“After 2 weeks [of community-building circles at my new school], I realized it was the first time in my life I ever wanted to be at a school! Like ‘We got circle today, I gotta go!’ I wanted to be in class, do projects, interact, be one of the first students called on. I felt good being up here!”
Student at Ralph Bunche Academy in the Oakland Unified School District23
What Students Need
Strong positive relationships between educators and students are necessary but not sufficient to ensure that students succeed in school. For students’ full learning potential to be unleashed, they need to be in an environment that is both physically and psychologically safe, calm, and consistent—a place where they can experience trust and belonging, so they can take risks and thrive.
Brain research helps explain why this matters so much. When we are in an environment that feels unpredictable or threatening, our brains are flooded with cortisol, which increases stress levels, reduces memory and focus, and impairs concentration. Moreover, this reaction is heightened if we’ve experienced toxic stress over time, which makes it even more difficult for our brains to focus on learning.24 External stresses are exacerbated when students experience bullying or harassment on campus, creating a fight-or-flight response and further undermining learning. Good schools do not wait for such incidents to occur; they work proactively to create environments where all students feel safe and included.
Because fear and anxiety undermine cognitive capacity and short-circuit the learning process, students learn best under conditions of low threat and high support. Learning is also supported when students can connect what happens in school to their cultural contexts and experiences, when their teachers are responsive to their strengths and needs, and when their environment is “identity safe,”25 reinforcing their value and belonging.26 Elements of school climate contributing to student motivation and achievement include strong interpersonal relationships and communication between staff and students, as well as a sense of cohesiveness and belongingness in the school community.27
Like all social groups, schools have a culture—a set of values and norms that shape the way people act. Cultural norms tell us who belongs and who does not, who is powerful and who is not, what kinds of behavior are valued and what is not acceptable. For schools to be places where everyone can learn, they must be places where everyone feels safe and included. A smaller, more personalized school community is helpful but not sufficient for students to experience a safe, inclusive climate, which also requires intentional community building and culture setting. As described under Feature 3: Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Teaching, proactive efforts are also needed to create an identity-safe environment through a culturally competent approach to teaching.
Creating such an environment can require transformations of traditional school practices. (See Table 1.)
Table 1. Transforming School Practices to Create an Environment of Safety and Belonging
Transforming from a school environment in which… | Toward a school environment in which… |
Individual teacher discipline practices vary from class to class, communicating different expectations for relationships | Shared norms and values create consistency and positive experiences for students |
The focus is on moving individual students through academic curriculum only | The focus is on community building as a foundation for shared social and academic work |
Governance is by rules and punishments | Communities are built on shared responsibility that is explicitly taught and nurtured |
Exclusionary discipline pushes students out of class and school | Restorative practices enable amends and attach students more closely to the community |
Tracking systems convey differential expectations of students by race, class, language background, or disability | Heterogeneous classrooms with strong community norms and supports convey common expectations |
Key Practices
Community Building
Many of us remember our first day of middle school or high school, and how intimidating it felt to walk into a big new school with so many unfamiliar faces. In addition to the structural changes described in the previous chapter, schools can combat this sense of anonymity by intentionally building community. While traditional assemblies and rallies can build a sense of common identity, they also can be alienating for students who do not feel they belong. Effective schools create spaces where students can get to know one another one-on-one and in small groups. Sometimes these are self-selected, such as student-led clubs, but it is also important to create regular opportunities for students to intentionally build community with classmates with whom they might not otherwise interact.
Creating Community. One technique used by many secondary schools—often in advisory settings as well as specific classes—is the community circle, or talking circle, where students arrange their chairs in a circle and each person speaks in turn, ensuring equality of voice. The main job of circle participants is to listen deeply to the speaker. Prompts can begin with “getting to know you” questions and, as the group builds trust, move to questions about values or life experiences. Circles can also be used for academic purposes, such as asking students to share how a text made them feel or their favorite method of solving a type of math problem. There are schools where all teachers are expected to use circles on a regular basis, and students themselves frequently lead them.
Schools with advisory programs use that time for many approaches to creating a caring community. (See Feature 1: Positive Developmental Relationships.) Community circles are often a core component of advisory, where there is dedicated time for community building, but they can be used in many parts of the school. For example, at Fremont High School in Oakland, CA, circles are regularly used in advisory, after-school programs, and academic classes, as well as on occasions following traumatic incidents or losses. The school has many newcomer immigrant students, so it also offers “language circles” that are facilitated by student leaders in Vietnamese, Mam (an indigenous Central American language), Arabic, and Spanish. One Mam-speaking student from Guatemala explained, “It has been hard for me to communicate with people who speak more English or Spanish, but I have done circles in Mam. It’s a place where I can just speak my language and relate with other people who speak the same language as me.”28
Developing Shared Values. In effective schools, expectations for student behavior are framed around shared values, which are rooted in the right of every student to feel safe and be included, rather than on long lists of rules and punishments. These values, which focus on respect and consideration for others, are developed and discussed in concert with students in individual subject matter classrooms as well as in settings where social-emotional skills are being developed. Students and staff work together to consider why these values matter and to develop norms around what the values look like in daily practice. This is especially important at the secondary level when adolescent students are thinking critically as they are developing their identities and sense of agency. If students are involved in developing classroom norms and everyone understands the “why” behind the norms, they seem less like bureaucratic rules and more like appropriate frameworks for keeping everyone safe. Students become advocates for the norms with one another. As the positive culture builds, everyone in the community “owns” the values and norms and incorporates them into regular speech and practice.
Some educators are hesitant to teach values or feel that their job is just to focus on academics. But it is impossible for all students to learn to their full potential if schools allow oppressive or harmful behaviors to flourish on campus. Students come from different family environments and are exposed to many different types of behavior through social media and other sources. If schools do not have active means to build a calm, inclusive, and consistent culture, hurtful behaviors, including bullying—within the school and through social media—can take hold.
Many schools reinforce common values and support social, emotional, and cognitive development with a set of explicit guidelines, sometimes called Habits of Mind and Heart. These guidelines describe the habits young people need to succeed in school and life, such as examining evidence, looking at an issue from multiple perspectives, using logical reasoning, making new connections, organizing and planning, managing emotions, listening to and respecting others, acting with integrity, and working for the common good. Although we may think of some of these habits as more cognitive and others as more social-emotional, research reveals that in our brains, these types of skills are interconnected—and all are correlated with academic success. Developing and using schoolwide habits or mindsets helps integrate social, emotional, and cognitive development into all classes. Teachers can use the habits as a touchstone for mini-lessons or opportunities to build collective practices among students, which helps everyone to improve on these skills together.
Social and Emotional Learning
Explicitly teaching social, emotional, and cognitive skills helps demystify the growth process for young people and allows them to cultivate agency in their own personal development. Research shows that students who participate in formal social and emotional learning programs show improvements in skills such as self-regulation, collaboration, and problem-solving, as well as attitudes about themselves and school, and academic outcomes.29
The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) provides a useful framework for understanding the multiple levels at which a school can address social and emotional learning for self- and social-awareness, self-management, social skills, and responsible decision-making, starting with the classroom and moving outward to include schoolwide culture and climate, partnerships, and aligned learning opportunities. (See Figure 4.)
Building a Growth Mindset. One goal of social and emotional learning is to help young people develop what is known as a growth mindset, based on the belief that their abilities and intelligence are not fixed but can be improved with effort, practice, and support. Brain science shows that brain development is malleable and occurs throughout life; abilities are not fixed at birth but are a function of effortful experiences that create new neuronal connections. Research has shown that when young people understand this and adopt a growth mindset, they are more likely to persist when tasks become difficult and to perform better in school.30 Building a growth mindset is especially important for students from groups that have been marginalized, because they already face negative messages about their potential. Helping students develop a growth mindset requires both culturally responsive teaching (see Feature 3: Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Teaching) and a pedagogy that enables feedback and revision with supports (see Feature 5: Student-Centered Pedagogy).
Trauma-Informed and Healing-Oriented Practices. Social and emotional learning can also help address the impact of trauma. Quite often, challenging student behaviors are a result of traumatic experiences inside or outside of school. Experiences of trauma produce dysregulated behavior—the likelihood that a student will be on edge and may either withdraw or flare easily when a small trigger occurs. Researchers now understand a great deal about how trauma disrupts brain functioning in ways that impact emotional wellness, relational trust, and academic learning. We also know that trauma occurs through specific one-time experiences but also long-term stressors such as housing insecurity; community or family violence; or ongoing bullying or discrimination, including the microaggressions that many students face in school environments. Schools can help support all students, including those who have experienced trauma, by adopting trauma-informed and healing-oriented practices31 that promote individual and collective wellness.
One of the easiest ways schools can be trauma informed is by having consistent routines for checking in with students, which provide an opportunity for sharing concerns and help reduce stress and anxiety. Predictability reduces cognitive load for everyone, allowing teachers and students to use their brains for learning. Some schools hold their advisory periods first thing in the morning so advisors can check in with students individually or through a community circle to see if there are any events or concerns that have emerged that need immediate attention. Breakfast may also be served as a morning routine, which builds community, destigmatizes free meals, and ensures that students start the day on an even keel, as hunger can also trigger distress.
Routines do not need to be complex or time-consuming. For example, some schools have a tradition in which all teachers stand at their doors and greet students as they enter the classroom, ensuring that students feel welcomed and that teachers get a pulse on their students’ moods as they come into the learning space. Some teachers take attendance using a one-word check-in, during which the teacher calls each student’s name and they respond with one word describing how they feel. If a student is angry or upset, the teacher is alerted to check in with them during work time and everyone knows to give them a little extra space. If a student is happy or excited, they can share a bit of their positive energy with the class. When students know teachers and advisors are concerned for their well-being, they also can communicate through journals, notes, or exit tickets as well as conversations.
Mindfulness and Wellness. One healing-oriented approach that helps students and staff deal with stress is mindfulness practice, in which students learn to focus their attention on their breathing and develop a greater sense of awareness of their own emotions and the world around them. Mindfulness practice has been shown to increase social-emotional regulation and reduce stress.32 Some schools provide a brief time for mindfulness practice in the classroom at key times during the day, such as after lunch, when students need to transition from more high-energy social situations to the focused space of the classroom. Similar benefits can come from providing opportunities for exercise, such as dance, yoga, martial arts, or sports, during the school day.
Trauma-informed schools usually have wellness-focused spaces on campus, where students can go to de-escalate if they are angry or distressed, to check in with a trusted adult, to request conflict mediation support, or to request more in-depth mental health services from trained clinicians. When students request these services, it is a sign that they are learning to self-regulate and taking responsibility for making the school community a safer and calmer place for everyone.
Restorative Practices
The cornerstones of a safe inclusive school climate include explicit teaching of empathy and a set of shared social-emotional skills for recognizing emotions, working with others, and resolving conflict peaceably. On occasions when norms may be violated, it is important to activate problem-solving strategies that avoid exclusionary discipline, such as suspensions, which disconnect students from school, increase alienation and dropout rates, and fail to teach strategies for conflict resolution or other solutions to challenges students may face. Research consistently finds that exclusionary discipline disproportionately affects students of color and students with disabilities, who typically experience harsher punishments for even minor offenses.33
Restorative practices provide a more effective approach for building a positive school climate, creating greater safety, and improving student outcomes. The goal is to support students on a daily basis through community building, explicit teaching of conflict resolution and problem-solving skills, and methods that enable those who violate the norms of the community to repair harm and make amends.34 (See Figure 5.) A recent large-scale study found that the more students experience these practices, the more their academic achievement and mental health improve and the less violence and misbehavior schools experience.35 The gains are experienced by all students and are greatest for Black students and those with disabilities, who are most often harmed by exclusionary discipline; thus restorative practices hold promise for closing achievement gaps.
Restorative practices begin with the understanding that relationships and community can only be restored if they are strong to begin with. When schools focus their resources on building a safe, inclusive community with healthy relationships among educators and students and on proactively addressing students’ needs, they prevent a great deal of harmful behavior from happening in the first place. Often advisory programs are where explicit community building begins, but a strong community can be established only if it is a priority enabled by shared practices in every classroom and throughout the school.36
Resolving Conflict. A common cause of disruptions in schools (as in all human social groups) is interpersonal conflict. Healthy school communities know that conflict is normal, and they plan for it by creating productive processes for dealing with disagreements, then training and supporting staff and students to use them. It is important that every member of the school community, including staff in all parts of the school as well as students, learns a shared approach to conflict resolution so that a consistent approach to resolving any kind of dispute or problem can be used.
In a restorative paradigm, when challenging student behavior occurs, staff first respond with questions that ascertain what has happened and what is going on with the involved student(s)—“What’s going on?” or “Are you all right?”—rather than immediately issuing punishments. The answers to these questions help educators understand what is really at issue and often signal a need for additional resources from a counselor, social worker, or other adult.
When individuals experience a difficult dispute, a common practice is conflict mediation, a structured and facilitated process through which students (or staff) who have a conflict can sit down with one another, often with a trained mediator (which could be a student, teacher, or restorative practitioner), listen to one another’s point of view, and work together to resolve the conflict, or at least make agreements to prevent it from escalating. In many secondary schools, conflict mediation services are entirely run by students themselves, with trained student facilitators supported by an adult mentor.
When behavior impacts not just one or two people but a larger group, such as a classroom, schools may use community circles to address the challenging issues. For example, a teacher might open a circle discussion with a check-in question and then raise a topic such as, “I’ve noticed that over the past few weeks, our class has seen a big increase in the number of side conversations that make it difficult for us to stay focused. Have you noticed the same thing? Why do you think it’s happening? What do you think would help us address this issue?” In this example, it is important to note that the teacher does not single out particular students or make assumptions about the causes of the problem, but rather frames it as a collective challenge and invites students to think together about solutions. When a school has adopted a set of community habits, these discussions can be rooted in how everyone can do a better job of adhering to the community’s common values and expectations.
Repairing Harm. In cases where it is clear that harm has been done, a restorative practices approach allows students and staff to slow down, assess what happened and what harm occurred, and develop a plan for repairing harm and making amends, in line with the school community’s values and expectations. The International Institute for Restorative Practices provides questions such as these that educators can use with students after a harmful incident occurs:
- What happened, and what were you thinking at the time?
- What have you thought about since?
- Who has been affected by what happened? How?
- What about this has been hardest for you?
- What do you think needs to happen to make things as right as possible?37
These types of questions are used with everyone involved in the incident, regardless of their role. Next steps for addressing the harm, including additional support and consequences as appropriate, are planned and agreed upon by everyone involved. Students who are impacted by harm have agency over how the situation is addressed. Students who cause harm are also given a choice, within appropriate boundaries, of how they want to proceed. Often this process occurs in the format of a community circle with the impacted parties and key allies such as parents or teachers—always run by a trained facilitator to ensure that boundaries are respected and everyone is safe and supported.
It is important to note that the restorative practices approach requires a commitment of resources.38 It takes less staff time to suspend a student after a behavioral incident than to design and implement a good restorative process and then follow up to ensure that students make amends. However, suspension rarely resolves the concerns, and it does not teach students how to address problems more productively in the future. Meanwhile, exclusionary discipline alienates students and increases the odds they will drop out.39 If restorative practices are implemented well, the approach produces increased accountability for students, fewer suspensions, stronger feelings of safety and belonging, increased achievement, and a safer campus for everyone.40
School Profile: Building a Community Worth Restoring at Bronxdale High School
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