narratives that challenge societal biases about gender, race, and other differences Pragmatic strategies for student-centered teaching, including trauma-informed practices, that hold high expectations and validate each student’s background as a resource for learning Vignettes with concrete examples and try-it-out activities and prompts for self-reflection Devour Identity Safe Classrooms, adopt its practices, and soon enough you’ll inspire in all of your students a greater sense of empathy and agency in their educational experiences. "Dr. Becki Cohn-Vargas along with Alexandrea Creer Kahn and Amy Epstein show us the intersections between adolescent identity development, racial identity development, and social-emotional development so we know how to use the diversity in classrooms as our strength." -Zaretta Hammond, Author of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain "Identity Safe Classrooms should be in the hands of every educator who walks into a school. It′s clear and accessible, grounded in research, thought-provoking and engaging, and actionable, and fills a crucial gap in our resources for creating just and liberated schools." -Elena Aguilar, Author of The Art of Coaching "The authors have done an excellent job showing how an identity safe classroom integrates the growth mindset in a secondary school. When students feel accepted and valued, when they feel safe learning from mistakes and encouraged to continually grow as learners, they can reach their highest potential." -Carol Dweck, Stanford University

Today’s classrooms reimagined If you’re looking for a book on how to "control" your students, this isn’t it! Instead, this is a book on what classroom learning could be if we aspire to co-create more culturally responsive and equitable environments—environments that are safe, affirming, learner-centered, intellectually challenging, and engaging. If we create the kind of places where our students want to be . . . A critically important resource for teachers and administrators alike, "These Kids Are Out of Control" details the specific practices, tools, beliefs, dispositions, and mindsets that are essential to better serving the complex needs of our diverse learners, especially our marginalized students. Gain expert insight on: What it means to be culturally responsive in today’s classroom environments, even in schools at large How to decide what to teach, understand the curriculum, build relationships in and outside of school, and assess student development and learning The four best practices for building a classroom culture that is both nurturing and rigorous, and where all students are seen, heard, and respected Alternatives to punitive disciplinary action that too often sustains the cradle-to-prison pipeline Classroom "management" takes care of itself when you engage students, help them see links and alignment of the curriculum to their lives, build on and from student identity and culture, and recognize the many ways instructional practices can shift. "These Kids Are Out of Control" is your opportunity to get started right away!

Draws from a wide research base documenting best practices for identity safety, including inclusive classroom practices, positive teacher-student relations, diverse and challenging tasks, and the use of student diversity as a resource Includes interactive activities and tools for professional development, linking strategies to theory Offers guiding principles to help leaders stay true to the core values of equity and identify safety, equipping leaders with the adaptive expertise needed to confront evolving challenges Covers professional growth models for teachers, counselors, campus supervisors, and other school staff Tackles the difficult issue of equitable data collection; shares principles, systems, and best practices for assessment that take bias, stakeholder voice, and universal design into account.

The achievement of students of color continues to be disproportionately low at all levels of education. More than ever, Geneva Gay's foundational book on culturally responsive teaching is essential reading in addressing the needs of today's diverse student population. Combining insights from multicultural education theory and research with real-life classroom stories, Gay demonstrates that all students will perform better on multiple measures of achievement when teaching is filtered through their own cultural experiences. This bestselling text has been extensively revised to include expanded coverage of student ethnic groups: African and Latino Americans as well as Asian and Native Americans as well as new material on culturally diverse communication, addressing common myths about language diversity and the effects of "English Plus" instruction.

Just Schools examines the challenges and possibilities for building more equitable forms of collaboration among non-dominant families, communities, and schools. The text explores how equitable collaboration entails ongoing processes that begin with families and communities, transform power, build reciprocity and agency, and foster collective capacity through collective inquiry. These processes offer promising possibilities for improving student learning, transforming educational systems, and developing robust partnerships that build on the resources, expertise, and cultural practices of non-dominant families. Based on empirical research and inquiry-driven practice, this book describes core concepts and provides multiple examples of effective practices. “This is the most compelling work to date on school and community engagement. It will be required reading for all my future classes.” —Muhammad Khalifa, University of Minnesota “Full of practical steps that educators and administrators can and must take to build strong collaborations with families.” —Mark R. Warren, University of Massachusetts Boston “This important publication provides a way forward for educators, families, students and community members to co-create “Just Schools” by honoring, validating, and celebrating each other’s knowledge, skills, power and resources.” —Karen Mapp, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Details the safety, mental health, and wellness issues in schools today and focuses on the interactions and collaborations needed among students, teachers, families, community members, and other professionals to foster the safety, learning, and well-being of all students. Safe schools and student well-being take a "village" of adults and students with varied interests, perspectives, and abilities collaborating to create caring, supportive, and academically productive schools. Schools are unofficial mental health care providers for children and youth who are placed at risk by social and economic circumstances and whose un- and under addressed needs can compromise teaching and learning. This handbook provides up-to-date information on how to promote safety, wellness, and mental health in a manner that can help draw the needed "village" together. It aligns research and practice to support effective collaboration—it provides information and tools for educators, administrators, policy makers, mental health and community organizations, families, parents, and students to join forces to promote and support school safety, student well-being, and student mental health. Chapters address school context, the dynamic nature of school communities and child development, and the importance of diversity and equity. Chapters provide in-depth understanding of why and how to improve safety, well-being, and mental health in a culturally responsive manner. They provide strategies and tools for planning, monitoring, and implementing change, methods for collaborating, and policy and practice guidance. They provide examples of successful and promising cross-system and cross-stakeholder collaborations. This handbook will interest students, scholars, faculty, and researchers in education, counseling, and psychology; administrators in human services and youth development; policy makers; and student, family, and community representatives.