Second Step Programs Support Families

As a parent and caregiver, you are your child’s first and most important teacher and play a vital role in their social, emotional, and academic development. Your child’s counselors and social workers are here to support you, and the Second Step program is one of the tools they are using.

Second Step programs combine discussions with fun activities and resources. The programs help children learn social-emotional skills, such as responsible decision making, working together to solve problems, managing strong emotions, and getting along with others. These skills can help children succeed academically, socially, and emotionally.

Second Step Grades K-5

The Elementary Second Step program helps students acquire the skills, knowledge, and mindset needed to persevere through challenges, set and achieve goals, handle strong emotions, better understand and connect with others, and resolve interpersonal conflicts. In addition, the program helps students to develop executive-function skills and promotes a growth mindset (the belief that intelligence and abilities can be developed). Together, these skills and mindsets contribute to positive classroom and school climates that serve as the foundation for academic and social success. (Snyder et al., 2012) Second

Step Grades 6-8

The primary goal of Second Step Middle School is to equip students with the skills, knowledge, and mindsets that will help them successfully navigate adolescence. During adolescence, individuals experience great changes and brain development. Research in developmental neuroscience shows that while the brain network in charge of socio-emotional development abruptly becomes more assertive during adolescence, the brain network that is in charge of reasoning and cognitive control matures at a slower pace. (Steinberg, 2007)

Second Step Middle School helps students learn the skills, knowledge, and mindsets they need to handle strong emotions, better understand and connect with their peers, and avoid and resolve conflicts. In addition, the program supports social connectedness and promotes a growth mindset (the belief that intelligence can be developed). Together these skills and mindsets contribute to positive classroom and school climates that serve as the foundation for academic and social success. Second Step Promotes Growth Mindset The K-8 Second

Step programs promote Growth Mindset

A mindset is a person’s belief about whether his or her abilities or characteristics are fixed, set, and unchangeable (fixed mindset), or malleable and capable of changing over time depending on circumstances and effort (growth mindset). (Yeager & Dweck, 2012)

Research on mindsets has focused on the effects of having a fixed versus a growth mindset (Yeager et al., 2013). A growth mindset has been shown to promote resilience. One of the areas the Second Step program targets for a growth mindset is intelligence or the ability to do well in school. Having a growth mindset about intelligence can improve students’ academic goals (they believe they can learn), attitudes toward effort in school (they believe trying hard creates success), and responses to setbacks and difficulties (they try new strategies and work harder instead of giving up). (Yeager & Dweck, 2012)

Desired Qualifications

1. High school diploma.

2. Experience working with elementary children.

3. Ability to relate to children and be a role model.

Duties/Responsibilities

1. Recess/Lunch supervision.

2. Enforcing school rules and policies

Days: 11:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. (12.5 hours per week)

Compensation per District Paraprofessional Agreement

EMAIL Mr. VanRemmen to express interest: vanrempj@haslett.k12.mi.us

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION: Until filled