School should be a place where you're welcome.

Where you feel like it can be another place you can call home, maybe.

What I think that it takes to make all students feel welcome is kindness.

I feel as though I'm heard and I'm seen.

And I belong here.

Student success is deeply tied to a positive school climate.

It's supported by research and by common sense.

When students are engaged, when they are safe, they do well.

For students to be well, staff need to be well.

I think about what they mean by good schools or schools with positive climates?

They're not like that by accident.

Students don't care what you know unless they know that you care about them.

Students thrive when they feel welcomed and safe at school and challenged in the classroom.

Teachers succeed when they get the support they need, and everyone benefits when the climate nurtures trusting relationships among students, teachers, and staff.

Then more people will feel like they're a part of something.

But not all students feel like they belong.

And often it's the kids in marginalized groups who are least likely to say they feel safe, supported, and treated fairly at school.

If you're around a bunch of people and you don't feel welcome in that environment, you don't want to be in that environment.

It's really hard to argue.

We all want kids to be safe.

We all want kids to learn.

The challenge is getting everyone to agree on what makes a school feel safe, supportive and inclusive, and then getting them to agree on ways to make it happen.

To say that it's easy would be lying, but our kids are worth it.

Our teachers are worth it.

Our staff are worth it.

[uplifting music] [cheering] For students to learn, they really need to feel like they belong.

They need to feel and be safe.

They need to feel and be challenged.

And then they also need supports to meet their basic needs.

So all of that together is really important.

[cheering] How supportive, safe and equitable a school feels can be summed up in a single phrase school climate.

It means the sheer perception of a school's social and physical environment, and that perception could be good or bad.

School climate has been studied for decades.

What we know from research is that there is a link between a positive school climate and positive student outcomes.

A positive school climate is related to higher grades and graduation rates, better behavior and attendance, and more authentic student teacher relationships.

Improved school climate also helps to create the social and emotional foundation young people need to transition into adulthood.

[cheering] Hey hey hey hey hey.

But not every moment in Americas schools is about cheering at pep rallies.

And asking what makes a school feel safe and welcoming for everyone can result in a range of conflicting opinions.

Not everyone likes everyone here I feel like.

I feel like it's very, hostile sometimes.

Some people, like the quiet people, get left out sometimes I would like teachers, staff to not just hear our students, but listen to them.

I think adults misunderstand children.

They go off like first impression, like first impression is everything, but it's nothing at the same time.

When you have a school climate survey, you can see difference in perceptions.

So students perceive the school climate typically worse than teachers and teachers perceive the school climate worse than the school leaders.

Add to that decades of data showing students from economically challenged areas feel least connected to their schools compared to students from high socioeconomic backgrounds.

Black students are more likely to receive disciplinary actions than white peers, have less access to resources and learning opportunities, and feel less valued and welcomed at school.

That data holds true in Ohio and across the country.

We are navigating a very challenging time.

All we can do is take a step back and say, why are we doing this right?

Like we're doing this for kids, right?

We want kids to be well.

For students to be well, staff need to be well.

We like to think of it as a three legged stool.

Where are their safety engagement, environment?

Those are the major pillars of how we describe school climate.

And if you lose one leg, the stool will go down.

Okay, I'm going to turn on the Vandegraaff.

You're going to watch what happens to the pie pans.

Okay.

You ready?

Teacher Hannah Couch weaves themes of safety, engagement and environment into her science classroom every day, and she does it by promoting ambitious learning goals wrapped in a framework of social and emotional skills.

In this class, it's really important that we're always going to critique the ideas we're working with and not the people we're never critiquing the people like, oh, that's a dumb idea.

I think you have to care about your students more than you care about your subject.

Like, I love science, but honestly, sometimes you have to pause it to make sure my students feel safe.

To have student buy in I have to really, like, show them that I care about them and just show them that like, this is collaborative.

Vibrations moving up and down, flying off because the atoms are spreading.

High quality social and emotional teaching has been shown to improve grades.

It also promotes resilience, decreases emotional stress and increases a sense of safety and support.

When troubling world events occur, Miss Couch makes time for students to process their feelings.

We kind of just have a conversation like, hey, you are the next changemakers of the world.

How can we solve these problems?

Like, what are some maybe solutions that we have?

And I think it's hard for adults to have really hard conversations.

So I try to model that.

I think modeling that is the best form of teaching that I can give them.

Akron Public Schools decided to formalize the process of improving school climate.

Individual schools are partnering with staff from, REL Midwest to support the use of evidence and data to improve student outcomes.

REL Midwest is helping the district conduct school based equity audits to identify challenges and come up with ways to improve school climate.

Ellet Community Learning Center was the first school in the district to participate.

I think we always need to reflect on our practices and if there's something that we need to do better for kids, at the end of the day, I want to make sure that we're doing it.

But administrators aren't the only people involved in the audit.

This one year process includes teachers, parents, community members, and students.

Just hearing from them was eye opening to me.

Just their opinions and their beliefs with what they see in a traditional school day.

Sometimes as adults, we don't always hear that.

This equity audit with Akron is very collaborative.

We don't come in with a checklist of, you have to do this, this, this, and this because they're the ones who know the context best and they're also the ones who are doing the work.

The group explore data about inequities in the school district and possible root causes.

Many people in that room had never really looked at data before, in that way.

I think people were hesitant to point out the disparities.

But it's not a bad thing to be on this journey because we're all on it together to figure out where our biases are and against whom, and how can we help to move through those.

Addressing biases creates a better sense of belonging in students, and that leads to better outcomes.

Yet a national survey showed about 30% of students feel a low sense of belonging in the school community.

Every kid wants to see themselves reflected in their school, in their classrooms, in their library, and when they don't, and if they don't, I don't know, I imagine it is just like a little prick every time.

Okay, so now you're ready to cut.

There's some scissors over there.

Research suggests caring student teacher relationships are one of the strongest predictors of a student's sense of belonging.

Okay, I'll do the solid and do it this time.

I think I heard it.

Students don't care what you know unless they know that you care about them.

All of them in that room, the level of the buzz, the level of engagement and positive energy, the eye contact, the head nodding, the laughter that to me was the sound of hope.

Okay.

Very cool.

That's impressive.

So realistic timeline of seeing systemic change takes time.

We identified specific tasks that we were going to do, both small and large, to help shape what we saw from the data analysis.

Nice job guys.

You sound great.

So we can start working on those to kind of decorate the gym hallway.

Yes.

After the school day ends, teacher Hannah Couch can still be found in her classroom, serving as advisor for Ellets newly formed Diversity Club.

The club promotes cultural awareness.

Students plan activities and outreach events, and they make posters to hang throughout the school.

So whatever you are or whatever you say you are, we don't judge you here.

Members of the Diversity Club may differ in a lot of ways, but they share a common goal.

One of our main achievements is we just want you to come home after the club and be like, oh yeah, mom, I discovered this like amazing club.

They taught me about myself, my background.

They made me feel like I could be me.

They made me feel like I could be the person that I was born to be and do better in the world.

Put Kindness in the world We have to understand that culture is so valuable and how students embrace learning.

If I don't feel a sense of belonging in this school setting, then I might not even want to learn.

I might not have the motivation to learn.

To help more students feel like they belong, schools can include culturally responsive teaching practices.

If I do feel a sense of belonging and I'm happy here, I then can feel comfortable coming to my, you know, teacher to say, hey, you know, I'm not understanding this or I am understanding this.

Thank you so much.

Right?

They see the different people of their village, right, who care.

When it comes to this club, they're open minded, they're talking, they're being themselves.

And I really love that for the club.

It doesnt even matter about the color people skin like we the same or not.

Its just about people's experiences or how their life is.

I feel like that's what the club brings.

I want the same kindness that's in this club, and the same love and respect that we have for each other to be like everywhere.

There's a lot of things in this world that try to tear us apart.

So when you see me, you think I'm just a black man or speak of me of like, as a black man or African-American man, I think I want you to look at me as like, Teyon, and I want you to get to know me.

You know, if I'm dealing with someone that doesn't look like me or might be of a different culture, right?

The first thing that I must do right is be humble enough to say, I want to learn from you.

It's important for all of us kind of just to learn from each other.

So for starters, I have to self-reflect.

I have to, as a white woman teacher, I have to check my own biases and my own unconscious implicit biases to make sure that I can drive these uncomfortable conversations.

We're all going to make mistakes once we know better, do better.

Just like Maya Angelou said.

Something that gets taken for granted is this idea that students are teachers as well, right?

But how beautiful would it be if a teacher were to give them that insight?

I don't know everything right?

And I won't know unless you guys help me to understand.

Right.

And we're a team.

See how it says, power.

Powers going to go in here.

So it's like,interactive.

Everybody here is from different backgrounds, different belief systems, but we have to be able to coexist in the world because it starts with like a micro community, a club, and then the Ellet community and then your neighborhood and then Akron.

So I would love for for it to like, grow like that.

But culturally responsive teaching isn't only about recognizing a community's assets.

Educators must also acknowledge a community's challenges.

When you think about culture, there's trauma in culture, whether we like it or not.

You know, there's trauma in culture, right?

Whether it be, you know, things that's going on outside of our country, right.

And vice versa, things that are happening inside of our country, right?

Trauma exist.

So I think we have to be up front about that.

And so for me, culturally responsive instruction has that embedded within it.

Students spend 80% of their waking hours outside of school, and traumas they experience could lead to learning and behavioral issues in the classroom.

To help students cope, positive school climates include trauma informed approaches.

That means curricula considers broader impacts of trauma and helps students develop coping mechanisms to deal with them.

Trauma is widespread in underserved communities, including Akron, and with poverty comes a constellation of other challenges.

Remember my famous quote, grades equal credits, equal graduation.

We are trying to close that gap and try to be culturally responsive to their emotional and mental health needs, but we also have to get the academics in there, too.

And so it's difficult.

It's a can of worms.

In order to not lose academics, you've got to treat the whole child.

I think Covid was the turning point for us.

I really feel like that's where our mental health exploded.

And so I really try to just be warm and welcoming.

I try to let them come in, have a voice just to let them know like I care, I see you.

We can have fun with her.

We can laugh and joke, but when it's time to get serious, we're going to get serious.

We're going to do our work and get down to business and she keeps me on my feet.

And three negative two is the midpoint.

She's going to tell you the truth.

Like she's going to be real with you.

She'll tell you what it is, how it is.

We have boundaries.

There's boundaries in here.

And you know what not to do and what to do.

I just tell her about my personal life because I trust her and stuff, and I just feel really comfortable with her.

Close relationships are crucial for teachers to understand what's driving students behavior.

If I feel unsafe, I'm going to shut down.

I'm not going to do nothing because I'm fidgeting with my hands.

I'm shaking, my anxiety is high.

If I feel unsafe at the moment and I want to go to somewhere where I feel safe at.

Teachers should allow the kids to go to their safe areas.

That's all we want to do.

We don't want to make a big deal.

We don't want to interrupt your class.

We just want to be heard.

I get positively angry with the impertinence.

Historically, the response to behavioral issues has been to deal out increasingly undesirable consequences.

That can include punitive actions, such as office referrals and suspensions.

I don't think there are any bad kids.

I mean, there are children who behave in ways that we wish they wouldn't.

But what is really important is to get at the root cause of behavior.

School is about learning.

It's learning academics, but it's also about learning how to behave.

That's what discipline really is, right?

All right.

Interact with people and have fun doing it.

Discipline is a major factor in how students perceive school climate, and it has to be handled equitably for students to feel safe and supported.

Yet black boys in Ohio were 4.5 times more likely than white boys to receive an out of school suspension, even for the same infractions.

Students with disabilities were also more likely to be suspended than other students, and nationwide data show discipline disparities start as early as preschool.

I think when you're seeing these discrepancies, it really is a moment to pause, a pause and think, what could this mean?

And if you get to that root cause, then it's a lot easier to be able to come up with solutions and try things out.

But more supportive interventions for minor offenses don't always align with Ohio's school discipline laws, especially the zero tolerance policy.

Deciding what's disruptive or inappropriate behavior is often a judgment call, and subjectivity create space for implicit or explicit bias.

I remember talking with somebody about a situation where students used a pencil, and one for the white student was like jabbed or was like more mellow.

And then the description for the black student was stabbed.

So there's this subjective kinds of descriptions of what happened that can ultimately lead to what is that consequence.

And then what leads to some students being more severely punished than others.

That punishment includes students being suspended and expelled.

Almost 60% of the state's infractions that resulted in out-of-school punishment were for nonviolent offenses, mostly behavior labeled as disobedient or disruptive, and it affects Ohio students of color the most.

When a student is suspended or expelled, it means that they're out of the classroom and they're missing opportunities to learn.

Beyond the academic impacts, exclusionary discipline is linked to a cascade of other negative outcomes.

So they're more likely to drop out.

They are more likely to be retained.

They're more likely to be in law enforcement or court involved.

And oftentimes it's it might not be necessary because judges are getting tons of kids on their docket when maybe that it can be avoided.

Transforming discipline policies does not mean harmful or destructive behavior is ignored.

The district has experienced high profile cases of student fights, as many as 3000 of them in the first in-person school year after the pandemic.

By the end of 2022, violence was a main issue of contention that led the teachers union to the brink of a strike.

Rather than dole out punishments, experts say the best tactic to address troubled behavior and the potential for inequitable discipline that goes with it, is to implement prevention and intervention strategies.

Multi-tiered System of Support is really a tool or a framework to try to be more objective and fair in how discipline is administered.

The three tiered approach starts with a foundation to support positive behavior in all students, intervene if a student develops more serious challenges and provide intensive supports for students who face ongoing discipline issues.

It doesn't mean that they don't have consequences or that we don't follow through on our consistent practices.

And I'm not saying they always agree, but it's teaching alternative behaviors.

So that you can minimize the classroom disruptions that could occur.

More objective and socially just discipline policies do contribute to safer and more supportive schools, but no policy can be effective if it's created in a vacuum.

In the context of school climate, it means welcoming, listening to, and responding to input from others, particularly student voices.

Students should be right at the table as we think about school climate.

As folks talk, you might identify how some students experience school differently than others.

Some people who could get left out, or maybe some kids with learning disabilities.

I think my major complaint that makes me feel less welcome here is the phone bags and metal detectors.

One thing that I do want to touch on is checking on mental health.

I feel like that's one huge thing that I'd love to be talked about here more at Ellet.

Not having sense of belonging will definitely make you just not want to be here.

Maybe that's here at school, maybe that's here in general on earth.

A growing trend across the country is to include student representation on school boards and in administrative offices.

In Akron Public Schools, students can influence the educational policies that shape their lives through the Student Voice Project.

Each school selects students to sit on the district school board.

I feel like what I'm doing is making the school better for all students, because I'm hearing everyone's input to get an agenda that we may all want push for.

When you're happy and you're having good days and it's a fun environment, everybody will feel welcome.

They want to come.

Student voice members do not have voting power on the school board.

But they've earned the respect of adults who do.

There was a potential to craft policies that maybe would not be as inclusive right?

So that's precisely the reason why we have a student school board.

Often times the best solutions are going to come from our kids because they're there every day living it and breathing it.

Students interact with their adult counterparts at monthly mentoring sessions, team building activities, and school board meetings.

They can pick up on issues that maybe we're not.

We're not picking up on.

Just today, one of the young men I was talking to said, the metal detectors that we have there that from our standpoint as a, as a board like, oh, what?

This is what happens at airports.

But a student said he goes, well, you know, for me as a student, like it makes it feel like it's like prison.

Were like, what?

What we realize is that that we have to be more effective at communicating and messaging about why we're doing what we're doing.

Research suggests when student voice is honored, academic achievement and attendance improve.

Students also report higher rates of feeling safe and that they matter.

Hello, my name is Chocise Griffin and I am an automotive pathway.

I feel like the younger students and students in general see me in their influence, and they feel empowered because someone like me is pushing for something.

And they get to see people that they know in their community, people like me.

They get to see us in powerful positions.

[cheering and game sounds] Oftentimes, schools are already doing lots of different things to create a safe, supportive learning environment.

Improving school climate is an ongoing process.

And like football, it's a team sport.

The whole community of students, families, teachers, staff, principals all are a part of this, what creates the school climate.

Success is when I hear folks question what they're doing, but then also celebrate the good work.

Good work rooted in research, equity, inclusion, cooperation and commitment.

So it is definitely hard.

It is not easy, but through communication it is possible.

Creating a positive school climate for all students is possible.

Yeah that's right.

But according to the kids, well, it actually isn't that complicated.

Be more open minded, be more kind.

Just overall, be a decent human.

I think that if students like, actually care about their teachers too, then everyone would just have a good day.

I just think for this place to be more welcoming, like people should be considerate and treat people the way they want to be treated.

Visit us online at Ideastream.org/welcome.

Watch web extras, find free resources and read the research about positive school climates.

Hi, Im on TV.

[uplifting music]