Students & Parents
Social emotional learning starts at home, so our principals and teachers make it an important priority to develop strong connections between school and home. Building trust and keeping clear lines of communication can ensure a process where students feel supported and geared for success both in and out of the classroom. SEL Supports include:
Rethink Social Emotional Learning Curriculum for All Students
MSCS district-wide commitment to SEL requires schools to provide ALL students access to 30-minutes of weekly explicit SEL instruction through Rethink’s digital platform. Rethink helps to facilitate positive relationships and provides a space where students can engage in emotional wellness. In addition, students learn how to cope in difficult situations and empower them to be their strongest and brightest selves.
ReSET Rooms
The ReSET Room is an in-school intervention service used as an alternative to in-school or out-of-school suspensions. The sole intent of the ReSET room is for de-escalation and the refocus of the student on positive behaviors and restorative practices to repair harm and improve relationships, so that students can quickly return to the regular learning environment with a minimal loss of instructional time. All students assigned to the ReSET room are tracked and monitored by the ReSET Room Assistants. The ReSET Room Assistants will utilize trauma-informed/responsive strategies and a behavior program/curriculum with assigned students.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Training
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are traumatic events that can have negative, lasting effects on brain development, health, and behavior. ACEs include being physically, emotionally, or sexually abused as a child and growing up in a house with domestic violence, mental illness, alcohol and drug abuse or criminal problems. Students exposed to such traumatic events are at increased risk for declines in attendance and grade point averages and more prone to negative assessments in their school records than other students. Some research has shown that having a higher incidence of traumatic or adverse childhood experiences is associated with a greater risk of repeating a grade and lower school engagement. Trauma exposure may also lead to children having increased difficulties concentrating and learning at school, as well as reckless or aggressive behavior.
Behavior/Discipline- Restorative Practices
When developing instructional environments that are truly restorative and effective, positive school climates and cultures must first be established. Students must be attentive and in attendance to be taught, and school leaders must be equipped with supports in order to teach. Because of this, it is extremely important to ensure a culture and climate that implements restorative practices. A truly restorative school environment is the result of a school district’s ability to strategically plan for the “whole child.”
Per MSCS policy, reasoned discipline is necessary to maintain safe, orderly environments that are conducive for education and to create a stable foundation of expectations, responsibility, and consistency. However, ongoing assessment of progressive discipline strategies are necessary to ensure that exclusionary consequences are not excessively or carelessly given. “Progressive discipline” does not equate to different variations of exclusionary consequences, but instead represents multiple creative methods taken prior to suspension. The District’s expectation for intervention, progressive discipline and restorative practices includes:
- Identification of at-risk students
- Development of strategic programs and resources
- Aligning students’ needs with appropriate resources
- Progressive discipline (i.e., age-appropriate, policy-supported consequences, BIP development)
Schools routinely monitor and assess the effectiveness of their 3-tiered school-wide intervention plans. Data is used to identify trends that reveal areas of need, strengths, effectiveness of professional development and to ensure that implementation is meaningful and effective. Necessary revisions of the plan must occur through ongoing assessment.