SGA Youth & Family Services has opened an office at 10th and Halsted that will be headquarters for the Roseland Children’s Initiative, a project that will coordinate educational and social services for young people in the far South Side community. Twenty staff members are in place at the office, which shares the building with a child care center. “That will be wonderful to recruit more parents,” says Susana Marotta, SGA’s president and CEO.

On Saturday, a rally for the initiative drew several hundred attendees as well as political heavyweight and Harlem Children’s Zone founder Geoffrey Canada.

Plans for the project, which involves partnering with Roseland schools, include:

*Long-term case management for families. More than 30 families at Curtis Elementary are already involved, Marotta says.
*“Paraprofessional student advocates,” community members who have attended a 40-hour training program on child development and family dynamics. So far there are four, working at Curtis and Bennett schools. More will be trained soon.
*A van to provide mobile medical services.
*A program called Bridges that will help students at critical junctures during their schools: when they enter kindergarten, begin the middle grades, and start high school.
*A local version of the Harlem Children’s Zone's “Baby College,” which offers classes to parents on how best to help their children thrive. It will likely be launched in about a year.

“What is different is that this is long term,” Marotta says. “We are not just going to be here for one year or two and then leave. Each family will have a case manager that will follow them through their lives.”

Also in the works: a partnership with Roseland Prep Academy, a contract school approved at the November 2009 school board meeting. It was originally slated to open in September, but that will be delayed by one or two years because further approval is needed from the alderman, says Ron Migalski, SGA’s vice president of clinical programs. “The specific block that the school is located in is considered pretty high-risk,” Migalski says.

Roseland Prep will be similar to Harlem Children’s Zone’s Promise Academy, Migalski says. “We’ll be able to work hand-in-hand with the teachers in a much more concentrated effort. That allows us to know immediately what’s going on with these kids.”

So far, SGA has raised just $2 million of the $7.5 million it needs to cover the Initiative’s first five years. But even the full amount will be just enough “to have a foot-hold” at the critical stages of children’s education, says Leslie Joseph Inch, SGA’s senior vice president. The ultimate goal is to reach 65 percent of the roughly 14,000 young people in Roseland, enough to bring the neighborhood to a “tipping point” toward improvement.

Grant proposals are currently before some local foundations, Inch says. The $2 million raised so far includes a $1 million gift from a former client, Joseph Pedott, developer of the Chia Pet and the Clapper.

The project will also incorporate state juvenile justice prevention and intervention funding. Organizers plan to apply for the next round of federal Promise Neighborhoods funding (which will include $10 million for planning grant and $20 million for implementation grants.)

Roseland, like several other Chicago communities, missed out on federal dollars when the first round of Promise Neighborhoods grants was announced last fall. However, it was one of about 20 high-scoring applicant neighborhoods around the country that are receiving technical assistance with upcoming grant applications from PolicyLink, a national nonprofit research and advocacy organization. It is the only applicant from Chicago that was invited to participate.

Canada challenges Roseland community

While the Harlem Children’s Zone chose to open charter schools, Roseland’s program will work with existing schools in that neighborhood.

On Saturday, choirs from the district-run turnaround Fenger High School and from Curtis Elementary, a turnaround managed by the Academy for Urban School Leadership, performed at the rally. Fenger Principal Liz Dozier touted her school’s success, noting that 165 students will graduate this year and the school’s freshman on-track rate has increased by 35 percent.

In his speech, Canada noted that in his organization “if the kids don’t get into college, a lot of people don’t keep their jobs."

“People think this is controversial. It’s only controversial when it’s other people's kids,”  he said. “People understand we're not taking a position against anything, we're taking a position for the children.”

He also challenged those in the audience to take a new role in their neighborhood. The first task at hand, Canada said, was to not be afraid of crime and other challenges.

“When 12-year-olds believe they can run you out, grown men, imagine what they’re going to be doing at 15," he said.

Tackling student safety is critical for creating an environment where students can learn, Canada said, and Harlem Children’s Zone has done it partly through parent patrol groups that keep a lookout during the walk to and from school.  Parent patrols have become popular in CPS as well, though it’s unclear whether the district will continue to allocate money for them.

Canada asked the audience put themselves in the shoes of students: How would they feel if a new co-worker punched out another employee and threatened them with violence?

“Most of us are not going to go in our office and get on our little computer, and go on with business as usual,” he said.

He also stressed the importance of meeting students’ basic health and dental care needs.

“People say, does that help their test scores? No, but it helps them chew their food. It's about what decent people do,” Canada said. “They need to grow up thinking the adults are in control, have power and influence, and are there to help them."

For many teens, the toughest job is finding one. Teen employment is declining, and this summer’s job market is expected to end up as the worst on record, according to a recent report by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. Here in Chicago, CPS needs to do more to prepare kids for work, says Barnett. Last year, Jobs for Youth placed nearly 1,000 young people in regular jobs, half of which paid more than $10 per hour. Before beginning their job search and working one-on-one with counselors, young people who sign up with Jobs for Youth attend an eight-day job readiness and life skills program taught largely by volunteer business professionals. One non-negotiable requirement: High school dropouts must go through the group’s GED program. Jobs for Youth also provides business clothes and ongoing mentoring once young people find work. Barnett talked with writer Rebecca Harris about job preparedness and what CPS ought to do to help students prepare for the workplace.

Have you tried to partner with CPS?

We haven’t been really successful with a formal relationship. In working with [the CPS office of] Education to Careers, we asked to work with the schools that are training young people in the areas where we know we have jobs. I’m against having someone train in plumbing if we have no plumbing jobs. But it was all or nothing.

There’s a mismatch in expectations. Ours is to do career development and to get them out there working. Not in lieu of education, but as part of the totality of life. I still think CPS is concentrating on testing and scores and having the school system look good.

We are talking to a couple of funders about [obtaining money] to go out and actually do our job training in schools. We should talk to CPS about that.

What does a successful career education program need?

An employer advisory council that is actively involved with the curriculum.  That’s what keeps us on target. If you’re using the same curriculum for longer than two years, then you are not preparing a person to be competitive.

How would you overhaul the education system to better prepare students for work?

I can talk about several kids who have come to us who were valedictorian of their class, and they’re reading at an 8th-grade level. We are doing them a disservice to call them valedictorians. We need to start dealing with real truths. The whole letter grading system is passé – it needs to be dumped – and we should go to a competency-based system where there’s some standard scale of measurement.  So if I went to Manley and [the system] said that I can function at the 12th-grade level, I can function at the 12th grade level around the world.

The same skill set is needed in the workforce as it is to go to college. The college curriculum should be for everybody, and then you can implement some career awareness.

What do you think about Mayor Richard M. Daley’s summer jobs program?

The fact that it exists is a positive in the climate we’re in right now. Unfortunately you’re still screening out those on the lower end. You have to fill out an application by a certain day, interview, and then you’re selected. So the kid who doesn’t have a C-average and is failing, isn’t getting a summer job. We need to do something for that group.

Is it tough to convince employers to hire students who have been in trouble with the law?

We have a small cadre of employers who are willing to hire on an individualized basis. We try and look at education and training for them, possibly entrepreneurial types of jobs, or find something in manufacturing, warehousing.

The sooner we can get them engaged in the economy in a positive way, we’re all going to benefit. The government tells us all the time to find these kids jobs. But they won’t hire them. So why do they think the private sector’s going to hire them?

Do most young people understand the basic rules of work?

The majority are missing [the understanding of] something that could get them fired – whether it’s dress, or how to respond to their boss. It’s amazing to me. Some of them come in with a beautiful resume, but can’t articulate what’s on it. The question, “Tell me something about yourself” – it just frightens the heck out of them.

How do you teach them these skills?

Businesses have a standard as far as attendance, attitude, achievement. People have to come to that bar. The first day of the eight-day program, if you’re late, you’ve got to go back and repeat it. It’s not like high school, where [school staff] run around and say, “Come on, Johnny, you can do it.” We’re very professional, but if you don’t do what the tasks are, you’ll be asked to leave. But you can always come back.

END

Until recently, students on the South Shore high school campus who faced such problems had someplace to turn. Teachers were in ongoing training to help them relate to students’ problems and students had access to community resources in their school designed to help them.

But this year, much of that support disappeared.

Two of South Shore’s four small schools had worked hard to design an initiative, dubbed Barriers to Learning, focused on social and emotional learning, says Pam Warner, a counselor at the School of Entrepreneurship. District officials promised to pay for the program for five years. That promise, however, was broken.

“They cut it off after only two years, and we are pissed,” Warner says.

Given the district’s previous piecemeal attempts at social and emotional learning in Chicago’s pubic schools, South Shore’s teachers and counselors shouldn’t be surprised.

Social and emotional learning is the term used to describe the deliberate teaching of behaviors and values in schools. Some advocates believe these skills must be taught using scientifically tested curricula, but others are open to less tangible ways of providing students with direction and personal connection.

In the past, efforts to address social and emotional learning have come and gone with grant money and leadership changes.

Vivian Loseth, a nationally recognized expert, argues that educators need to shift how they think about social and emotional learning.

“We need to change the way we relate to children,” says Loseth, executive director of Youth Guidance, a nonprofit agency that is working with some schools on social and emotional learning. “It extends to the way in which we relate to one another. Instead of tearing each other down, it is about building each other up. And it has to percolate through the schools, not just be an extra program or in one classroom or another.”

Today, as a new group of grant-funded pilots take shape, there are signs that the district might be ready to take a more comprehensive approach. Outside pressures give CPS no choice. Four years ago, Illinois made social and emotional learning a requirement, becoming the first state to pass standards and set benchmarks. Shortly after, the district approved a policy to address social and emotional learning and train teachers in every school.

Advocates point to convincing research that links social and emotional learning to academic achievement. An analysis of 207 studies found that students who participated in social and emotional learning efforts scored 11 points higher on standardized achievement tests than those who did not receive such instruction.

Also, students in the studies behaved better and displayed less emotional distress, according to the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, or CASEL.
Pressure is coming from inside, too. In the first-ever districtwide survey of students last spring, CPS students were asked a number of questions about their own and their peers’ social and emotional development. One question asked whether peers stop and think before they do anything when they get angry.

The results showed that social and emotional learning is the No. 1 area students identified as needing improvement. 

Bryan Samuels, chief of staff to CEO Arne Duncan, got the message and has made comprehensive social and emotional learning a top priority. As the former head of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, Samuels sees a need to improve emotional well-being in school.

He points out that while foster children are dealing with a specific set of problems, troubled students in the city’s public schools can be upset for myriad reasons.

“Challenges of children in the welfare system are not unique,” he says. “I want to see what pieces relevant for that system might be relevant here.”

Increasingly, principals and counselors are looking for social and emotional curricula to help them solve lingering issues with discipline and student engagement. Their hope: that emphasizing self-control and making personal connections will stem fighting, dropouts and other negative behaviors.

But Samuels and others note the challenges ahead. Cost is one, since a comprehensive curriculum and the teacher training for it ranges from $700 to $1,500 per person. Getting teachers to buy into the idea is another challenge. Some teachers are hesitant to take on responsibility for social and emotional learning while they already are pressed to prepare students for high-stakes tests.

Ranjana Bhargava, director of Lutheran Social Services of Illinois’ Connections Programs, insists that schools need to do a better job of reaching out to students who face stress outside of school. Her program works with children whose parents are in prison, but Bhargava says other youngsters need the same attention and that schools too often ignore students who are emotionally distraught.

Teachers who use a social and emotional learning curriculum tend to know their students more intimately and ask questions about their lives, Bhargava says. There’s also more opportunity for these students to share and talk about their troubles in class.

“Many of these children feel so intimidated, and these are subjects that are never, never talked about,” she says.

Such programs can be especially important for children whose parents are absent,  Bhargava adds. Children in this situation need both self-confidence and self-awareness—two of the main principles of social and emotional learning.

“They think that [their parents’ absence] happened because of them,” she says. “It leads to a lot of questioning of themselves.” It’s difficult for these students to focus on school when there’s so much turmoil elsewhere, she adds.

‘Reality of it all’

Principal Beryl D. Guy says Hay Community Academy in Austin has long recognized the importance of social and emotional education. Written on poster boards that are taped on two gray pillars near the entrance to the school is a list of seven characteristics children are expected to develop.

They include showing understanding and empathy for others, working in teams, making ethical and constructive choices about behavior, and knowing one’s strengths and limitations.

Guy says this holistic approach to educating the mostly African-American student population is intuitive. Beginning next year, however, Hay will join 12 other schools in a pilot that will make social and emotional learning more deliberate. (See related story on page 10.) Now, Hay’s staff is selecting which curriculum to adopt next year. 

CASEL Vice President Mary Utne O’Brien says connecting the inclination to address well-being with curricula that deliberately infuses it into the school day is key. When CASEL was founded 12 years ago, the intent was to apply scientific rigor to various social and emotional curricula being used by schools.

O’Brien argues that social and emotional learning and the skills it teaches are important for all children, regardless of socio-economic background. Self-awareness and self-management are tools every child needs when confronted with choices and dilemmas.
School District 181 in Hinsdale, a wealthy suburb of Chicago, recognized this a few years ago when it embraced social and emotional learning, citing the need for their students—perhaps being groomed to be high-powered CEOs—to be able to work in groups and be good problem solvers.

Yet the need for social and emotional learning is more pronounced in schools where most students come from poor and fractured families, O’Brien explains. These schools must establish early on that they are safe and caring refuges where students can feel comfortable. Once students feel cared for, they are much less likely to drop out or turn to other negative behaviors, she adds. “A really big part of this is giving teachers what they need to connect to a child,” O’Brien says.

Teachers won’t ‘trip out’

At South Shore, where test scores are stubbornly low, counselors often encountered students who were stymied in school because of problems at home or in the neighborhood.
Warner describes a 16-year-old boy who faced the responsibility of caring for a 6-month-old son at home, combined with the burden of a mom on drugs. At school, Warner and the boy’s teachers are left to try to convince him that he needs to concentrate on algebra.

“We try to deal with the reality of it all,” Warner says.

Johnny Banks, who founded and runs a nonprofit youth outreach organization, says reality is not the only thing that hinders students—fear also does. Banks’ program, called A Knock at Midnight, was brought into South Shore to lead what are essentially group therapy sessions as part of its social and emotional learning plan.

Training teachers is also important. It helps them realize the roots of apparent disrespectful behavior, Banks says. When young people are expected to act like adults at home—dressing and feeding siblings, for instance—it is often difficult for them to make the transition to behaving like students at school. If teachers know what is going on in students’ head, “maybe then these teachers won’t trip out,” he says.

But the counselors don’t have the time to hold student sessions, like the ones A Knock at Midnight had been holding at the school. A one-on-one therapy session with a student means pushing aside loads of paperwork, they say.

South Shore counselors say they do not know why their Barriers to Learning program was cut. Frustration is evident. “These kids will never learn if they don’t find peace inside,” says Warner.

Responsible decisions

The sentiment by counselors at South Shore is echoed throughout the district. The counselor to student ratio in Chicago is 350 to 1, about 100 students more than is recommended by the Washington D.C.-based American School Counselor Association.

Lisa Krotiak, the counselor at Burnham Mathematics and Science Academy, says that when she went to college in California, she envisioned spending much of her time talking to students about their problems. But as it turns out, in Chicago she was called upon to coordinate testing and work with special education students.

By herself, she began going into classrooms and talking to students about good character and values. “Someone needs to tell them that it is OK to be angry, but then give some instruction on what does it mean to be cooperative or make responsible decisions,” she says. “How do you handle conflict in a good, safe way?”

This year she and her principal jumped on the chance to be part of the pilot program for all the teachers in the school to be trained on social and emotional learning.

Other principals and counselors point to concerns about behavior and discipline as chief reasons for wanting to be a part of the new pilot.

Getting a handle on bullying and fighting has given Von Humboldt Principal Christ Kalamatas a sense of urgency to ramp up social and emotional learning.

Sue Baley, the dean of students at Tilden High School, says the school in the Back of the Yards neighborhood tries to head off problems among students. But too often they end up in fights. When that happens, she feels as though she has no other recourse than to suspend or eventually expel the student. Last year, Tilden expelled more students than any other school, according to a Catalyst Chicago analysis of Board of Education expulsion reports. Baley finds herself in a similar predicament when a student talks back or is rude to a teacher.
But Baley is well aware that spurning students doesn’t help them change their behavior. “They are not learning if they are sitting at home,” she says.

The biggest obstacle for schools involved in the pilot is getting teachers to buy in. Von Humboldt teacher Bill Sherwin says some teachers worry that social and emotional lessons will cut into time they have to spend teaching reading or math. Others don’t see the immediate impact.

“I try to convince them that somewhere down the line, when kids pick it up, they will see some progress,” he says.

New crop of programs

Loseth from Youth Guidance says she’s not surprised that teachers are hesitant to embrace social and emotional learning. She says the No Child Left Behind law, which focuses on test scores, creates pressure on schools and makes them feel compelled to respond with quick solutions and superficial assessments.

But she says it behooves teachers to pursue it. “One of the common things you find with bad teachers is that they have not found a way to connect with students,” she says. “If you can connect with kids and teach them how to manage their own behavior, then it frees up time for math and science.”

Ken Papineau, deputy director in CPS’ Office of Specialized Services, says that the district has long recognized the importance of social and emotional learning and in 2004, the district created a social and emotional learning team in the school health unit. 

Though all of CPS’ current social and emotional programs are funded through special grants, Papineau notes that training all the teachers in 13 pilot schools is the most comprehensive approach so far.

“The idea is to build capacity throughout [each of] the schools,” he says.

Also, there’s additional state money so that all of the pilot schools will have a person from a social service agency on hand to provide mental health services.

Another big grant being used by the unit will install alcohol and drug abuse programs at eight elementary schools and four small high schools housed in South Shore.

Samuels is taking stock of all district and school level activity around social and emotional learning. He expects to announce a wide-ranging plan before September.

His aspirations are tempered by the district’s inability to take previous programs to scale.
“We have homeless students, we create homeless programs,” Samuels says. “But we never address the overall issue that not enough students come to us ready to learn.”

Instead of looking at groups of students as isolated, Samuels says the district needs to address the health and well being of students overall.

Banks, whose Knock at Midnight group is working with a number of elementary schools, hopes district officials are ready to commit to making social and emotional learning a permanent part of school curricula. When programs come and go, like the one at South Shore’s small high schools, students wind up hurt. After spending a year in the schools, Banks says students sought him out when they needed to talk or were feeling angry.

Now that he’s gone, he has lost regular contact with the students. When he runs into them occasionally on the street, the trust has waned and students’ shields are back up.

“I have come to know that once [students] are impacted with programs like this, everything else gets better, from their general attitude to their school work,” Banks says. “The problem is inconsistency. There becomes a disconnect, and they are right back where they started.”

Contact Sarah Karp at (312) 673-3882 or karp@catalyst-chicago.org.

Though she was persuaded to return after the school day to Herzl Elementary this Wednesday evening, the 13-year-old wasn’t about to show any enthusiasm.

Patricia flatly says she’s bad and likes to fight, and that nothing will change that.
“I don’t care about no one because no one cares about me,” she says.

The teenager’s pessimistic attitude is understandable. Patricia’s mother, a drug addict, was in prison until she turned 6, the girl says. Although her mother is not in prison now, Patricia says they do not get along and do not live together. She has never lived with her father and barely knows him; he is now behind bars. Patricia lives with an aunt and a 36-year-old cousin.

In her dour assessment, Patricia voices both the reason for the mentoring program called LAMP and the challenges that it faces reaching out to troubled youngsters. LAMP, which stands for Lawndale Amachi Mentoring Program, is the first local chapter of the well-regarded Amachi program started in 2000 in Philadelphia by Rev. Dr. W. Wilson Goode Sr. The faith-based program has won national recognition for its work to bring together mentors with children whose parents are in prison. Almost every state has Amachi programs.

There are no data to show how many schoolchildren in North Lawndale have a parent in prison. But the number of adults in the community who are involved with the criminal justice system is high: As many as 57 percent of the adult population has been arrested, incarcerated or put on probation, according to a 2002 study by the now-defunct, nonprofit Center for Impact Research.

Retired Herzl Principal Betty Allen-Green was inspired to start LAMP after running into the mother of one of her students during a prison ministry visit organized by her church. The encounter showed her how devastating it is for children to have a parent in prison. (See Catalyst Chicago, April 2007.)

“Children love their parents and they want their parents,” Allen-Green told the initial group of mentees and mentors gathered for the mid-March kickoff event at her North Lawndale school. When their parents are in prison, she says, “they come to school angry, or stop coming to school.” They also sometimes stop taking care of their appearance, she adds.
 
Allen-Green implored the mentors to take the children to the movies or the library, just to let them know that someone out there cares. She put her retirement plans on hold last year, as the local school council searched for a replacement. But she pushed ahead and founded LAMP, garnering financial support from Chase Bank and the Steans Family Foundation. Allen-Green also convinced AmeriCorps to send her a volunteer.

The first matches involved only Herzl students and mentors from nearby Greater Galilee Baptist Church, along with a few school staff mentors. But the ultimate goal is to include children from 13 neighborhood elementary schools and the Collins campus.

At this first meeting, AmeriCorps volunteer Vanessa Ford reads the names of the students and their mentors before they share a meal.

Lawrence Coleman, a church member, says this is his first foray into volunteering. A father of eight adult children, Coleman believes he can be a good male role model for a boy in need.
“I want to give them some idea of what it means to have good character,” he says.

Another goal is to take the children’s minds off their troubles. “My childhood was filled with playing basketball outside,” Coleman says. “I want them just to be children and have fun.”

His youngest daughter, Christina Franklin, was also on hand and was the only one to get two mentees, twins Tina* and Tracy.* Franklin knelt at the table and tried to get to know the two 7-year-olds.

“What do you like to do?” she asks.

“Jump,” Tina answers.

“Jump rope,” Franklin confirms. “Do you know how to jump double-dutch?”

Tina shook her head.

“I’ll teach you,” Franklin tells her.

The two girls are with their grandmother, Cynthia Washington, who has been caring for them and their three siblings for the past two years. Washington declines to give specifics about where her daughter is, except to say that the children can only talk to her by phone and that she keeps her daughter’s picture out so they will remember her.

“I am just keeping them until she can get herself together,” she says. The children’s fathers are not involved in their lives.

Financially, Washington is struggling. The only assistance she receives is a grant of $398 from the Illinois Department of Human Services. “I am doing my best to keep a roof over their heads,” she says.

Washington often feels stretched thin and hopes the children will get some needed extra attention from their mentor.

“I am only one person,” she says. “I give them everything I have, but all I have is love. I don’t see anything wrong with giving them a little more of it from a mentor.”

*Editor’s note: To protect their privacy, Catalyst is not using children’s real names.

Each student takes a turn picking up a shoe, finding the classmate who is wearing its match and then greeting him or her.

“Buenos días, Jackie,” says a cherub-faced boy to a pony-tailed girl.

“Good morning, Eric,” she answers.

This morning ritual, one of the exercises prescribed in the school’s social and emotional learning curriculum, doesn’t always entail removing shoes. But children always share a greeting, ensuring that each of them feels welcomed at school every day.

Teacher Roxanne Guerra-Durazo says that the ritual also helps kids make the transition from home, and whatever troubles they might be facing there, to school.

Spry is one of the few schools in CPS that uses a formal social and emotional learning curriculum; in this case, one that is called Responsive Classroom. Next year, however, a $2.2 million program will bring this type of curriculum—and an extra mental health worker—to 13 schools that have signed on to pilot a comprehensive approach to social and emotional learning.

Principals and school staff hope the pilot will help students build resiliency, handle conflict and develop other traits of what’s called “emotional intelligence.”

In fact, the nonprofit group that has been hired by CPS to provide leadership training for the pilot, known as CASEL, was founded by noted author and psychologist Daniel Goleman, who coined the phrase in the title of his best-seller, “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.” Goleman also founded the Collaborative for Social, Academic and Emotional Learning (CASEL) which is housed at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

At Spry, three primary grade teachers were trained in the summer of 2006 as part of a previous collaboration with CASEL, which also worked with five other schools across Illinois to implement social and emotional learning. To train teachers, CASEL used a portion of $480,000 in state funding (originally from the federal Safe and Drug-Free Schools program).

Principal Nilda Medina explains that at Spry, many families are among the working poor and cope with a lot of stress. Moms often work long hours and struggle to make ends meet.  Sometimes there are problems with drug addiction and physical distance, with parents living in another country, incarcerated or just absent.

“They come in with many issues,” says Medina, who rose from kindergarten teacher to the top slot at the school last year. “Our families are broken spiritually.”

As a result, children often have no one at home to teach them how to deal with their emotions and respond appropriately to conflicts. And for all the need, Spry is stretched thin to fill the gap. The school has one full-time counselor and a social worker who comes just one and a half days each week—both of whom also have administrative duties. 

Medina says that school administrators eventually concluded that addressing students’ emotional needs was a critical first step toward getting them to focus on academics.

All during the school day, there’s evidence of how social and emotional learning is infused with lessons. First-grade teacher Erin Sullivan, for example, uses Guided Discovery (part of the Responsive Classroom curriculum) when she introduces new materials to children.

Today, Sullivan gives children small clumps of gray clay for a class project. But before giving them instructions, Sullivan lets them make objects, like space ships and flowers, and talk to each other about what they’re doing. This approach is meant to let children express their creativity and develop independence, two traits considered important in social and emotional learning.

In addition, the rules for behavior in Responsive Classrooms are expressed differently. Instead of using negative phrases, such as “Don’t hit,” teachers use more cooperative language, such as “Take care of your classroom, take care of your friends and take care of yourself.”

In Guerra-Durazo’s 2nd-grade class, the greeting is part of what’s called Morning Meeting, which includes conversation and sharing. Since the children are young, most of them share about insignificant happenings. One girl talks about having a dream in which her french fries could talk and lived in a house made of cake.

Though often the stories are silly, Guerra-Durazo says Responsive Classroom has helped her get to know her students better. Sullivan adds that the curriculum has given her a way to deal with some of the challenges students bring.

“Maybe they are not validated at home, or maybe they don’t get a lot of attention,” Sullivan says. “Here, someone will take time to say hello to them, and they will have the chance to share their ideas.”

Medina notes that behavior has improved among the kindergarten, 1st- and 2nd-graders. Although she would love to see the program expand to all the elementary grades and even to Spry High (which is in the same building), the venture is expensive. For now, to avoid the cost of additional training, Medina is thinking of moving the 2nd-grade teachers up to 3rd-grade so they can continue using the curriculum.

The pilot schools, however, will reap the benefit of a school-wide approach. Teachers in every grade will be trained this summer, and feeder schools and high schools will begin using the curriculum at the same time. 

All the schools will receive a full-time worker from a social service agency to provide extra mental health services.

“It takes a load off,” says Beryl Guy, principal of Hay Elementary in Austin, who was able to have her mental health worker talk to a boy and his mother when the youth was experiencing some gender-identity issues.

Like many of the elementary schools chosen for the pilot, Hay is already using some of the elements of social and emotional learning.

The day starts with a school assembly, where students say the pledge and bellow out “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” an inspirational song with lyrics written by the African-American poet and civil rights leader James Weldon Johnson. Guy says the assembly is a time for teachers to observe their students and gauge their disposition before the day starts.

Some teachers also lead circle discussions in their classes.

Looking to the future

Guy says most of the strategies that Hay teachers have been using are intuitive, and that many schools with mostly African-American leadership and students take this holistic approach to students.

Next year, Guy says she’s looking to the new curriculum for structure. Eventually, she would like to see more children talking about issues, and to have them develop resiliency, something they will need growing up in a rough city neighborhood.

“One of our mottos is for them to stay on track and keep on moving in the right direction,” Guy says. “We don’t want them to let their problems stop them in the trenches.”

Hay’s team and other teams in the pilot schools are now choosing the curriculum they will use. CASEL rates dozens of curricula on criteria such as overall effectiveness and what type of environment is the best fit.

At Clemente High, for example, special education teacher Janett Young says that her school is leaning toward a curriculum that seems a good fit for teens, called Lions Quest. The team likes the fact that Lions Quest is organized around themes, has a service-learning component and has higher-level lessons and language tailored for the upper grades. Young notes this is important for teens, who abhor being talked down to.

Clemente was approached by CPS to be part of the project after one of its feeder schools, Von Humboldt, pursued it. Young says counselors and teachers needed some selling at first, but now are excited about the pilot.

The team chose a word to emphasize to students: courage. The word seemed appropriate for Clemente because the school has experienced a fair share of violence in recent years.

“They need courage to not follow their peers, and to stay calm in conflicts,” Young says. “We hope they internalize the word.”

Seniors in this teaching duo’s English course are required to write a personal essay every week, an exercise that certainly gives students’ fledgling writing muscles a regular workout. But these papers also serve another purpose: providing a glimpse into students’ minds and hearts so that teachers can understand what may be helping or hurting them in school. 

Essays turned in so far this year have raised a range of social and emotional issues that students are dealing with at home:  losing a friend or relative to violence, witnessing a shooting, absent fathers, and sometimes mothers, panic attacks, pent-up anger.

The papers also shed light on who or what has helped them deal with their troubles. Grandmothers and relatives receive their due. So does spiritual faith. One student credits a leadership camp in Aspen for boosting her confidence in unforeseen ways. And, notably, a number of students say teachers help them cope.

Forming solid interpersonal relationships with students can be the toughest part of a teacher’s job. It involves not only listening and understanding where students are coming from, but also teaching them how to understand and better manage themselves. Those who are adept at this deceptively difficult task have a leg up because they understand the root causes of students’ negative behaviors and can respond in effective ways. That paves the way for students to make positive changes in how they act and their ability to focus on school work.

The value of teaching teachers and students social and emotional skills recently has begun making headway here. But some remain skeptical that it will have bottom line impact on test scores and other student performance measures.

“People often consider social and emotional learning and academic learning mutually exclusive,” says Steve Zemelman of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, who is writing a book on North Lawndale Charter students. “But the two really go together. Good teachers understand that without supporting and respecting and listening to kids, they won’t get the highest performance from them.”

It’s been four years since Illinois became the first state to set grade-level standards for social and emotional learning. Only recently has local leadership taken up the charge to put something systemic in place in Chicago’s public schools.

Researchers have linked social and emotional learning to higher student achievement and better student behavior. The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) also notes that students who participate in social and emotional learning efforts show fewer signs of emotional stress.

Now the challenge will be to persuade principals and teachers that adding one more initiative into the district’s already short school day will be worth the effort. Clearly, it’s making a difference for students at North Lawndale College Prep.

Appearing suddenly at the doorway of student advocate Jose Diaz's office, Ramon proceeds to pour out his troubles. "She started yelling at me and said I've got detention!"

As a student advocate, Diaz is charged with helping kids deal with disruptive behavior and other problems that interfere with learning. More accessible than a counselor and less threatening than a disciplinarian, advocates' duties include monitoring kids' attendance, tracking down truants and conferring with parents and teachers about students' progress.

After listening patiently to Ramon's story—he claims he got in trouble because he didn't understand the assignment and the teacher wouldn't explain it—Diaz questions him. "Did you go in there prepared to do work?" he asks gently. "Why don't you have a pen and paper?"

Ramon at first refuses to take responsibility for the outburst, and his teacher sends him to complete his work in the library. But by the end of the period, after more prodding by Diaz, Ramon acknowledges his own role in creating the problem. "Sometimes I go over there, and I talk to her all dumb," he admits.

The district pays for two advocates at each academy. So far, results are mixed: Teachers at some academies say advocates have little or no positive impact, and district officials concede that some advocates needed extra training.

But at Clemente, Diaz seems to be making a difference.

Teacher Medea Brooks, who assigned Ramon the detention, agrees with the importance of listening to kids first without leaping to reprimand them, so that they learn to regulate their own behavior.

"Mr. Diaz is phenomenal. He reaches the children where they are," Brooks says. "[Kids] won't trust you if you judge them early on."

Having Diaz act as mediator has helped her become more thoughtful, Brooks adds. When Diaz explains a student's viewpoint, "it could be the same thing the kid was saying but the delivery was different. They [advocates] get you to reflect on the energy you're putting out."

Swift intervention

Consultants from Johns Hopkins, who created the Talent Development High School model that CPS used to develop its achievement academy concept, are encouraging other cities that adopt its model to consider hiring student advocates.

"If you look into the disciplinary process at most high schools, it relies on removal," says Greg Ekey, a field manager for Talent Development. "All too often the student will just be written up, sent down to chill out in a room somewhere, or sent home for a couple of days on suspension."

Swift intervention from an advocate can keep disruptive kids from missing too much time in class and falling farther behind, he adds.

Advocates focus solely on working with kids, rather than juggling administrative duties such as standardized testing, as counselors do. Some take on extra duties, such as tutoring or arranging college visits. Diaz, who left his job as a mortgage broker to work at Clemente, started an after-school club modeled after his church youth group.

Each Tuesday, Diaz gathers "Hope Too," a club to discuss teen issues such as sex and drug use from a religious perspective. The club draws more than 20 kids and a handful of teachers.

"Most of our students are from a faith-based background. I'm not. This is another way to reach them," says English teacher Jill Ward, who assists