Whole Child Newsletter
April 2021
Jackson County PreK-12 & Special Education Virtual Job Fair
- REGISTRATION DETAILS COMING SOON!
Are you interested in a career in education? If so, you’ll want to SAVE THE DATE now for a countywide virtual job fair this spring! The Jackson County Intermediate School District is teaming up with Michigan Works! Southeast and the State of Michigan for a one-day virtual job fair on Wednesday, April 28, 12pm - 5pm. Several area schools and early childhood organizations will be participating to find the perfect fit for their classrooms for the 2021-22 school year.
HIV Certification Training
April 27th 9:00-11:00
The Happiness Course
“Everyone knows what they need to do to protect their physical health: wash your hands, and social distance, and wear a mask,” she added. “People were struggling with what to do to protect their mental health.”
The Coursera curriculum, adapted from the one Dr. Santos taught at Yale, asks students to, among other things, track their sleep patterns, keep a gratitude journal, perform random acts of kindness, and take note of whether, over time, these behaviors correlate with a positive change in their general mood.
Navigating Parents Through the Teen Years
Attendance Awareness Campaign A project led by Attendance Works
Register today!
Free, 4-part webinar series for 2021
Attendance Works and our convening partners are excited to announce the 2021 Attendance Awareness Campaign webinar series! Under the theme for the 2021 campaign, Rebound with Attendance!, each webinar will offer insights, strategies and real-world examples illustrating how we can encourage and support student attendance from spring and through the next school year.
Webinar 1
Committed: Supporting Attendance and Participation to the Very Last Day of School, Wednesday, April 14, 2021: 11am-12:30pm PT / 2pm–3:30pm ET
- Motivating participation and engagement through the spring
- Launching Attendance Works’ Attendance Awareness Campaign, and the first installment of the engagement and recovery planning toolkit
Webinar 2
Engaged: Using Summer to Connect with Students and Families, Wednesday, May 26, 2021: 11am-12:30pm PT / 2pm–3:30pm ET
- Intensifying engagement over the summer
- Use your local data to create a differentiated re-engagement strategy and organize summer supports
Webinar 3
Welcomed: Embracing Students, Families and Educators in the New School Year, Wednesday, August 4, 2021: 11am-12:30pm PT / 2pm–3:30pm ET
- Welcome families and staff back to school in the fall
- Promote the routine of attendance and leverage and amplify rituals
Webinar 4
Fully Present: Leveraging Attendance Data to Ensure Ongoing Success,
Wednesday, September 29, 2021: 11am-12:30pm PT / 2pm–3:30pm ET
- Leveraging attendance to ensure ongoing success
- Success stories and maintaining your Attendance Awareness Campaign throughout the school year
Uplifting our Educators and Support Staff - Webinar and discussion about COVID-19-related distress
Teachers across Michigan have reported an increase in their stress levels since the COVID-19 pandemic began. With in-person teaching starting up again in Michigan, educators may benefit from hearing how to manage their feelings of anxiety, depression, and uncertainty.
Join the Michigan Stay Well grant team for “Uplifting our Educators and Support Staff” for a free, 1-hour webinar designed for educators and school support staff.
The webinar will consist of a presentation followed by an interactive discussion. You will learn:
How to recognize and address normal symptoms of emotional distress in yourselves
How anyone can get free, confidential emotional support from trained crisis counselors
Self-care tips and coping strategies
WHEN: Thursday, April 22, 2021 from 4:30 – 5:30 pm
HOW TO REGISTER: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LVPNf3TPQteGOCCroQgfXw
HOW TO CONNECT: Follow the unique link emailed to you after registration
PRESENTER: Erin Wallace, CDP, Lead Outreach Specialist, Stay Well grant program
After the presentation, we invite you to share your experiences and ask questions.
This Stay Well webinar is brought to you by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services with grant funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
The Surprising Impact of a Small Compliment
In this article in Psychology Today, David Ludden reports the results of five studies published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. It turns out that people underestimate the impact of a small compliment – saying something as simple as “I love your scarf” – and overestimate the psychic effort involved in giving it. The researchers had people take a few seconds to pay an out-of-the-blue compliment to a same-gender stranger.
Some details:
- Just before giving the compliment, participants were anxious that the recipient would feel awkward and annoyed.
- Those predictions significantly underestimated how flattered, happy, and pleased most recipients felt.
- After the compliment, the mood of those who gave it improved significantly.
- But blinded by their own discomfort, they didn’t see the impact on the other person.
- Third-party observers could see the positive impact of the compliment.
“The biggest challenge is getting out of our own head,” says Erica Boothby, one of the researchers (University of Pennsylvania). “We tend to be overly focused on our own ability to give a compliment effectively, or worried about what the other person will think of us.” Better to think about how we would feel receiving a positive comment, and realize that most other people will have the same reaction. “A few kind words can go a long way,” she says.
“The Power of a Kind Word” by David Ludden in Psychology Today, April 2021 (Vol. 54, #2, p. 17)
The 2021 School Wellness Award Cycle is Open!
Even during a pandemic, many schools successfully created and maintained healthy environments, virtual or in person, for students and staff. It is time for those schools to be recognized for their efforts. Please encourage any Michigan K-12 public and non-public school that might be interested to apply. The deadline to receive completed applications is midnight EST on May 19, 2021. The application, along with more information about the award, can be found at http://swa.mihealthtools.org
The School Wellness Award is designed to recognize and applaud schools that are implementing sustainable policy and environmental changes related to healthy eating, physical activity, and tobacco/nicotine-free lifestyles. A fully functioning School Health Team and completion of the Healthy School Action Tools (HSAT) are required for upper-level awards (Gold/First and Silver/Second). The 2021 application incorporates considerations for virtual and hybrid learning environments. Schools are encouraged to highlight successes with keeping students and staff healthy in a virtual environment.
MDHHS partners with the Michigan Department of Education, United Dairy Industry of Michigan, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan on the School Wellness Award.
We hope that many schools will take advantage of this opportunity to be recognized for their commitment to increasing student achievement through a healthier school community.
Questions can be directed to Karen Krabill Yoder at yoderk@michigan.gov
MDE: Introduction to SEL Course
Social and emotional learning (SEL) was important pre-pandemic and even more visible, relevant, and critical during the pandemic. SEL is the bridge upon which all learning occurs. Reading social cues, identifying feelings, and working with intense emotions are essential skills children need to navigate during the pandemic and the disruption of online and face-to-face learning. The skills of self-awareness, self-management, and social awareness enhance decision-making and teach a child how to connect with and befriend others. To that end, the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) is launching an outreach plan – Children matter. You matter. Learn SEL! – to bring SEL professional learning to schools across the state.
Beginning today, MDE is asking educators to complete an ‘Introduction to SEL’ online module hosted through Michigan Virtual. The hope is that as many educators as possible (a minimum of one school leader and two to four teachers per building across the state) will complete the module before Labor Day. The course is free, offers SCECHs, and takes about two hours to complete. This program is open to all districts. Please share this opportunity with your partners in the field.
The SEL leadership team wanted to ensure that MDE staff knew about the outreach effort. Please familiarize yourself with the updated SEL website. If you have any work or resources you believe should be linked from the SEL website, let me know; we would love to highlight MDE’s cross-office collaboration. If you have questions, please reach out to me at gallagherl@michigan.gov.
2021 Jackson County Community Assessment
How Three California Schools Treated Students’ Use of Social Media
What is your perspective of digital tools and social media in school? Implicit bias, equality, or equity? An article in Phi Delta Kappan, Matthew Rafalow (University of California/ Berkeley) reports on his study of three California middle schools that had similar technology tools and resources for all students, a similar focus on technology-based instruction, and similar teachers (mostly white women). Students in all three schools had lots of experience using digital technologies in their personal lives, and they were skilled at using online platforms and tools to communicate with peers and create and share new media.
“Importantly, though,” says Rafalow, “the schools differed in their student demographics” – and that corresponded with the very different ways teachers thought and talked about digital skills and the classroom opportunities they offered students. Here’s how the differences played out:
• A school serving mostly wealthy white students – Teachers described the skills students gained from digital play as essential to their success because they fostered individual creativity. One teacher likened kids’ informal, off-the-books digital activity to Steve Jobs and other tech pioneers tinkering in their garages. “At this school,” says Rafalow, “students were encouraged to take what they learned from online play and apply it to their work in the classroom.”
• A school serving mostly middle-class Asian-American students – Teachers at this school saw students’ personal digital activity as a threat to learning, and forbade or heavily monitored non-school technology use, including Facebook and Instagram. One teacher referred to students’ informal tech apps as “this garbage.” Educators appeared to be drawing on stereotypes of driven Asian Americans to justify their traditional pedagogical approach, and minimized students’ online participation in classrooms.
• A school serving mostly working-class Latinx students – Teachers at this school saw the skills students were picking up from informal technology use as irrelevant to the mission of the school. “Those skills from playing video games don’t translate to schools,” said one teacher. “So they have fast phones? So what? The kids we teach, if we’re being realistic, they need skills for hands-on jobs. Like how to fix a new-wave car. If they learn technology, it’s for those purposes.”
The very different way students’ digital skills and experiences were treated in these schools suggests, says Rafalow, “that even if our schools succeed in closing the nation’s existing gaps in digital access and skills, technology education would likely remain grossly inequitable. All three of these schools had plenty of technology available, all three were committed to providing technology-based instruction, and all three sets of students had developed, in the process of using social media and playing around online, a broad range of digital skills. However, only at the first school were these skills treated as assets to be valued and built upon. At the other two schools, serving less-affluent students of color, those very same digital skills were viewed with scorn or indifference.”
“Digital Equality Requires More Than Access” by Matthew Rafalow in Phi Delta Kappan, March 2020 (Vol. 102, #6, pp. 26-29); Rafalow can be reached at mrafalow@berkeley.edu.
Contact the Whole Child Team!
Janelle Buchler: Whole Child Consultant (janelle.buchler@jcisd.org)
Eric Swihart: Whole Child Coordinator (eric.swihart@jcisd.org)
Caitlin Williams: Attendance and Homeless Program Coordinator (caitlin.williams@jcisd.org)
Rebecca Hurst: Behavior Health Project Coordinator (rebecca.hurst@jcisd.org)
Kelsea Jabkiewicz: Data Integration and Medicaid Cost Recovery Coordinator (kelsea.jabkiewicz@jcisd.org)