News: Student Engagement

How the “System” Forces Schools into Decisions that Harm Struggling Students: The “Groundhog Day” Impact of Fear on Staff Mental Health and Job Retention

The movie Groundhog Day is metaphorically used to describe recurring experiences with MTSS Teams across the country who continue to use “mystifying” procedures, practices, and strategies—typically wit...

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Why “Do” SEL If It Doesn’t Improve Student Behavior in the Classroom and Across the School?

Blog describes the components, social skills, instructional approach, and implementation characteristics to help schools teach students behaviorally-observable interpersonal, social problem-solving, c...

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Reviewing the Educational Challenges of 2022: The Need for Improvement in the Midst of Academic Gaps, Discipline and SEL Problems, School Shootings, and Continued Disproportionality

Blog summarizes and provides links to Blogs published during 2022. Twenty-two Blogs are organized in four themes: School Improvement and Staff Effectiveness; Social Skills Instruction and Social-Emoti...

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Teaching Students Needed Academic and Social-Emotional Skills: We Need to Sweat the Small Stuff

Blog describes five vignettes that reinforce the importance that educators and related services professionals “sweat the small stuff.” We demonstrate that, to make big and meaningful academic and soci...

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The Three Keys to Closing Students’ Academic and Social-Emotional Gaps

Blog discusses the predominant academic and social, emotional, and behavioral challenges for students in our schools today, and describes (with links to a recent national radio interview and past Blog...

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Emotionally Responding to a (Hurricane) Disaster: Short-Term, Long-Term, Adults, and Children

Blog shares personal experiences and professional reflections prompted by Hurricane Ian’s devastation in Fort Myers, Florida. Analysis focuses on student and adult emotional reactions, the response ph...

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