BMGF Washington Bridge Community of Practice

Resources and Tools to Create a Welcoming and Supportive Environment for Students, Staff and Families

Creating a welcoming and supportive environment for students, staff and families is crucial, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. The below tools and resources are designed to help district leaders support students with their social and emotional needs, ensure staff well-being, shift the discipline system from a zero-tolerance approach to one focused on keeping students in school, engage families and build on the strengths of the community.

Category	Name	Type	Description
Student and Staff Well Being	Increasing Students’ Success Through Social and Emotional Learning Education Northwest		This presentation shares information on social and emotional learning (SEL) needs in Washington State, the effects of COVID-related trauma on students’ learning needs and ways to create a continuum of trauma-informed SEL.
	Elevating Student Empowerment Through High Quality Curriculum Achievement Network		This presentation deck shares ANet’s Whole Child Framework and how Everett Public Schools embedded student-led discussion into their math curriculum.
	Teaching for Equity Brief: A Guide to Integrating Academics, Well-Being and Anti-Racism in Student Experiences Leading Educators		This brief shares the Teaching for Equityframework, which translates and integrates research into five strands of teacher beliefs, practices and resources. The three classroom strands include anti-racist curriculum and standards, radically inclusive relationships and communities, and equitable instructional practices. The two resource strands include inner resources and the school and system resources.
	Teaching for Equity Framework: A Guide to Integrating Academics, Well-Being and Anti-Racism in Student Experiences Leading Educators		This guide shares the Teaching for Equityframework in more detail, along with foundational practices, guiding questions and potential pitfalls for each of the five strands of teacher beliefs, practices and resources.
	Supporting Educators’ Social and Emotional Well-Being: Practices and Strategies NWEA		This handout provides strategies and practices to support educators’ social and emotional well-being.
Discipline System	Planning and Facilitating Work Sessions to Improve School Discipline Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest		Regional Education Laboratory Northwest developed these training materials to help school and district teams plan their approach to improving school discipline policies and practices. The guide describes the Plan-Do-Study-Act continuous improvement process to promote equity in school discipline.
	Revising School Discipline Policies and Procedures to Promote Equity Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest		This guide will support district teams to discuss how and why school discipline policies are shifting from a zero-tolerance approach to one that is focused on prevention and on keeping students in school. They will also discuss how the process of revising district-level school discipline policies can promote better outcomes for students, educators and schools. Teams will have the opportunity to use the Discipline Policies and Procedures Summary (DPPS) to review their school or district discipline policies and to plan any necessary revisions.
	Using School Discipline Data to Pinpoint Concerns and Track Progress Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest		This guide will support district teams to use disaggregated data to identify school discipline concerns, discuss ways to improve the quality of available data and identify additional data that could inform improvement decisions, and discuss different perspectives that administrators, teachers and families may have about school discipline.
	Using Reflection Groups to Learn How Families and Educators View Their School District Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest		This guide will support district teams to understand why the perspectives of educators and family members are essential for improving equity in school climate and school discipline, plan a reflection group to learn more about what educators and/or families think about school climate and school discipline, and practice conducting a reflection group with peers.
	Identifying Strategies to Promote Equity in School Discipline Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest		This guide will support district teams to learn what the research says about school or classroom discipline practices that are associated with lower rates of school discipline, identify potential root causes that contribute to the school discipline concern, choose a school or district discipline practice that will be the focus of their intervention and identify strategies that their school or district could implement to improve school discipline practices.
Student and Community Engagement and Empowerment	Characteristics of Positive Outlier Schools Brief: Illuminating the Strengths of American Indian/Alaska Native, Black, Latino/a and Students Experiencing Poverty The Center for Educational Effectiveness		This is a 10 page brief that summarizes the findings from a study that sought to identify and learn from the schools serving American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN), Black, Latino/a and students experiencing poverty that were most successful on academic and student engagement pre-K12 indicators over a 3-to-5-year period.
	Characteristics of Positive Outlier Schools Final Report: Illuminating the Strengths of American Indian/Alaska Native, Black, Latino/a and Students Experiencing Poverty The Center for Educational Effectiveness		This is the full and final report of a study that sought to identify and learn from the schools serving American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN), Black, Latino/a and students experiencing poverty that were most successful on academic and student engagement pre-K12 indicators over a 3-to-5-year period.
	Characteristics of Positive Outlier Schools Recommendations: Illuminating the Strengths of American Indian/Alaska Native, Black, Latino/a and Students Experiencing Poverty The Center for Educational Effectiveness		This list of recommendations, informed by the study findings on positive outlier schools, is intended to help districts and schools take actions to support American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN), Black, Latino/a and students experiencing poverty.
	Characteristics of Positive Outlier Schools Presentation Slides: Illuminating the Strengths of American Indian/Alaska Native, Black, Latino/a and Students Experiencing Poverty The Center for Educational Effectiveness		This is the presentation deck that summarizes the findings from a study that sought to identify and learn from the schools serving American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN), Black, Latino/a and students experiencing poverty that were most successful on academic and student engagement pre-K–12 indicators over a 3-to-5-year period.
	Equity Practice: Considerations for BIPOC Community Focus Groups Education Northwest		This document lists eight considerations for BIPOC community focus groups, such as including questions that allow participants to tell their stories and providing interpretation and translation.