CASEL has published guidance for schools to draw on social and emotional learning that supports students and adults as they start the school year. The guidance is organized around four critical actions. Find the guide, An Initial Guide to Leveraging the Power of Social and Emotional Learning as You Prepare to Reopen and Renew Your School Community.

Kaiser Permanente Thriving Schools and the National School Health Collaborative’s Our Back to School, Back Together campaign puts health at the center of education while providing school communities with the support they need. Find a collection of school and district resources for 2021-22.  

Designed for classroom teachers and school and district leaders, Flamboyan Foundation’s Beginning of the Year Relationship Building Toolkit offers guiding principles, a school leader checklist, family and student questionnaires and a welcome call planning tool. Find the toolkit. 

Cultural awareness, responsiveness, and understanding are essential to improving the care for traumatized children, families and communities. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network’s searchable website has a multitude of resources for the public, professionals and others who are concerned about child traumatic stress. Several are focused on Families and Trauma. Find them here.

Exclusionary discipline practices, such as out-of-school suspension and in-school suspension, are used frequently in U.S. public schools. The results from a new American Institutes for Research (AIR) study find that disciplining students through exclusion did not reduce future misbehavior, and the more severe the exclusionary discipline, the greater its negative effects were on future academic performance, attendance and behavior. Learn more about the research here.

The Brookings Brown Center Chalkboard blog post, How Schools Can Protect Our Children and Their Future When Reopening, describes recommendations such as collaborating with local health authorities to establish the community health risks and keeping some remote options available. Read the post.

The surge in Covid-19 cases is increasing the number of students who miss school. Join AAC webinar #4 on September 29, 2021, Supported: Leveraging Attendance Data to Ensure Ongoing Success. Everyone who registers will receive a link to the recorded webinar, presentation slides and discussion guide. Sign up here!

On October 26-29, 2021, the National Center for Community Schools at Children’s Aid presents the virtual edition of the Community Schools Fundamentals Conference, a learning experience designed specifically for those new or relatively new to community schools. Learn more and register.

Since 1964, the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) — a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization — has been at the forefront of innovative efforts that bring together leaders across the various sectors of education (P-20), workforce development and child-and youth-serving systems. IEL builds partnerships across institutional boundaries, helping tackle leadership challenges and leverage the resources of multiple partners to foster reform.

IEL’s flagship events, the Community Schools National Forum and the National Family and Community Engagement Conference are scheduled for June 2022. These gatherings combine content, networks and expertise from all 50 states, the federal district, territories and around the world so participants can learn with and from one another. Watch for registration to open this fall. Learn more!