Government – Page 2 – City Connects Blog

Promoting equity in Salem

Tackling social inequity is hard work. Last year, Salem Public Schools took on this challenge by forming a partnership with the nonprofit organization Equity Imperative that includes feedback from students.

That partnership led to the Student Voice Project, an effort to amplify students’ concerns and help them take action to address these concerns.

“We’re getting trained as adults to be facilitators,” Joy Richmond-Smith, the City Connects Coordinator at Salem’s Saltonstall School, says. “District staff are being trained about equity and race and how they affect our students, as well as about the negative impact of implicit bias and institutional racism in schools.”

The training for facilitators includes the Youth Participatory Action Research (or YPAR) framework, which encourages, according to YPAR’s website, the creation of “positive youth and community development” based on “social justice principles.”

“In each middle school and high school,” Richmond-Smith adds, “we organized a student voice group that’s supported by an adult mentor.” And this year the program expanded into Salem’s elementary schools.

Initially, the focus was on first steps. Richmond-Smith and Jaleesa Tentindo, a school counselor, worked with Saltonstall middle school students to identify “a pressing issue at our school that they want to research and then try to come up with recommendations for our school to implement,” Richmond-Smith says.

“The issue they chose was the lack of consistent and meaningful dialogue about race and racism.”

The Weekly Connect 4/11/23

Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!

Here are some of the things we’ve been reading about this week:

Girls say social media is hurting their sleep and their mental health.

School districts are suing social media companies, claiming they have contributed to the teen mental health crisis.

This year, the number of school shootings may be higher than last year, according to a researcher who tracks this information.

To read more, click on the following links.

The Weekly Connect 4/3/23

Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!

Here are some of the things we’ve been reading about this week:

Over the past decade, kids’ mental health hospitalizations have surged.

States have been spending Covid relief funds on positive reforms.

The school shooting in Nashville reveals misperceptions about this kind of violence.

To read more, click on the following links.

The Weekly Connect 3/27/23

Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!

Here are some of the things we’ve been reading about this week:

Less sleep during the pandemic linked to students’ poor mental health and to more difficulty with schoolwork.

States are spending federal Covid relief funds on accelerated and extended learning time, such as tutoring and after-school programming.

Even in the shadow of debates about book banning and LGBTQ rights, schools can do more to promote positive engagements with families.

To read more, click on the following links.

The Weekly Connect 3/20/23

Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!

Here are some of the things we’ve been reading about this week:

Despite national efforts, tutoring only reaches a fraction of students.

Rural areas lag in funding to help homeless students.

Rhode Island uses federal Covid aid to help students who are English learners.

To read more, click on the following links.

The Weekly Connect 3/13/23

Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!

Here are some of the things we’ve been reading about this week:

Black and Latino children often don’t receive Early Intervention services.

Because of different federal definitions of homelessness, many kids are falling through the cracks.

Even as the pandemic wanes, chronic absenteeism remains a problem.

To read more, click on the following links.

The Weekly Connect 3/6/23

Here’s the new edition of The Weekly Connect. Check it out and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox!

Here are some of the things we’ve been reading about this week:

Because of the pandemic and other factors, more collaboration on student mental health is needed.

Policymakers should monitor the quality of student support services as schools rush to implement these programs.

The job turnover rate for teachers and principals exceeds pre-pandemic levels.

To read more, click on the following links.

A lesson for policymakers: when it comes to student support, quality matters

A new article published by the Washington, D.C., think tank Brookings, highlights the dynamic market for “student support” services that’s emerging as public funding increases to help schools address students’ social service and mental health needs, many of which were aggravated by the pandemic.

“School districts are now inundated with ‘student support’ service providers but have little guidance on how to select or manage them,” Joan Wassser Gish and Haibin Jiang write in the article, “Amid rush of school support vendors, policymakers must monitor quality.”

Wasser Gish is the Director of Systemic Impact, at the Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children, the home of City Connects, and Jiang is one of the center’s Research Associates.

“With the field’s increasing understanding of what effective student support strategies look like, policymakers should establish quality benchmarks to help districts ensure a minimum, evidence-based standard of care for students,” Wasser Gish and Jiang explain.

“Just as the Food and Drug Administration strives to ensure that the health benefits of a new treatment outweigh potential harms, policymakers in education can use evidence to minimize potential risks and maximize the benefits of student support interventions.”

Among the risks that local, state, and federal policymakers can minimize are:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: