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SELf Care: Meeting the SEL needs of Adults through the Arts (Open to ALL NC Educators!)
We all know that we cannot serve students from an empty cup. Every educator has been repeatedly told to put on their own oxygen mask first but for most, virtual, hybrid, and in-person teaching during the COVID-19 Pandemic has been overwhelmingly stressful. Many adults do not know where or how to begin to address their own SEL needs but are charged with leading these efforts for children. We are here to help! ALL educators are welcome to join in this 8-session series to learn practical techniques to manage stress, rekindle daily joy through the arts, and explore how to apply lessons learned in this series to the classroom through Arts Integrated SEL lessons for students. We look forward to sharing this valuable content with you and know that your students will be better served when you engage in a little SELf Care!
Sessions include:
TEACH Happier with Suzanne Dailey April 20 -4 p.m.-5 p.m.
Life-Hacks for Grounding Yourself co-presented with the NC Symphony April 27 -4 p.m.-5 p.m.
Mindful Moving with Sayward Grindley May 4-4 p.m.-5 p.m.
Mindful Meter with Brandon Roeder May 6 -4 p.m.-5 p.m.
Mindful Making with Michelle Harrell and Ophelia Staton May 11-4 p.m.-5 p.m.
Mindful M-agination with Triad Stage Learning Programs May 13-4 p.m.-5 p.m.
NC Museum of Art (NCMA) Virtual Teacher Workshop: Roots and Leaves Expressive Arts Experience May 18 -4 p.m.-5 p.m. (Registration Coming Soon!)
The Mindful Classroom with Elizabeth Peterson May 20-4 p.m.-5 p.m.
A+ U Elective Videos created by the A+ Schools of North Carolina Self-Paced
Read session descriptions and find registration links HERE.
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K-12 Education Office of Government and Community Affairs Update
(April 6, 2021) The March wind is not the only thing gusting. New legislation continues to swirl and committee meetings to consider these bills fill the legislative calendar. So far, over 850 bills have been filed this session with at least 175 of those bills affecting K-12 public education. One of the recent K-12 education bills to be filed is S387Excellent Public Schools Act of 2021 sponsored by Senators Berger, Ballard, and Lee. This act will modify how the NC Read to Achieve program is implemented to ensure statewide reading proficiency by third grade.
Also churning, is the FY 21-23 budget. Governor Cooper unveiled his budget recommendations and the Senate will take the next step to present their budget in the coming weeks. Before the flurry of budget negotiations, the House and Senate are taking a Spring Break next week to spend time in their districts.
District Visits and Voices continue down the road. These tours demonstrate how the districts are going #beyondnormalcy to make a difference in their schools and communities.
Click here to read the complete K-12 Education Legislative Update.
Don't want miss an update? Subscribe here!
Truly. . .
Freebird McKinney
Director of the Office of Government and Community Affairs
“We Strive and Rise, Together.”
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Number 6
Accelerating Learning As We Build Back Better
Forbes-April 5, 2021-Linda Darling-Hammond, Contributor
After a year of struggling with distance learning and hybrid models, parents, teachers, and policymakers across the country are concerned about “learning loss” and how to recover from the educational effects of the pandemic. While many of us resist the deficit orientation of learning loss language, these concerns are certainly legitimate: As the crisis began, millions of children, particularly those in low-income communities, lacked access to the computers and connectivity that would make in-person remote learning possible, creating even greater equity gaps than those that already existed.
Furthermore, many low-income communities and communities of color have been especially hard hit by COVID-19, with higher rates of infection, hospitalization and death, as well as greater rates of unemployment and housing and food insecurity. These traumatic events, coupled with the ongoing instances of police shootings of unarmed civilians, have led to a growing and ever more visible divide between the haves and the have-nots, with many students encountering barriers to keeping up in school and others disengaging from school altogether.
Why We Should Aim for Reinvention
It is critically important, though, that we address these concerns based not on outdated notions about remediation, but on what we now know about how people learn effectively. Among those lessons are the following:
- Positive relationships and attachments are the essential ingredient that catalyzes healthy development and learning … and enables resilience from trauma.
- Children actively construct knowledge by connecting what they know to what they are learning within their cultural contexts. Creating those connections is key to learning.
- Learning is social, emotional, and academic. Children learn best when they feel safe, affirmed, and deeply engaged within a supportive community of learners.
- Learning is enhanced by physical activity, joy, and opportunities for self-expression.
- Students’ perceptions of their own ability influence learning. All children are motivated to learn the next set of skills for which they are ready; few are motivated by labels that rank them against others or communicate stigma.
Click here to read the entire article.
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Number 5
Follow-Up: SEL is More Than Teaching Kids to Be Nice
Mark your calendars for the Thursday, April 15 follow-up to the #SEL webinar, SEL is More Than Teaching Kids to Be Nice. This follow-up includes micro-PD for each grade-band & Q&A session!
Register by grade band:
K-5 - bit.ly/3sHDTAE
6-8 - bit.ly/3cDfuGS
9-12 - bit.ly/3rH8ihc pic.twitter.com/fzOHSoHd6g
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Number 4
Preschool Resources
(April 8, 2021) During the 2016 legislative session, Session Law 2016-94, Section 12B.5.(d) was passed. In the law, the Division of Child Development and Early Education (DCDEE), in consultation with the Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI), was charged with developing a unified vision for transitioning children from Pre-K into Kindergarten. This was to include methods to standardize quantifiable student transition information and recommendations for sharing data between Pre-K teachers and either Kindergarten teachers or the schools that receive the incoming Kindergarten students and the parents or guardians of the children who are transitioning to Kindergarten.
As part of the State’s efforts to build a more aligned system that supports transitions from Pre-K to Kindergarten, the kindergarten entry assessment was revised beginning with the 2020-2021 school year.
These revisions provide more continuity between and across Pre-K and Kindergarten programs by better aligning the assessments used. This revised version, The NC Early Learning Inventory, includes a subset
of Teaching Strategies GOLD® dimensions across 5 domains of development.
Additionally, the NC Department of Health and Human Services and NCDPI have been charged with providing a way for Pre-K teachers and families to systematically share information about children's strengths and needs with kindergarten teachers through an electronic information-sharing platform aligned with the NC Early Learning Inventory.
Beginning in FY 2021-2022, NCDPI will fund Teaching Strategies GOLD® for public school Pre-K classrooms that are not funded through NC Pre-K. We will be providing access and training to teachers and teacher assistants for Teaching Strategies GOLD® in the Fall of the 2021-2022 school year. We will not be providing Creative Curriculum® Cloud or Ready Rosie™.
NCDPI provides autonomy to PSUs to select curriculum and prefers to continue to extend the same courtesy for the PSU public preschool classrooms as they work to align the Pre-K- Grade 3 continuum,
particularly as we begin statewide deployment of the Science of Reading.
If you have questions, please contact Dan Tetreault at dan.tetreault@dpi.nc.gov.
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Number 3
ESSER III (PRC 181) Technical Assistance Webinars-Monday, April 12, 2021
We invite all federal program directors, district-level leadership including but not limited to superintendents, assistant/associate superintendents, chief academic officers, finance directors, maintenance directors, and child nutrition directors to attend the ESSER III PRC 181 Application Technical Assistance webinar. Please forward this information to all stakeholders within your district who will need to be a part of the needs assessment, data analysis, usage of the funds and completion of the grant application process to participate.
The ESSER III (PRC 181) application will open in CCIP on Monday, April 12, 2021. Please plan to attend a technical assistance ESSER III webinar covering strategic planning support opportunities, application processes, allowable uses, and monitoring and compliance requirements.
Technical Assistance Webinar #1
Monday, April 12th 9 a.m.-10 a.m.
Click here to join the meeting.
Meeting password: Pw8RPbcEj54
Join by phone +1-415-655-0003 US Toll
Repeat Technical Assistance Webinar #2
Monday, April 12th 3 p.m.-4 p.m.
Click here to join the meeting.
Meeting password: JnpQbUMM322
Join by phone +1-415-655-0003 US Toll
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Number 1
State Superintendent Catherine Truitt Shares "Operation Polaris" with State Board of Education
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt outlined her vision for the next four years as "Operation Polaris" during her report to the State Board of Education on Thursday, April 8. Click here to review her presentation.
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Moment of Hope
Brought to us by the NC Public School Forum & EdNC
"Their passion for learning has been a constant.” This teacher felt supported by the @AFMSChargers throughout the pandemic. From her students to the PTSA, hear how @ArtWithWithers found hope in her community in this week’s #momentofhope #nced Listen here.
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