Palmer High School
Social Emotional Learning
Palmer High School Mission Statement
Trauma Sensitive Team
*All staff that wasn't apart of the trauma-informed team attended ACES training at the start of the school year.
*The beginning of the year PD with this team allowed us the opportunity to plan our August 25th PD with the rest of the staff.
*Focus of the PD was to examine the language that we use as educators with students.
*Group engagement activity: Increase out staff competency. (report: Jenny)
The challenge that we face: Changing staff with a fixed mindset, and have the most difficult time creating strong connections.
This focus addresses domain 3. Use of language with students that either triggers or de-escalate students. Small group activity that was strategic
The PD was well received and we feel like this is an area of strength on our campus.
Palmer High School Approach to Discipline
"We are all a work in progress and we all make mistakes, practically every day", is the message that is given on a daily basis. This is an exercise in empathy. With all this being said, we absolutely need to and want to hold students accountable for their behaviors.
Goals Moving forward
This process began in a later PD day where we focused as a staff of finding ways to create methods to make connections with students. A dragnet approach to help identify students that may fall through the cracks.
Here are the highlights:
· Reach out to Jason Marvel or Tom Lytle as far as policy/procedures/staff training that they have tried.
· Move forward with trauma-informed school environment (Culture of Caring) with or without the naysayers by:
o Getting our vision for PHS down on paper, publish it and promote it daily in the announcements, bulletin and daily info for staff
o Share “fun facts” (ACES data) about why we have chosen to become a trauma-informed school so that everyone realizes they must get on board because this is what PHS is all about
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Next year we are moving forward with getting to know our 9th graders in PHARM the first 4 ½ weeks and will develop curriculum to not only identify struggling students but help strengthen resiliency and social/emotional skills to help them start high school with tools.
CHallenge moving forward: Honestly, due to budget cuts and the loss of our graduation coach and drop-out prevention program, we will be taking steps backward. To mitigate this we will continue to meet with PJMS admin and counselors to help identify our high-risk students.