Transforming Education by Putting Kids First |
|
IDRA Newsletter – This Issue's Focus:
Strengthening School Safety
|
|
In This Issue
The Facts about School-based Police
•••••
A Policy Roadmap – School Safety for All Students
•••••
Implementing Restorative Practices to Strengthen School Communities
•••••
Alternative Responses to Student Behavior – Steps for Teachers, Administrators and School Staff
•••••
We're Hiring!
•••••
New Classnotes Podcast Episode
•••••
Recent News
|
|
The Facts about School-based Police |
|
by Morgan Craven, J.D.
Despite mounting evidence of the harms that school-based police programs can cause schools and their communities, many school leaders and policymakers wrongly view them as essential to “safety.” This article provides important facts about school police that stakeholders must consider while addressing school safety. These pertinent facts include how police presence can worsen the school-to-prison pipeline, disproportionately impact students of color and LGBTQ+ youth, lead to higher rates of exclusionary discipline, and increase the risk of physical harm and trauma inflicted on students who interact with law enforcement officers. Stakeholders should instead invest in programs that protect all students and increase safety.
|
|
A Policy Roadmap – School Safety for All Students |
|
by Makiah Lyons, Paige Duggins-Clay, J.D., & Morgan Craven, J.D.
All students should feel safe at school and know they are in an environment that affirms their culture, supports their dignity and rights, and protects them from bullying and violence. Leaders and policymakers have a duty to adopt effective, research-based policies that protect all students while eliminating programs that harm them, regardless of how popular they seem. Specifically, policymakers should eliminate harmful discipline and school policing and invest in practices that build genuine and trusting relationships between staff, educators, students, families and their communities.
Research-backed measures that improve school safety and make all students feel welcome cover a wide range of programs and strategies, from adopting restorative practices to ensuring that schools are staffed by highly-qualified and diverse educators and counselors armed with culturally-sustaining practices and who are trained and supported in effective behavioral management.
|
|
Build Safe Schools, Reject Hurtful Policies –
Policy Responses to School Safety
See safety strategies that harm students and strategies that help students.
|
|
|
|
Implementing Restorative Practices to Strengthen School Communities |
|
by Paige Duggins-Clay, J.D.
A growing body of research points to restorative practices as effective in reducing suspensions, expulsions, violent incidents and police referrals while improving academic outcomes. Implementing these practices requires a whole school approach that removes harmful policies and provides training and support for educators and stakeholders as they genuinely invest in strengthening student, parent and community bonds.
Restorative practices reject punitive and exclusionary responses to harm, which use isolation, shame, and deprivation of privileges and rights as tools to punish a person who engages in misconduct. Instead, restorative practices value all school community members, including students who have wronged their peers or their classroom community. This article covers the foundational principles of restorative justice, discusses how restorative principles translate into practice, and provides recommendations for the beginning implementation of restorative practices as an alternative to exclusionary discipline.
|
|
|
|
Restorative Justice
Assistance
IDRA can provide research-based school professional development and coaching and mentoring in restorative justice.
Learn more!
|
|
|
Alternative Responses to Student Behavior –
Steps for Teachers, Administrators and School Staff
|
|
by Paula Johnson, Ph.D.
Schools are in dire need of discipline reform, particularly regarding punitive measures for student misbehavior. This article provides recommendations for both adults and students to learn and grow while resolving conflict via relationship building and developing social and critical thinking skills and problem-solving strategies. This requires establishing high expectations for student behavior, using effective means of communication with students and families about behavior and academic expectations, and increasing the use of social-emotional learning (SEL) strategies to address student needs. Inclusive school climates ensure that students thrive in communities that encourage and maintain respectful, trusting and caring relationships to support the academic, social, emotional and physical well-being of the entire community.
|
|
Full-Time Positions
- Texas Advocacy Director
- Georgia Advocacy Director
|
|
Consultants
-
IDRA EAC-South Consultants
- Grant Writer Consultant
- Computer Science or Game Design Curriculum Consultant
|
|
Applications Due August 4!
There’s still time to apply to become an IDRA Education Policy Fellow in Georgia or Texas!
|
|
|
New Classnotes Podcast Episode |
|
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for the latest news! |
|
|
|
The Intercultural Development Research Association is an independent, non-profit organization. Our mission is to achieve equal educational opportunity for every child through strong public schools that prepare all students to access and succeed in college. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
