The Field Guide

Accelerating Learning, Equity and Well-Being

PRIORITIZING STUDENT WELL-BEING

How do we increase students’ well-being and create the conditions for learning?

WHY

Emotional and physical safety are the foundation for all learning and success. Because our communities have experienced increased trauma to varying degrees this year, a focus on student well-being is particularly essential to accelerating learning these coming months and beyond. As such, we must first address Maslow before focusing on Bloom to improve student well-being and outcomes, decrease disciplinary issues, increase engagement, and accelerate student learning.

WHAT

LEAs should prioritize four areas: identifying basic needs, recognizing and responding to trauma, supporting social-emotional well-being, and incorporating movement to boost cognitive development.

THE BOTTOM LINE

DO NOW: Make sure your team is trained on how to spot and report child abuse and then how to support children through trauma.
DO NEXT: Support the development of relationships, routines, and resilience.

HOW

Identifying and Meeting Basic Needs

Research shows that before academic and cognitive goals can be met, learners’ core needs must first be met or addressed.

STEPS

Conduct a needs and resources assessment. Identify specific issues to address; build from what’s already in place and working well. Here are two guides to needs assessment and two sample surveys:
- Create a complete inventory and community engagement process using the National Center for Communities in Schools design packet, which includes ways to collect feedback and plan action.

- WestEd Planning guide for comprehensive needs assessment
- Panorama sample survey for families needing support
- Riverside County Office of Education’s survey

Develop an action plan based on the needs assessment. Include the goals and objectives as well as a plan for attaining them.
- Here’s an example of a tiered support system from Turnaround for Children.
- Use your community for help filling needs—create an asset map.
- Consider creating and distributing a list of resources to meet common needs as part of your action plan. It could include the following:

- - Food security:

- - - When schools are closed due to COVID-19, children who are eligible for free or reduced-price meals can get up to $365 in food benefits in addition to their pickup meals from school. These food benefits are called Pandemic EBT or P-EBT. For more information, reference this parent handout or call (877) 328-9677.
    - Resources from the California Association of Food Banks
    - Other food security resources and a playbook on implementing effective nutrition programs.

- - Mental health:

- - - Warm Line is a free, nonemergency peer-run mental health support line for California residents.
    - Dial 211 for free, confidential support available in more than 200 languages. 211 connects people to a range of services, resources, and programs for housing, food security, mental health and more.
    - Other mental health resources and hotline
  - Other resources for issues like financial support, immigration, and more can be found at the Children’s Partnership.

Remove barriers to getting support.

- Designate a point person/people for families. Reimagine how you use staff to make sure students and families feel seen, heard, and valued.
- Look at positions and roles on campus. Are staff assigned to roles with student well-being at the heart?
- Look closely at how you are using time. Does this reflect your values and support student well-being?
  - Create bell schedules with connection in mind: Is the bell schedule designed to maximize time student-staff relationships?
  - Use staff meetings and professional development to emphasize student (and staff) well-being and SEL.

Recognizing and Responding to Trauma

The pandemic has caused widespread trauma (personal, vicarious, collective, and historical). Even under normal circumstances, two-thirds of children in the country have experienced a traumatic event by the age of 16, according to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. For learning to take place, educators must help address trauma.

STEPS

Ensure educators can spot child abuse during distance learning. As the San Diego County Office of Education explains, students need schools to continue reporting abuse during distance learning necessitated by COVID-19. School closures kept children out of the view of the adults who make a fifth of all child abuse reports—teachers and school officials.
- Make sure educators and staff stay vigilant about possible exploitation of children.
- Use these resources from the San Diego County Office of Education and Valley Children’s Healthcare to spot and report child abuse during virtual learning.

Determine a plan for what you will do to respond to loss of school community members.
- Work with LSSs. Work on how to handle commemorations, memorial activities, and permanent marker establishment, if allowed.
- Determine how memorial activities will strike a balance between honoring loss, resuming school activities and class routines, and maintaining hope for the future.
- Here is a guide to responding to a student or staff death from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement.
- The National Alliance for Grieving Children offers a toolkit on supporting children and teens who are grieving with exercises, tools, and handouts.
- AASA’s School Safety and Crisis Planning toolkit includes resources on responding to the death of a school community member.
Develop re-entry protocols. Determine the processes and procedures for reopening campuses with trauma-informed SEL front and center.

- Transforming Education offers a toolkit on trauma-informed SEL (see image).
- The CASEL Reopen Roadmap can help you create a plan that assures you:
  - Take time to cultivate and deepen relationships, build partnerships, and plan for SEL;
  - Design opportunities for adults to connect, heal, and build their capacity to support students;
  - Create safe, supportive, and equitable learning environments that promote all students’ social and emotional development;
  - Use data as an opportunity to share power, deepen relationships, and continuously improve support for students, families, and staff.
Respond to acute need with site and community resources.
- Reach out to community-based organizations and partners to make sure psychological and other supports for staff and students are in place.

Provide professional development.

- The National Child Traumatic Stress Network offers a child trauma toolkit for educators (and parents).
- Find experiences for educators regarding student and staff reactions to stress and imposed isolation/change.
- Reference the CCEE hybrid learning playbook for specific strategies and responsibilities by roles (like principals, counselors, teachers, and support providers).

Supporting Social-Emotional Well-Being with the 3 Rs: Relationships, Routines, and Resilience

Social-emotional well-being does not exist in a vacuum; it is part of the learning experience in all school spaces and it is closely intertwined with academic success. Since students spend most of their waking time at school and engaged in school work, think about what needs to be part of the school day. As you set your priorities for the year, Turnaround for Children offers a new take on the 3 Rs (relationships, routines, and resilience) as an important way to reduce stress and improve well-being for students.

STEPS

Discuss the 3 Rs: Share this graphic from Turnaround for Children with principals and teachers. Ask them to think of ways to create and build out each of the three that fit your organization’s north star and your graduate profile.

Schedule with relationship-building in mind. Incorporate relationship-building activities from these resources:
- Restorative Conversations from Turnaround for Children
- Relationship-building strategies from Turnaround for Children
- Structuring the classroom environment for supportive relationships from Turnaround for Children
- School Resource Hub: Relationships
- Building Relationships (in person) from Turnaround for Children
- Instructional Partners – Relationships and Connections
- Greater Good Roadmap of Resources by Grade Level: relationship-building activities organized by grade level and duration

Ensure the schedule includes healthy routines.

- Psychologist Dr. Dan Siegel offers a Healthy Mind Platter model for what a student’s day should include for mental well-being.
- See the next section for information on incorporating movement into the school day.
Take steps to support students’ mental health and resilience.
- Transcend offers a Mental Health Practice Toolkit for schools to draw on in crafting these practices.
- Diverse Learners Cooperative provides Tools to Decrease Anxiety of Diverse Learners.
- Consider these 5 Resources to Support Mental Well-Being for students, families, and your school communities.
- Work with your community. You can refer to our community asset sections for more ideas.
Plan for ways that well-being may look different during distance or hybrid learning.
- If instruction is on campus, the following resources will help in promoting social-emotional learning.
  - CCEE hybrid learning playbook SEL section
  - San Diego County Office of Education Social-Emotional Learning Resources and archives of SEL trainings and webinars
  - Aspen Institute’s SEL Through a Race Equity Lens: Five Strategies for System Leaders to Take Action
  - CASEL SEL Look-fors
  - CASEL Initial Guide To Leveraging the Power of Social Emotional Learning
  - California Department of Education framework for SEL
  - Transforming Education’s SEL Integration Approach
- If some or all instruction is taking place remotely, these resources will apply:
  - CCEE distance learning playbook SEL section
  - TLA’s One Thing – Whole-Child Learning in a Virtual Setting: user guide mapping out specific steps, strategies, and resources to support whole-child needs
  - EdElements: Strategies for Supporting SEL in Virtual Settings
  - SDCOE COVID-19 SEL Resources
  - SDCOE COVID-19 Website – Staying Mentally and Emotionally Healthy

Offer resources and insights to staff on supporting students’ social-emotional well-being.

- Turnaround for Children provides a resource on stress and the developing brain.
- Transcend’s Mental Health Practice Toolkit for schools
- Diverse Learners Cooperative’s Tools to Decrease Anxiety of Diverse Learners
- 5 Resources to Support the Mental Well-Being of Your School Community: article highlighting five key ways to support the well-being of students, families, communities
- Turnaround For Children’s Emotional Response Strategies List

Incorporating Movement

The evidence linking cognitive development and movement is profound. (See here, here, here, here, here, and here.) In fact, movement is probably one of the most effective means we have of improving our brain functioning. Moving our bodies creates new neural pathways that may be critical to improving attention, academic performance, memory and more. Children need opportunities to move so they can learn.

Even though the research is clear, students spend a vast amount of time sitting rather than moving. Improving student academic outcomes and well-being may be as easy as including more exercise throughout the day. Even a 10-minute walk before school has significant results. And while a PE block is a start, when reimagining school, consider intentional movement throughout the day as part of the academic platter.

STEPS

Encourage instructors to schedule brain breaks. Get adults and kids moving (even if just for a few seconds) in between long bouts of academic work. Here are four resources for movement:
- Scholastic article for elementary teachers: 18 Activities to Get Your Students Moving
- Free online dance classes for elementary students
- Healthy for Life Project’s Move More In Schools Toolkit for preK-12
- Active Learning: A Toolkit for Teachers for K-12
Promote complex movements. The more complex the movement, the greater the learning benefit. Here are some examples.

Utilize expertise and invest in training. Give teachers tools and training in specific brain-building movements. Ask the school occupational therapist, PE teacher, or perhaps an outside expert to visit the school and advise on best practices for intentional movement to grow the brain. Have teachers and staff share best practices.
Connect with outside resources. Community centers, local YMCAs, and other organizations that have movement-based programs may be available in your community. Invite them into the school to promote movement opportunities during, before, and after school.
Make the time. Look at the schedule. Is there any time to add movement? This helps promote a schoolwide culture of exercise. Utilize before and after school hours too by offering run/walk clubs, group calisthenics, yoga, and dance clubs.
Add to the school environment. Consider adding things to the school environment that promote movement, such as a walking path, an infinity walk, or structures that allow students to jump, climb, or hop.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

How does our team define student well being? Does it include physical health (like food and safety) and emotional and mental health?
What data are we collecting about student wellness? What are wellness bright spots? What are our most significant needs?
What is our level of comfort around reporting child abuse during distance learning?
How has our mental health team shifted during COVID, and how will it continue to evolve?
How familiar is our team with movement as a strategy for improving cognitive development?
How is the team prioritizing relationships, routines, and resilience?
What practices do we already have in place? Do we want to commit to them, or do we want to make changes?

The Field Guide for California LEAs

The Field Guide for accelerating learning, equity, and well being was developed by the California Collaborative for
Educational Excellence for California LEAs in collaboration with technical assistance partners.

The Field Guide

Accelerating Learning, Equity and Well-Being

PRIORITIZING STUDENT WELL-BEING

How do we increase students’ well-being and create the conditions for learning?

WHY

WHAT

THE BOTTOM LINE