It's a scene that plays out countless times in schools every day: a student gets frustrated and has an angry outburst. The teacher faces a split-second decision—should she ignore the disruption, lightly admonish the student and hope the behavior ends, or send the child to the office, restoring order but causing the student to miss vital class time?
When this scenario unfolds at French Middle School in Topeka, Kansas, teachers have another option—they can call for the classroom assist team. Immediately, two administrators come to the classroom. One goes to the student causing the disruption, working with her one-on-one to make sure she refocuses on the learning—while trying to understand her behavior. "The goal is to look through a trauma-informed lens," says principal Kelli Hoffman. Depending on the circumstance, that might mean asking, "What has happened to you?" rather than, "What is wrong with you?"
The second administrator joins the teacher to re-engage the rest of the classroom in the lesson. "It's been very beneficial," says Hoffman. "Kids were trying to get sent out of class." Now instead of stopping instruction and removing the student, the whole class gets to continue learning.
Beyond the Narrative
At its simplest, incorporating a "trauma-sensitive" lens means being aware of student trauma and providing a safe, stable environment for all students. Although some states, including Massachusetts and Washington, have comprehensive programs in place, most systems address trauma on a district or school basis.
When superintendent Tiffany Anderson came to Topeka Public Schools in 2016, she brought with her an evolved trauma-informed program that she honed as superintendent of Jennings School District in Missouri. "Addressing trauma is the work I've done since I started," she says. And more and more, Anderson is not alone.
"This last year has been really encouraging," explains Jim Sporleder, a trauma-informed coach and trainer with the Children's Resilience Initiative in Washington State. "I'm hearing [school] leadership stand up and say, 'This is the direction we're going.' It's a new mindset."
As data show, the majority of children today are affected by trauma: the National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence found that in 2014, at least six of 10 children age 17 or younger had been directly or indirectly exposed to violence.
Research underscores how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can interfere with a child's development, learning, and behavior. In younger children, trauma resulting from experiences like abuse and neglect can limit brain development and delay emotional and social development, according to the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.
A report from the Education Law Center, a child advocacy group in Pennsylvania, cites numerous studies showing that long-term trauma can change how children interact with others (they may withdraw from peers or distrust teachers). Chronic trauma can also cause stressed children to quickly default to a fight, flight, or freeze response.
For Hoffman and the staff at French Middle School, their view of childhood trauma has evolved. It "doesn't have to be this great big situation like abuse or homelessness," the principal says.
"When we say trauma, we are defining it as a 'not-so-OK experience,' [which] might be an argument with a parent, death of a pet, [or] seeing an accident on the way to school that is upsetting—along with the big trauma events like death of a parent, sudden move, drug abuse in the home, loss of a parent's job, etc."
In Fostering Resilient Learners: Strategies for Creating a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom (ASCD, 2016), authors Kristin Souers and Pete Hall note that "educators don't know always have the luxury of knowing the story" behind the behavior. They do, however, see its impact.
Instead of "getting caught up in the trauma narrative … it is much more helpful to monitor the effect of the event on each individual," they write. Two students might have suffered similar traumatic experiences, like having an incarcerated parent, but have dramatically different responses. One "shuts down whenever something evokes a memory of his parent, while the other functions relatively well."
"All too often, we reduce students to their experiences and make decisions about their capabilities based on those experiences," explain Souers and Hall. "Changing our focus enables us to con-centrate on nurturing the whole child and creating trauma-sensitive learning environments for all students."
Topeka's Trauma Transformation
The first step to building a thorough program, says Anderson, is to understand your school or district's needs, which can vary widely. Within Topeka, for example, students in poverty may make up 80 percent of one school's population and 30 percent of another's.
After a districtwide analysis, the superintendent determined that students—more than 600 of whom are homeless—commonly struggle with needs that include food, clothes, and mental health. The closing of a mental health hospital had left a significant void in the community.
Partnering with local agencies from homeless shelters and food banks to mental health facilities helps the district connect children and their families to vital services, as well as to professionals who have the expertise to address trauma, says Anderson.
French Middle School built a food and personal hygiene pantry on campus, and partnered with local police and a medical clinic. A school resource officer, who often counsels students and families, is "an extension of our faculty and provides positive community policing," says Hoffman. "Our students love Officer Campbell and seek him out daily."
Local agencies can also be a source for staff training. In Jennings, Washington University in St. Louis not only led training for teachers on mental and physical health, but also opened a free health clinic inside one of the district's high schools.
"Principals are key" to building these partnerships, as well as providing teachers with training and support. "They have to personalize the work within their own school," says Anderson. "We must allow for principals to build training into their structure."
Professional learning should focus not only on the impact and signs of trauma, but also on how the brain responds to trauma. This awareness informed how educators in Topeka handle student meltdowns. Instead of blaming a student for their behavior, teachers take the time to uncover why the child is upset.
A Change of Scenery
The biggest change at French Middle School may be the one that was easiest to create. Using a spare room, donated furniture, and volunteer help, the school built what Hoffman calls a "wellness center." Set up like a living room, the center offers children a comfortable, quiet space to de-escalate. Teachers can refer a child to the room or parents can request that their child visit the room if, for example, they had a rough morning.
"It's been a godsend," says Hoffman. "We [administrators] all take an hour shift in there and keep data on students who use it."
About 10 miles away at State Street Elementary, principal Sarah Sharp created a "get-ready room" where students can take breaks when they get off task. While in the room, they receive positive adult feedback and can use physical movement to help refocus.
"We've become more proactive than reactive," Sharp says, adding that Anderson has encouraged staff to seek new ways to meet students' needs and use data to guide their response.
Teachers and administrators at French Middle School meet regularly to study student data, such as office referrals, to determine which behaviors they should address first and which actions will most effectively improve school culture and learning. "We make a list and keep chipping away," says Hoffman. "We prioritize."
The classroom assist team shows how data informs practice. When staff discovered that minor behavior incidents, such as students sleeping in class or refusing to do work, were in fact major learning disruptions, they asked administrators to help keep classes on task. Hoffman says teachers use the assist team roughly two to three times a day, with each visit taking an average of 15 to 20 minutes.
"Teachers are pretty good at noticing when students are off in class," adds Hoffman. "They use their tools to engage and when they can't, they call for class assist. As the team comes in, we have a quiet discussion with the student about what has happened to them and then do our best to use strategies that might get them back on track."
Like Souers and Hall, Hoffman says "educators aren't required to know the student's story in order to provide assistance. We just need to know that trauma, a not-so-OK experience, has occurred and we may need to look at de-escalation, breathing sequences, movement, talking, etc., to help the child recenter and engage with instruction again."
Different Trauma, Different Needs
"It helps to remember that trauma is different for all," explains Hoffman. "What is traumatic for one [child] may not be for another."
Before this school year, Scott Muri, superintendent of Spring Branch ISD in Texas, thought he had a pretty good handle on student trauma. This 35,000-student district regularly dealt with a wide range of student experiences, from deportation to bereavement. Then four days after classes started, Hurricane Harvey struck the district, which is located about 12 miles west of Houston.
School was closed for 10 days and Muri and his team faced a new challenge when classes resumed. "We had to realize there are different types of trauma that need different interventions," he says. "We were lumping all trauma together."
"Everyone deals with mental health issues differently," adds Natalie Fikac, the district's director of guidance. "It's like a pot on the stove. You put a lid on it and pressure will come out in different ways."
"Understanding how different types of traumas are impacting students can be a large undertaking," Muri explains. The district began administering a series of mental health assessments, training staff on how to use the results to "understand the root causes of student behavior and identify how a student's trauma is manifesting itself." The digital assessments help educators "get crystal clear on the interventions that a student needs and the replacement behaviors that students and teachers will need to zone in on in the classroom," says Muri. They also help determine when to provide an intervention during the school day (or within the district) and when to refer out to partner organizations.
After the hurricane, Spring Branch led training for staff, explaining what to expect upon students' return and how to discuss sensitive situations. Additional counselors were brought in to assist students affected by trauma.
The district also cancelled semester exams and discouraged teachers from assigning homework because so many students had unsettled living arrangements. In a typical year, Spring Branch ISD has 50 to 100 children who are homeless, the superintendent says. As of mid-December, 1,400 students and several teachers still lacked permanent housing.
It's a reminder that staff was traumatized, too, says Muri. "It's been made very personal. Trauma has taken on a new meaning this year."
To Go Fast, You Have to Go Slow
Sporleder, who coauthored The Trauma-Informed School: A Step-by-Step Implementation Guide for Administrators and School Personnel (Beyond Consequences Institute, 2016), believes that teacher buy-in is key to an effective response. He suggests piloting a trauma-informed program to gain converts and not pushing reforms schoolwide until you have at least 75 percent approval. "It's hard work," he says. "People will say 'We tried it and it didn't work' " if the support is not there.
Sporleder didn't believe in trauma-informed education until he saw a talk by Brain Rules author John Medina, which presented science proving that Sporleder's old way of thinking—which relied on punitive discipline policies—was not only ineffective, but could further traumatize students.
As principal of Lincoln High in Walla Walla, Washington, Sporleder guided the transformation of his alternative school into a trauma-informed school. The new approach was so successful that suspensions plummeted by 85 percent and student achievement outranked the state average. The work eventually became the inspiration for the documentary Paper Tigers.
Sporleder advises principals to record baseline data on student behavior and discipline problems before implementing a trauma-informed program to monitor its impact. At his school, staff members were constantly identifying students who were dealing with chronic stress and trauma. Once a student of concern was singled out, two staff members checked in with that student in the morning and afternoon to both gauge the student's mood and to let him know that an adult cared about him.
Sporleder cautions that even a solid program, carried out with fidelity, doesn't guarantee success. "It doesn't mean the behavior disappears," he adds, but you hope the incidents are less frequent.
"Research shows that one caring adult can change a student's life path," he continues. Getting staff to invest in relationships with students builds the foundation for trauma-informed practices.
"It's not what we do; it's who we are," Sporleder adds. "If your umbrella is trauma-informed, anything beneath it is that much better."
Hoffman urges fellow principals to stick with the changes, even as the pressure of accountability and standardized tests loom. "Sometimes to go fast, you have to go slow."
