Advancing School Climate Policy and Quality Practice:

Our Center and the National School Climate Council provides the following services to state departments of education, state agencies, state organizations and state community-based organizations to integrate and sustain quality school climate leading to student achievement and success.

Technical Assistance

• Conduct a policy scan to determine existing school climate-related policies as well as policy impediments to implementing a school policy agenda.
• Consider, adopt and adapt policies that encourage, support and reward quality school climate implementation and sustainability. The policy options are based on school climate standards and focus on resources, quality practice, accountability and responsibility.
• Assist, host and/or co-host state-level meetings and work groups that bring together critical stakeholders and conducts related work to advance a school climate agenda.
• Present expert testimony of school climate standards, research, assessments, policies and quality practices.

Professional Development

• Design and implement professional development for policymakers, education leaders and stakeholders at the state, district and school levels.
• Design and implement professional development at the local level for teachers, administrators, support staff, students, parents and community partners.

Advocacy and Networking

• Assist in the design and implementation of a statewide advocacy campaign to advance a school climate agenda.
• Connect state agencies with state, regional and national networks to learn and share strategies to successfully implement and sustain a school climate agenda.
• Assist in development of a communications strategy to inform and influence stakeholders at the national, regional, state and local levels.

Assessment

• Identify and encourage the use of high-quality instruments, protocols, analyses and continuous improvement strategies to measure and improve school climate for student achievement and success.

Research

• Share existing research and assist state agencies to develop a high-quality research agenda to establish the data sets and analyses necessary to successfully integrate and sustain quality school climates for all students’ success.

For details about our work with State Departments of Education and/or if you are interested in one or more of these services, please contact Jonathan Cohen ([email protected]) to learn about fees, possible cost sharing and time lines.

What Others Have Said

FAQ

What is the focus of NSCC's consultation work?
NSCC does not have any one curriculum or "agenda" with regard to what the focus on work “should” be. Like every person, each school has its own history, strengths, needs and goals. We are invested in understanding this and building on your current and previous efforts and goals.

What kind of consultation services do you provide?
We offer a wide range of consultation services that can be tailored to your school or organizations specific needs. These include:

• Leadership or staff coaching, in private or small group sessions
• Assistance in strategizing the execution of any of the five stages of school climate improvement (planning, evaluation, action planning, implementation, re-evaluation)
• Developing collaborative networks among school leaders to share best practices on school climate issues
• Identifying appropriate school climate research resources and materials that specifically address a school's/organization's needs

Who actually consults to schools?
We have a number of full time staff as well as a large group of part-time NSCC faculty members. Our consultation work is directed and supervised by Jonathan Cohen, Ph.D. (NSCC's President) and Serena La Rocque (NSCC's Assistant Director of Education) - who decides which member of our faculty and/or staff will be best suited to address the needs and goals of a particular consultation project.

How does NSCC select its faculty members/consultants?
NSCC only works with faculty members/consultants whose work we know in detail. Typically, we spend several months getting to know these professionals before we invite them to join NSCC's consultation staff.

When NSCC consults to a school and district, is this work confidential?
Yes. As NSCC is a teaching and learning center, there may be instances where we would request that a school and district talk about our work together and/or co-author a paper. But, this is always up to the school's and district to do this or not.

How much does it cost to work with NSCC?
Depending on the service and package, our prices vary. Please contact us at [email protected] to find out more.

Does NSCC conduct consultations over the telephone?
Yes. In fact, many schools often spend telephone time with NSCC staff to understand the results and think about ways to use these findings to build community and/or support school climate improvement efforts.

We are using the CSCI. How can NSCC further support our efforts to improve school climate and school improvement initiatives?
We encourage you to consider using the CSCI as an indicator of trends in perceptions among students, staff and teachers at your school. Depending on the results of the CSCI, you may want to schedule professional development services for your staff or teachers to facilitate discussion of the survey findings. Please explore our Educational Services to learn more.

Data to Action

Target Audience: School and District Leaders

Effective school climate/SEL improvement efforts require a deep understanding of the complex relationship between behavior (adult and student) and academic achievement. NSCC supports school leaders in using integrated data sets to expand their understanding of data related to prosocial behavior and engage in an intentional, data-driven, collaborative improvement process.

NSCC’s acclaimed Comprehensive School Climate Inventory (CSCI) has supported thousands of schools through a data-driven school climate improvement process. We also provide services to schools and districts that utilize other school climate survey instruments to support them in turning data into actionable school climate improvement steps.

Our Data to Action services allow school and district leaders to work with an experienced consultant to:

• Understand how survey administration can advance the engagement of students, school staff, families, and community members.
• Learn about the growing range of prosocial (e.g. school climate and SEL informed) measurement tools.
• Identify strengths and areas of growth across the data sets.
• Connect data to other efforts within the school or district.
• Identify and/or strengthen their school improvement efforts based on best practices that maximize their impact in prosocial school improvement efforts to improve school climate.
• Use data to support ongoing re-evaluation strategies (sustainability).

Policy and School Climate

Target Audience: School and District Leaders

Policy shapes practice. NSCC is a national leader in school climate policy. We have helped to write the first district level school climate policy in partisanship with local, Westbrook Connecticut and state leaders. In addition, NSCC has learned and worked with Central Office, School Board and State leaders to review and revise district and state level policies that support safe and supportive classrooms and school as well as helpful disciplinary and bully prevention policy and law.

NSCC offers coaching and technical assistance in various packages, from less intensive Technical Assistance involving telephone calls answering general questions on a needed basis, to more intensive coaching in order to assist districts with their policy drafting and implementation process.

NSCC offers professional development trainings for educators regarding best practices for preventing discrimination, bullying, and harassment.

Teaching and Learning

Target Audience: School Staff Members

NSCC offers the following trainings and on-site staff development on the following topics. Depending on your needs, these topics can range from awareness raising sessions, to full or multi day trainings that promote skills as well as awareness.

To learn more, please click on the links below.

Classroom Management and Restorative Practices

Infusing Social, Emotional and Civic Learning into Classroom Practice

Peer Mediation Programs for Students

District-Level School Climate/SEL Improvement

Target Audience: School and District Leaders

NSCC’s multi-year district-wide school climate improvement model is rooted in extensive school climate, SEL, and implementation science research and harnesses over 20 years of experience.

NSCC’s comprehensive school climate improvement process is embedded with SEL, bully prevention, and diversity inclusion best practices. This process is designed to recognize past efforts of your school community, support current goals, and facilitate sustainable school climate improvement processes.

NSCC provides:

• Leadership development and capacity building for educators concentrating on school climate improvement implementation and sustainability practices.
• Student and inter-generational leadership development for youth and educators intended to increase student engagement and voice while improving connectivity and collaboration between youth and adults in the school community.
• A school climate/SEL “Road Map” that provides the details of NSCCs unique process for learning about and improving school climate including tools, guidelines, templates, and other resources needed to work toward school climate improvement.
• Assessment tools including a readiness tool and a comprehensive school climate survey (if needed) to support a community wide and data driven process for learning and creating sustainable school climate improvement.
• District level policy review and recommendations for policy reform including review of district policy related to safe and supportive schools, bully prevention, discipline and other policies related to school climate and SEL efforts. Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and Network Improvement Communities (NIC) via an online platform to support collaborative adult learning for educators nationwide.

Equity and Diversity

Target Audience: School and District Leaders

An equitable school community provides its stakeholders with full access to all of the educational, social, emotional, and relational offerings required for achievement and engagement. The intentional construction of equitable school environments results from an adjustment in mindset preceded by the examination of data, engagement in self-reflection, and investigation of systemic barriers. Safety, positive relationships, engaging teaching and learning, and physical, emotional, and mental connectedness should be prioritized in school climate improvement efforts.

Equity and diversity offerings build the capacity for school and school district leaders to address the complexities of changing demographics within school and community populations. This set of educational offerings provides services support the navigation of an increasingly diverse school and local communities.

As part of this package, school and district leaders will work with an experienced NSCC consultant to:

• Identify and analyze school climate data with an equity lens.
• Provide training on the effects of implicit bias on school climate creation and improvement.
• Consult on disproportionate exclusionary discipline practice and policy.
• Identify best practices leading to action plan development and implementation.
• Review existing state and/or district school climate related policies (bullying/harassment, attendance, discipline, academic placement) and provide recommendations regarding their alignment with comprehensive school climate policy.

Leadership Development

Target Audience: School and District Leaders

Effective and collaborative educational leadership are foundation for effective sustainable school climate/SEL improvement efforts. NSCC has over 20 years of experience in building leadership capacity regardless of an individual’s role within the school community. Additionally, NSCC has the expertise and an extensive track record for guiding school and district leaders through the development of professional learning communities that foster the creation of safe, supportive, and engaging climates for learning.

We support leadership development and capacity building in 3 ways. To learn more, please click on the links below.

Build Leadership Using Data

Youth Engagement and Intergenerationl Leadership

School Climate Leadership Certificate

Youth Engagement and Intergenerational Leadership

Target Audience: School and District Leaders

When youth are engaged and supporting intergenerational school improvement efforts, it provides an essential foundation for learning and school climate improvement efforts. NSCC is invested in recognizing and supporting youth voice and intergenerational school improvement efforts. Empowering youth supports their learning and healthy development, and, typically, youth have understandings and ideas that schools leaders and parents need to learn from.

This package considers developmental principles and transitions that relate to youth engagement and intergenerational leadership. As part of this service, school and district leaders will work with an experienced consultant who will provide support on how to:

• Understand the fundamentals of developmental transitions and how they impact youth engagement in school

• Understand what the initiatives/programs are already in place that encourage youth engagement and intergenerational leadership efforts

• Identify developmentally appropriate ways to support youth leadership/intergenerational initiatives in school in one of the following two ways:

i) Focusing on bully-victim-bystander behavior and the range of ways that youth can support this learning and improvement efforts

ii) Supporting school-community partnerships

School Climate Leadership Certificate

Target Audience: School and District Leaders

In 2012 NSCC formalized our leadership development process: The School Climate Leadership Certificate Program. With the collaborative support from the Character Education Partnership, Making Caring Common, Harvard Graduate School of Education, New York State Center for School Safety, the National Dropout Prevention Center and the Center for Citizenship and Character, University of Missouri we developed this 12 to 18 month process of teaching and learning.

The National School Climate Center’s (NSCC) School Climate Leadership Certificate Program is an advanced educational credential that complements, but does not replace, a State’s teacher/administrator license. It has been designed for education leaders who work in a variety of roles to complete in 12-15 months.

The certification program is organized around three primary tasks for participants: 1) understanding research and theory on school climate, 2) applying those core concepts by leading a discrete climate improvement project, and 3) demonstrating understanding by completing a reflective case study on those improvement efforts. Through completing the Certification Program, participants will acquire the critical knowledge and develop the essential skills required to lead school climate improvement efforts in creating safe and supportive environments within their own schools, districts, and/or states. This promotes student engagement, equitable learning and life success for students in the participate school.

Objectives:

(1) To support school leaders in understanding and using the theory, research and best practices of school climate improvement.

(2) To contribute to and receive support from a growing network improvement community of emerging and established school leaders to learn best practices from each other and help to advance the field.

(3) To have resources that educators in schools, districts, and State Departments of Education can use to strengthen their school climate efforts, by helping to train, support and recognize certified school climate leaders in their states.

Build Leadership Using Data

Target Audience: School and District Leaders

As part of NSCC's growing development of useful school climate tools, the School Leadership Readiness Tool is the first in the field to spark discussions among the building-level leadership around key dimensions that contribute to a successful and sustainable school climate improvement process. School leadership buy-in, engagement, and cooperation are found to be the most predictive of implementing and sustaining intervention efforts.

As part of this package, leadership teams will work with a NSCC school climate expert:

• Use the Readiness Tool’s findings to support leadership teams develop a clear and common understanding of the dynamics of their group.
• Apply the findings to start capitalizing on the leadership team’s strengths to address specific needs, such as trust and collaboration or integrating school improvement efforts.

For teams to be successful, this means having strong relationships among leadership members as well as a strategic eye toward the future.

Meet Our Consultants

Philip Brown

Senior Practice Consultant

Deborah Haber

Senior Practice Consultant

Randy Ross

Senior Policy and Practice Consultant

Kori J Hamilton Biagas

Senior Education Consultant

Classroom Management and Restorative Practices

Target Audience: K-12 educators

Are you creating a classroom climate for learning?

How can this training help my school?

Restorative classroom discipline practices effectively promote core social, emotional and civic learning. Restorative efforts promote the following processes and learning:

• Cooperative and supportive community building, culture of mutual respect

• Focus is on the behavior, not the student as a bad person

• Restorative measures used as primary intervention with traditional/punitive still available as last resort

• The students see how their actions affect others

• Reduces the amount of time spent on disciplinary action because the root of the problem is dealt with

The trainings and follow-up support provides an entry point for faculty to develop a set of shared practices that will reduce student-teacher conflicts, reduce disciplinary referrals, and teach being able to promote social, emotional and civic as well as intellectual learning.

What do I get with this training?

Classroom Management and Restorative Practices begins with a two-day training. It emphasizes clear expectations, a prevention and problem solving orientation, development of more effective “teacher talk,” and concrete strategies that improve individual student motivation, self-discipline, group cooperation, and participation in the classroom. Through interactive experiences, case studies, dialogue and reflection, participants in our two-day training will learn to:

1. Review the concept of worldview and practice three-part listening. Listening provides the foundation for knowing ourselves, our students and our school community. How we listen to ourselves and others shapes how we teach, our authority, how we define boundaries and responses to conflict, our ability to recognize the needs of students and the social norms that shape learning, teaching and school climate.

2. Develop an enhanced awareness of the advantages and limitations of various model of discipline and the impact of punitive discipline practices on students.

3. Increase our understanding of the concepts of restorative justice and its application to school- wide disciplinary strategies. Sometimes prevention work and restorative justice approaches to misbehavior are not enough. What are our options then?

4. Increase our knowledge of resources for establishing a positive school culture and restorative disciplinary practices. For example, teachers need to balance the needs of individual students and the needs of the group. What do you do to provide the kinds of differentiated support that will help all of your students increase their internal motivation and develop greater personal efficacy? What do you do to maintain positive group cooperation and participation throughout the year?

Infusing Social, Emotional and Civic Learning into Classroom Practice

Target Audience: K-12 educators

Are you creating a classroom climate for learning? Do students feel comfortable “not knowing” and being active and engaged learners?

This training helps classroom teachers understand more deeply how they can use their own behavior, classroom discipline, and a variety of pedagogic strategies to create a classroom climate for learning and positive youth development.

Participants will learn about:

• How your behavior can support social, emotional and civic learning

• How establishing norms can promote students feeling safe and engaged

• Classroom management strategies that promote safe and engaged class behavior and learning

• Pedagogic strategies (e.g. moral dilemma discussions; cooperative learning; conflict resolution/mediation) that further social, emotional and civic learning.

Educators will be provided with resources and tools that support this work.

To learn more, please contact our Education Department at [email protected]

Peer Mediation Programs for Students

Target Audience: K-12 students and teachers

Life involves a series of decisions and conflicts. Is your classroom and school a place where students learn to face the tests of life rather than being a life of tests?

Why is building negotiation and collaborative problem solving for students important?

Life and learning is a process of negotiation and collaboration. The skills and dispositions that support students being able to pay attention to “What do I need now?” “What are my goals and how can I work with others to achieve these goals in the best way?” “How can work and learn with others?” shape our lives. Learning is always powerfully shaped by an ongoing process of negotiation and collaborative problem solving.

This training is focused on students and the development of peer mediation programs. Peer mediation is a powerful and effective youth leadership model. Peer mediation programs support students to help other students to resolve their differences and conflicts in flexible and non-violent ways. Peer mediation supports students utilizing conflict resolution practices and social, emotional, and civic skills/dispositions to play a leadership role in increasing peace and reducing violence in their school.

How can this training help my school?

Kids helping kids fosters caring, responsible and supportive learning environment. Peer mediation programs promote social, emotional and civic learning. Relationships are the foundation for learning and teaching. When schools recognize the profound importance of relationships and how we negotiate and solve problems in helpful (or inadvertently, unhelpful) ways, we are supporting the mission of schools: learning, teaching, and developing the skills and dispositions that support lifelong learning and effective citizenry.

What do I get with the Peer mediation training?

This training supports positive school climate and other forms of school reform. When schools focus on teaching students negotiation and collaborative problem solving skills and develop peer mediation programs, you will receive field-tested materials and experienced consultants who guide you through the stages of setting up a successful program.

We train a carefully selected group of students along with adult peer mediation coaches and a program coordinator. After three days of training for this group, your school will be ready to have students begin mediating disputes among their peers. The students will learn a model that helps them provide a structure for students who are in conflict to tell their stories, listen to each other, brainstorm solutions, and negotiate an agreement that will work for them. The peer mediators will learn listening, empathy, questioning, intergroup relations, and problem-solving skills. In addition to this training, the peer mediation coaches will receive coaching in how to implement peer mediation programs, promote the program school-wide, and help improve peer mediators’ skills. Your peer mediation coaches will then be able to sustain the program and train new peer mediators in future years.

With the Peer Mediation program you will receive:

• An introductory meeting with our consultant and a committee of your administrators, teachers, and parents to customize the Peer Mediation program to fit your school’s schedules, cultural composition, most pressing needs, and constraints.

• One day of training for five to seven adult peer mediation coaches followed by three days of training for a core group of 18-22 students and the adult coaches to help all involved become proficient in the skills they need and the process they’ll be using to help students resolve conflicts.

• An introductory presentation for school staff to familiarize them with the peer mediation approach and encourage them to refer students to the program.

• One day of on-site follow-up consultation later in the year, which includes a meeting with administrators and additional training for staff and students, and ongoing consultation to help you make implementation decisions, integrate the program with other school initiatives, and resolve program dilemmas.

• Periodic phone and email contact between our consultant and a designated “point person” in the school(s) will be an intermittent but ongoing part of the process. This will allow our consultants to understand successes and challenges and be helpful – from afar – in any and all ways that they can.

• Peer mediation implementation guides for the core staff working with the peer mediators and a notebook of materials and forms for peer mediators.

To learn more, please contact our Education Department at [email protected]

Bullying is a problem

• Nearly 1 in 4 U.S. students have been victims of bullying behavior.
• Victims of bullying are more likely to miss school, be suspended, be incarcerated, drop out of school, and/or experience learning problems
• 70% of students have witnessed bullying
• Bias-based harassment, which is harassment rooted in race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or disability, is especially pervasive, with reports of bias-related incidents increasing and the majority of these increases occurring in K-12 schools
• Bias-based bullying victimization is associated with a number of poor outcomes for youth, including serious emotional disorders, behavioral problems, and academic dysfunction.

Schools need better resources to effectively address bias-based bullying

• Although most schools are preparing educators and staff to recognize and respond to bullying, behaviors that are based on bias are often overlooked. Worse still, some students report being victimized not just by their peers but by their teachers as well
• Research indicates that adults in the school community often do not view bullying as a serious problem, even though students attending the same schools do
• Most “add-on,” “stand-alone,” and “pre-packaged” anti-bullying programs are largely ineffective at addressing and preventing bullying behaviors in schools

Evaluation

The EYES Initiative includes a three-year evaluation plan led by the research teams at NSCC and Facing History and Ourselves. This evaluation will seek to understand implementation fidelity and impact. Indicators of impact will include changes in

• bullying and attitudes about bully-victim-witness behaviors,
• feelings of safety by members of the school community,
• student engagement, and
• teacher’s sense of self-efficacy in relation to issues of bias and bullying