Over the past several years, schools have begun to reckon with the level of trauma students are dealing with and the effect that trauma has on students’ lives and their ability to learn. An increased focus on trauma-informed models has given leaders the beginnings of a road map to helping affected students be successful. But this methodology primarily focuses on whole-school changes and adaptations rather than specifically treating individual trauma cases. To most effectively support students with a trauma history, schools need to both update their cultures to be trauma informed and provide effective direct therapy for students who need it.

Mental health professionals have been hesitant to do trauma therapy on school campuses because of a concern about opening up significant wounds in a building that, for many students, is their safe place. Trauma work also requires a mental health professional to feel confident that they can help a patient unpack their trauma in the therapy session—but also be able to re-pack it enough to safely leave the session. In the often-chaotic environment of a school, this can be a challenge.

A relatively new form of trauma therapy is offering a pathway towards healing that accounts for these concerns. First developed in 1987, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a therapeutic technique for treating trauma that uses eye movement to help a patient access a different level of processing that can be significantly effective in healing.

Using a lightbar or tappers, the EMDR therapist guides the patient through their sense memories of a traumatic event—and though scientists still don’t fully understand why—after just a few sessions of this technique, most patients feel significant levels of relief. Despite its success, EMDR is still an uncommon form of treatment. Some mental health professionals will even say they are hesitant about it because it sounds too good to be true. But the data back up its success rate.

As a therapeutic method, EMDR checks a lot of boxes for schools. It is fast, with most patients beginning to feel significant relief within just six to eight sessions. It works effectively across cultural lines. In fact, some studies have shown that EMDR works so well on its own that it can even be done when the therapist and the patient do not speak the same language. It is more effective than any other current form of trauma therapy—including medication. Studies show that EMDR is not only more successful at reliving symptoms of PTSD than medication, it is also longer lasting. The relief felt from medication ends when the medication does, but the relief from EMDR appears to be permanent (although longitudinal data is not fully complete due to the therapy being relatively new). And as a form of therapy, EMDR is extremely resilient. Used correctly, mental health professionals can feel confident that they can perform this therapy with students and allow them to go back to class in a good headspace to continue the day.

EMDR is not currently a standard certification during initial licensing for any form of mental health practitioner; mental health professionals must get a special certification outside their normal credentialling. This costs $3,000–$5,000 for a seven- to ten-day training program, which means that most will need their employers to pay for it, as well as the $100–$800 cost of the light bar and/or tappers most practitioners use for the therapy sessions.

Given the invaluable opportunity this form of therapy provides, schools should be investing in staff who can perform it. Right now, LEAs have an incredible opportunity to pay for this training with their ESSER stimulus funds. This relatively small investment would continue to pay dividends long after those aid dollars have run out.

(Note: If you are interested in learning more or finding training opportunities, the EMDR International Association website provides a good overview.)

I have such vivid memories of my first day of my first year of teaching. Kids filling into their desks—so many different personalities, moving pieces, things to keep track of. That first class seemed to both fly by and stretch on for eternity. At the end, I was wiped. I had no idea how I’d do this four more times that day and then 180 more times this year. At that point, like many first-year teachers, I focused purely on survival. Forget being effective.

We can’t speed up time and magically propel every teacher through that painful first year. But what if we could somehow make that first year less about survival and actually set teachers up to be effective? What if we could give them a “year zero” to build the skills to do it all in their first year?

That’s exactly what Mastery Public Schools in Philadelphia and Camden has done. So last December, when the Fordham Institute released a new study on teacher effectiveness and improvement in charter and traditional public schools in our state and found that new teachers in charter networks such as Mastery’s improve more rapidly and are more effective in both math and English language arts than their peers in traditional public schools or stand-alone charters, we weren’t surprised.

The team at Mastery has evolved their teacher residency program over the last several years and shared a few key program elements and tools that could help other schools coach resident teachers (teachers in “year zero”) to be effective first-year teachers.

Intentional scope and sequence of skills and experiences

There is so much to do and learn as a teacher—likely more than a resident could learn in one year. Through their years of experience and in partnership with Relay GSE, Mastery outlined a set of experiences combining reflection, observation, and targeted teaching “at bats” to provide clarity about how residents spend their time and to ensure they’re getting exposure to the full range of a teacher’s responsibilities.

Clarity that observation time is just as critical as working directly with students

There are countless ways to utilize an “extra set of hands” in the classroom. Mastery’s program thoughtfully balances urgent tasks with the experiences that lead to long-term teacher success. The team at Mastery has thought about every element of great teaching—family communication, individual reflection, grading and creating responses to data plans, getting to know students, reflecting—and created opportunities for resident teachers to participate meaningfully in each element. Importantly, residents’ work in the classroom is paired with sacred opportunities for observations. With this clearly outlined, the resident never feels torn about continuing to “help out” in the classroom and stepping out to observe. This balance allows the resident to have “at bats” at being a teacher while still developing an overall vision of what great teaching looks and sounds like.

The clarity of this role (and how it evolves over the year) is key—with the resident, mentor teachers, and leaders all on the same page about the priorities for this period of time. A sample week-by-week breakdown is shown below.

Clarifying the “cooks in the kitchen”

Mastery’s resident teachers are supported by both an “advisor” and a “mentor.” With two distinct bodies of work, the advisors are responsible for supervising and management and the mentor is responsible for modeling excellent teaching. This distinction allows for a low mentor-to-resident ratio, while not overburdening mentors with managerial duties. As shown below, the two groups collaborate on coaching, feedback, and evaluation.

Mastery leverages these tools and structures (which can all be found here) to maximize resident teachers’ “year zero” and tee up teachers to be even more effective during their first year working full time with students. The effectiveness of Mastery’s first-year teachers is the result of intentionality and careful design in order to change “survive” to “thrive.”

It’s been a busy budget season filled with heated debates over how to revise Ohio’s school-funding formula, testing and graduation requirements, school report cards, and parental choice. The June 30 deadline for a finalized budget is quickly approaching, and lawmakers now face the difficult task of reconciling the three very different budget proposals put forth by Governor DeWine, the House, and the Senate.

Each version of the budget has plenty of positives and at least a few negatives. It’s likely that much of the debate during conference committee will be devoted to the funding formula. But there are also a number of other provisions within each version that are particularly promising and worthy of attention. Below are summaries of two such proposals from each version that lawmakers will hopefully include in the finalized budget bill they send to the governor.

The Governor’s office

High-quality charter school funding

One of the most talked-about topics during Governor DeWine’s first budget cycle was the Quality Community Schools Support Program, which increased state aid for high-performing charter schools by $30 million. This money specifically targets high-poverty charter schools that meet quality benchmarks. Though not sufficient to entirely erase the stubborn funding gap between charters and traditional public schools, it is a big step in the right direction. Unfortunately, the funding wasn’t enough to provide each qualifying school with the full $1,750 per economically disadvantaged student that was intended—allocations were reduced to fit the $30 million appropriation. Fortunately, Governor DeWine recognized this issue and raised the funding amount for quality charters to $54 million per year in his proposed budget. The importance of this funding cannot be overstated, as it would, among other things, make it possible for the state’s best charter networks to expand their reach and open more schools.

Funding for industry-recognized credentials

Charter funding isn’t the only policy that retained Governor DeWine’s support. His budget also prioritized industry-recognized credentials in two major ways. First, it would allow schools to apply for reimbursements that cover the costs of programs that help students attain either an industry-recognized credential or a journeyman certificate recognized by the U.S. Department of Labor. Second, the Innovative Workforce Incentive Program (which was originally created in the previous budget but wasn’t officially established, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting budget cuts) would pay schools $1,250 for each qualifying credential that students earn. Both these proposals could go a long way toward helping students earn meaningful credentials that give them a leg up in the workforce.

The House

Direct funding for charter students

For years, Ohio’s traditional public districts and school-choice programs have been at odds. One of their primary disputes is how the state funds choice programs. The current model uses a “pass-through” method, which subtracts money from the total share of a district’s state aid whenever a student opts to attend a charter or STEM school or use a private school voucher. Although it seems reasonable that state aid allocated for educating a child should follow said child to the school that’s actually doing the work of educating them, traditional districts have long complained that they’re being “robbed” of funding. One way to ease the tension is for the state to directly fund students who choose to attend other schools, and that’s exactly what the House budget would do. It’s important to note that this change doesn’t alter the amount of funding that choice students receive—it merely changes the method through which the state disburses funds.

Studying the impact of College Credit Plus

College Credit Plus (CCP), Ohio’s dual-enrollment program, gives students in grades 7–12 the opportunity to take credit-bearing college courses if they meet certain readiness standards and are admitted to a college or university. The program has proven to be immensely popular since it was overhauled in 2014, and there are plenty of feel-good anecdotes about students who benefited from advanced coursework and families who saved money on college costs to boot. Hard data, however, is far more difficult to come by. That might be why the House budget calls for the Departments of Education and Higher Education to publish a report on the cost-effectiveness of CCP, as well as whether students do indeed save money on college tuition and reduce the amount of time it takes to earn a degree. These data are crucial for transparency purposes and for identifying ways to improve the program.

The Senate

Enrichment ESAs

Despite playing a vital role in the academic, physical, and emotional wellbeing of students, enrichment activities such as sports, music, and arts are often dismissed as “fun stuff.” Even worse, access to enrichment activities often depends on family income—which means students from low-income families lose out. Thankfully, the Senate has offered up a promising solution. The Afterschool Child Enrichment (ACE) educational savings account would provide families whose income is at or below 300 percent of the federal poverty line with $500 per year that can be used to pay for a variety of enrichment activities, including tutoring, arts camps, field trips, and instrument or foreign-language lessons. Any student who attends a public, nonpublic, or home school is eligible. The program would be funded through federal coronavirus-relief dollars—$50 million for FY 2022 and $75 million for FY 2023—and the accounts would be available to families on a first-come, first-served basis.

Increasing access to and funding for EdChoice scholarships

Ohio’s largest private school voucher program, the EdChoice Scholarship Program, currently serves over 30,000 students. It’s grown rapidly since it was first established back in 2005, but caps on the number of available scholarships have shut out some interested families in the past. In its budget proposal, the Senate opted to resolve this issue by removing the scholarship caps. But it didn’t stop there. Senators also increased funding amounts for scholarships—from $4,650 to $5,500 for students in grades K–8 and from $6,000 to $7,500 for students in grades 9–12—and included provisions that would automatically raise these amounts in proportion with any increases to the base funding amounts of traditional public schools. These are important changes, as they ensure that families have more options and that private school choice programs are funded on a more equitable scale.

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It’s impossible to predict whether these proposals will make it into the finalized budget. But each of them definitely has the potential to improve education for kids, and that’s what matters most. As lawmakers decide what to cut and what to keep over the next few weeks, they should ensure these six great ideas make it across the finish line.

1. Lots of folks worried about a decline in student enrollment last year and what it might mean for the future. Oh. Sorry. Let me fix that: Lots of folks worried about a decline in traditional school district enrollment… (Columbus Dispatch, 6/21/21)
    
2. But before we worry about the future, how about we try to figure out the present first? I fear that will not be possible, if today’s summer school stories are any indication. It seems that school districts in Ohio don’t have a very good handle on what is actually being offered and to whom, even though the programs have already started. In my mind, it’s possible to have formal learning/school-y stuff interspersed with enrichment/camp-y stuff—and you can call it all “summer school” without traumatizing anyone. Kids like to learn, y’all. In this piece, we learn that 2,500 kids are participating in whatever they’re calling “summer school” in Toledo this year. Supposedly there’s some actual math and stuff, but everyone’s going all out to make it neither look nor sound like actual education, because that’s “bad”. One teacher actually said out loud, “You have to give the kids some summer. Everyone looks forward to summer vacation — staff and students.” Not only does that, in my opinion, devalue the learning opportunities that could be provided on the back of pandemic disruptions, but it also ignores reality for a ton of families. As a family with two working parents, our summer looked a lot like our fall back in the day. (Heck, my kids are in college now and are both taking classes over the summer.) There’s nothing wrong, especially now, with taking advantage of more learning time. I feel that because “summer school” has traditionally been punitive, districts are having a very tough time changing their mindset around it. In the same piece, we learn that 566 students in suburban Sylvania will participate in the invitation-only “Summer Swing” program—probably about 60 percent school/40 percent camp stuff based on the description, which is not bad. However, the district also has what is termed “traditional remedial summer schooling” being attended by an unknown number of students, which by the use of that terminology most definitely indicates zero percent camp-type activities. In even-more-suburban Perrysburg, the summer program appears to be fully old-school in nature. How do I know? It is deemed “targeted” (that doesn’t sound like fun, does it?); it focuses on math, reading, STEM, and social-emotional learning; and just 135 first through fourth graders will be attending. (Toledo Blade, 6/18/21)
   
   

3. There is similarly lots to digest in this summerpalooza story from tiny Cambridge, Ohio. A huge boost in attendance for CATS Camp this summer—330 kids attending (a more than 600 percent increase from previous years) and 60 teachers working (a 1000 percent increase from previous years). While it doesn’t sound like the younger kids are getting too much formal education with their funtime, we do find out that middle schoolers are learning how to change tires and to shoot air rifles. Both activities are likely fun, educational, and practical—the way summer school should be. High schoolers, meanwhile, have their choice of Credit Recovery (which sounds like the academic equivalent of no dessert) or Credit Recovery Plus (which sounds like the academic equivalent of dessert only if you eat your broccoli first). (The Daily Jeffersonian, 6/21/21)

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