Category: SEL & Well-Being

  • Understanding how inflation affects teacher well-being and career decisions

    Understanding how inflation affects teacher well-being and career decisions

    Key points:

    In recent years, the teaching profession has faced unprecedented challenges, with inflation emerging as a significant factor affecting educators’ professional lives and career choices. This in-depth examination delves into the complex interplay between escalating inflation rates and the self-efficacy of educators–their conviction in their capacity to proficiently execute their pedagogical responsibilities and attain the desired instructional outcomes within the classroom environment.

    The impact of inflation on teachers’ financial stability has become increasingly evident, with many educators experiencing a substantial decline in their “real wages.” While nominal salaries remain relatively stagnant, the purchasing power of teachers’ incomes continues to erode as the cost of living rises. This economic pressure has created a concerning dynamic where educators, despite their professional dedication, find themselves struggling to maintain their standard of living and meet basic financial obligations.

    A particularly troubling trend has emerged in which teachers are increasingly forced to seek secondary employment to supplement their primary income. Recent surveys indicate that approximately 20 percent of teachers now hold second jobs during the academic year, with this percentage rising to nearly 30 percent during summer months. This necessity to work multiple jobs can lead to physical and mental exhaustion, potentially compromising teachers’ ability to maintain the high levels of energy and engagement required for effective classroom instruction.

    The phenomenon of “moonlighting” among educators has far-reaching implications for teacher self-efficacy. When teachers must divide their attention and energy between multiple jobs, their capacity to prepare engaging lessons, grade assignments thoroughly, and provide individualized student support may be diminished. This situation often creates a cycle where reduced performance leads to decreased self-confidence, potentially affecting both teaching quality and student outcomes.

    Financial stress has also been linked to increased levels of anxiety and burnout among teachers, directly impacting their perceived self-efficacy. Studies have shown that educators experiencing financial strain are more likely to report lower levels of job satisfaction and decreased confidence in their ability to meet professional expectations. This psychological burden can manifest in reduced classroom effectiveness and diminished student engagement.

    Perhaps most concerning is the growing trend of highly qualified educators leaving the profession entirely for better-paying opportunities in other sectors. This “brain drain” from education represents a significant loss of experienced professionals who have developed valuable teaching expertise. The exodus of talented educators not only affects current students but also reduces the pool of mentor teachers available to guide and support newer colleagues, potentially impacting the professional development of future educators.

    The correlation between inflation and teacher attrition rates has become increasingly apparent, with economic factors cited as a primary reason for leaving the profession. Research indicates that districts in areas with higher costs of living and significant inflation rates experience greater difficulty in both recruiting and retaining qualified teachers. This challenge is particularly acute in urban areas where housing costs and other living expenses have outpaced teacher salary increases.

    Corporate sectors, technology companies, and consulting firms have become attractive alternatives for educators seeking better compensation and work-life balance. These career transitions often offer significantly higher salaries, better benefits packages, and more sustainable working hours. The skills that make effective teachers, such as communication, organization, and problem-solving, are highly valued in these alternative career paths, making the transition both feasible and increasingly common.

    The cumulative effect of these factors presents a serious challenge to the education system’s sustainability. As experienced teachers leave the profession and prospective educators choose alternative career paths, schools face increasing difficulty in maintaining educational quality and consistency. This situation calls for systematic changes in how we value and compensate educators, recognizing that teacher self-efficacy is intrinsically linked to their financial security and professional well-being.

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  • Prioritizing behavior as essential learning

    Prioritizing behavior as essential learning

    Key points:

    In classrooms across the country, students are mastering their ABCs, solving equations, and diving into science. But one essential life skill–behavior–is not in the lesson plan. For too long, educators have assumed that children arrive at school knowing how to regulate emotions, resolve conflict, and interact respectfully. The reality: Behavior–like math or reading–must be taught, practiced, and supported.

    Today’s students face a mounting crisis. Many are still grappling with anxiety, disconnection, and emotional strain following the isolation and disruption of the COVID pandemic. And it’s growing more serious.

    Teachers aren’t immune. They, too, are managing stress and emotional overload–while shouldering scripted curricula, rising expectations, and fewer opportunities for meaningful engagement and critical thinking. As these forces collide, disruptive behavior is now the leading cause of job-related stress and a top reason why 78 percent of teachers have considered leaving the profession.

    Further complicating matters is social media and device usage. Students and adults alike have become deeply reliant on screens. Social media and online socialization–where interactions are often anonymous and less accountable–have contributed to a breakdown in conflict resolution, empathy, and recognition of nonverbal cues. Widespread attachment to cell phones has significantly disrupted students’ ability to regulate emotions and engage in healthy, face-to-face interactions. Teachers, too, are frequently on their phones, modeling device-dependent behaviors that can shape classroom dynamics.

    It’s clear: students can’t be expected to know what they haven’t been taught. And teachers can’t teach behavior without real tools and support. While districts have taken well-intentioned steps to help teachers address behavior, many initiatives rely on one-off training without cohesive, long-term strategies. Real progress demands more–a districtwide commitment to consistent, caring practices that unify educators, students, and families.

    A holistic framework: School, student, family

    Lasting change requires a whole-child, whole-school, whole-family approach. When everyone in the community is aligned, behavior shifts from a discipline issue to a core component of learning, transforming classrooms into safe, supportive environments where students thrive and teachers rediscover joy in their work. And when these practices are reinforced at home, the impact multiplies.

    To help students learn appropriate behavior, teachers need practical tools rather than abstract theories. Professional development, tiered supports, targeted interventions, and strategies to build student confidence are critical. So is measuring impact to ensure efforts evolve and endure.

    Some districts are leading the way, embracing data-driven practices, evidence-based strategies, and accessible digital resources. And the results speak for themselves. Here are two examples of successful implementations.

    Evidence-based behavior training and mentorship yields 24 percent drop in infractions within weeks

    With more than 19,000 racially diverse students across 24 schools east of Atlanta, Newton County Schools prioritized embedded practices and collaborative coaching over rigid compliance. Newly hired teachers received stipends to complete curated, interactive behavior training before the school year began. They then expanded on these lessons during orientation with district staff, deepening their understanding.

    Once the school year started, each new teacher was partnered with a mentor who provided behavior and academic guidance, along with regular classroom feedback. District climate specialists also offered further support to all teachers to build robust professional learning communities.

    The impact was almost immediate. Within the first two weeks of school, disciplinary infractions fell by 24 percent compared to the previous year–evidence that providing the right tools, complemented by layered support and practical coaching, can yield swift, sustainable results.

    Pairing shoulder coaching with real-time data to strengthen teacher readiness

    With more than 300,000 students in over 5,300 schools spanning urban to rural communities, Clark County School District in Las Vegas is one of the largest and most diverse in the nation.

    Recognizing that many day-to-day challenges faced by new teachers aren’t fully addressed in college training, the district introduced “shoulder coaching.” This mentorship model pairs incoming teachers with seasoned colleagues for real-time guidance on implementing successful strategies from day one.

    This hands-on approach incorporates videos, structured learning sessions, and continuous data collection, creating a dynamic feedback loop that helps teachers navigate classroom challenges proactively. Rather than relying solely on reactive discipline, educators are equipped with adaptable strategies that reflect lived classroom realities. The district also uses real-time data and teacher input to evolve its behavior support model, ensuring educators are not only trained, but truly prepared.

    By aligning lessons with the school performance plan, Clark County School District was able to decrease suspensions by 11 percent and discretionary exclusions by 17 percent.  

    Starting a new chapter in the classroom

    Behavior isn’t a side lesson–it’s foundational to learning. When we move beyond discipline and make behavior a part of daily instruction, the ripple effects are profound. Classrooms become more conducive to learning. Students and families develop life-long tools. And teachers are happier in their jobs, reducing the churn that has grown post-pandemic.

    The evidence is clear. School districts that invest in proactive, strategic behavior supports are building the kind of environments where students flourish and educators choose to stay. The next chapter in education depends on making behavior essential. Let’s teach it with the same care and intentionality we bring to every other subject–and give every learner the chance to succeed.

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  • One-third of U.S. public schools screen students for mental health

    One-third of U.S. public schools screen students for mental health

    This press release originally appeared on the RAND site.

    Key points:

    Nearly one-third of the nation’s K-12 U.S. public schools mandate mental health screening for students, with most offering in-person treatment or referral to a community mental health professional if a student is identified as having depression or anxiety, according to a new study.

    About 40 percent of principals surveyed said it was very hard or somewhat hard to ensure that students receive appropriate care, while 38 percent said it was easy or very easy to find adequate care for students. The findings are published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

    “Our results suggest that there are multiple barriers to mental health screening in schools, including a lack of resources and knowledge of screening mechanics, as well as concerns about increased workload of identifying students,” said Jonathan Cantor, the study’s lead author and a policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization.

    In 2021, the U.S. Surgeon General declared a youth mental health emergency. Researchers say that public schools are strategic resources for screening, treatment, and referral for mental health services for young people who face barriers in other settings.

    Researchers wanted to understand screening for mental health at U.S. public schools, given increased concerns about youth mental health following the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

    In October 2024, the RAND study surveyed 1,019 principals who participate in the RAND American School Leader panel, a nationally representative sample of K–12 public school principals.

    They were asked whether their school mandated screening for mental health issues, what steps are taken if a student is identified as having depression or anxiety, and how easy or difficult it is to ensure that such students received adequate services.

    Researchers found that 30.5 percent of responding principals said their school required screening of students with mental health problems, with nearly 80 percent reporting that parents typically are notified if students screen positive for depression or anxiety.

    More than 70 percent of principals reported that their school offers in-person treatment for students who screen positive, while 53 percent of principals said they may refer a student to a community mental health care professional.

    The study found higher rates of mental health screenings in schools with 450 or more students and in districts with mostly racial and ethnic minority groups as the student populations.

    “Policies that promote federal and state funding for school mental health, reimbursement for school-based mental health screening, and adequate school mental health staff ratios may increase screening rates and increase the likelihood of successfully connecting the student to treatment,” Cantor said.

    Support for the study was provided by the National Institute of Mental Health.

    Other authors of the study are Ryan K. McBain, Aaron Kofner, Joshua Breslau, and Bradley D. Stein, all of RAND; Jacquelin Rankine of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; Fang Zhang, Hao Yu, and Alyssa Burnett, all of the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute; and Ateev Mehrotra of the Brown University School of Public Health.

    RAND Health Care promotes healthier societies by improving health care systems in the United States and other countries.

    eSchool News Staff
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  • Mental health screeners help ID hidden needs, research finds

    Mental health screeners help ID hidden needs, research finds

    Key points:

    A new DESSA screener to be released for the Fall ‘25 school year–designed to be paired with a strength-based student self-report assessment–accurately predicted well-being levels in 70 percent of students, a study finds.  

    According to findings from Riverside Insights, creator of research-backed assessments, researchers found that even students with strong social-emotional skills often struggle with significant mental health concerns, challenging the assumption that resilience alone indicates student well-being. The study, which examined outcomes in 254 middle school students across the United States, suggests that combining risk and resilience screening can enable identification of students who would otherwise be missed by traditional approaches. 

    “This research validates what school mental health professionals have been telling us for years–that traditional screening approaches miss too many students,” said Dr. Evelyn Johnson, VP of Research & Development at Riverside Insights. “When educators and counselors can utilize a dual approach to identify risk factors, they can pinpoint concerns and engage earlier, in and in a targeted way, before concerns become major crises.”

    The study, which offered evidence of, for example, social skills deficits among students with no identifiable or emotional behavioral concerns, provides the first empirical evidence that consideration of both risk and resilience can enhance the predictive benefits of screening, when compared to  strengths-based screening alone.

    In the years following COVID, many educators noted a feeling that something was “off” with students, despite DESSA assessments indicating that things were fine.

    “We heard this feedback from lots of different customers, and it really got our team thinking–we’re clearly missing something, even though the assessment of social-emotional skills is critically important and there’s evidence to show the links to better academic outcomes and better emotional well-being outcomes,” Johnson said. “And yet, we’re not tapping something that needs to be tapped.”

    For a long time, if a person displayed no outward or obvious mental health struggles, they were thought to be mentally healthy. In investigating the various theories and frameworks guiding mental health issues, Riverside Insight’s team dug into Dr. Shannon Suldo‘s work, which centers around the dual factor model.

    “What the dual factor approach really suggests is that the absence of problems is not necessarily equivalent to good mental health–there really are these two factors, dual factors, we talk about them in terms of risk and resilience–that really give you a much more complete picture of how a student is doing,” Johnson said.

    “The efficacy associated with this dual-factor approach is encouraging, and has big implications for practitioners struggling to identify risk with limited resources,” said Jim Bowler, general manager of the Classroom Division at Riverside Insights. “Schools told us they needed a way to identify students who might be struggling beneath the surface. The DESSA SEIR ensures no student falls through the cracks by providing the complete picture educators need for truly preventive mental health support.”

    The launch comes as mental health concerns among students reach crisis levels. More than 1 in 5 students considered attempting suicide in 2023, while 60 percent of youth with major depression receive no mental health treatment. With school psychologist-to-student ratios at 1:1065 (recommended 1:500) and counselor ratios at 1:376 (recommended 1:250), schools need preventive solutions that work within existing resources.

    The DESSA SEIR will be available for the 2025-2026 school year.

    This press release originally appeared online.

    eSchool News Staff
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  • Why student engagement starts with teacher clarity

    Why student engagement starts with teacher clarity

    Key points:

    In Alpine School District, we serve a wide range of students, from Title I to highly affluent communities. While our population has traditionally been predominantly white and middle income, that’s changing. In response to this growing diversity and shifting needs, one of my missions as professional learning and curriculum director for secondary schools has been to provide needs-based professional learning, just in time for educators, and to give them a real voice in what that looks and feels like.

    I lead a team of full-time educator equivalents across every discipline: math, science, social studies, ELA, the arts, health, and PE. Together, we guide professional learning and instructional support. Over the past several years, we’ve had to take a hard look at how we teach, how we engage students, and how we prepare educators for long-term success.

    Where we started: Tier 1 challenges and high turnover

    When I first became curriculum director, I noticed in our data that our schools were not making much progress, and in some cases had stagnated in growth scores. We were leaning heavily on Tier 2 interventions, which told us that we needed to shore up our Tier 1 instruction.

    At the same time, we were hiring between 400 and 500 teachers each year. We’re located near several universities, so we see a continuous flow of new educators come and go. They get married, they relocate, or a spouse gets into medical school, which translates to a constant onboarding cycle for our district. To meet these challenges, we needed professional learning that was sound, sustainable, and meaningful, especially early in a teacher’s career, so they could lay a strong foundation for everything that would come after.

    Teacher clarity and engagement by design

    Several years ago, we joined the Utah State Cohort, doing a deep dive into the Teacher Clarity Playbook. That experience was a real turning point. We were the only team there from a district office, and we took a train-the-trainer approach, investing in our strongest educators so they could return and lead professional learning in their content areas. Since then, we’ve used Engagement by Design as the framework behind much of our PD, our classroom walkthroughs, and our peer observations. It helped us think differently: How do we support teachers in crafting learning intentions and success criteria that are actually meaningful? How do we align resources to support that clarity? We’ve embedded that mindset into everything.

    Coming out of the pandemic, Alpine, like many districts around the country, saw decreased student engagement. To focus deeply on that challenge, we launched the Student Engagement Academy, or SEA. I co-designed the Academy alongside two of our content specialists, Anna Davis and Korryn Coates. They’re both part-time teacher leaders at the district office and part-time visual arts teachers in schools, so they live in both worlds. That was important because we believe professional learning should always be contextualized. We don’t want teachers burning extra bandwidth trying to translate strategies across subject areas.

    SEA is a yearlong, job-embedded learning experience. Teachers participate in PLCs, conduct peer observations, and complete a personalized learning project that showcases their growth. Our PLC+ coaches work directly with our lead coach, Melissa Gibbons, to gather and analyze data that shapes each new round of learning. We also included classroom observations, not for evaluation, but to help teachers see each other’s practice in action. Before observations, Anna and Korryn meet with teachers in small groups to talk through what to look for. Afterward, they debrief with the teachers: What did we see? What evidence did we see of student engagement? What did we learn? What are we still wondering? As we answer these questions about teaching, we’re also asking students about their experience of learning.

    Learning from student surveys

    Hearing from our students has been one of the most powerful parts of this journey. With the support of our Director of Student and Educator Well-eing, we created a student survey. We asked a random group of students questions such as:

    • What are you learning?
    • How are you learning it?
    • How do you know how you’re doing?
    • Why does it matter?

    The responses were eye-opening. Many students didn’t know why they were learning something. That told us our teachers weren’t being as clear or as intentional as they thought they were. One specific question we asked was based on the fact that attendance in world language classes stayed high during the pandemic, while it dropped in other subjects. We asked students why. The answer? Relationships, expectations, and clarity. They said their world language teachers were clear, and they knew what was expected of them. That led other disciplines to reflect and recalibrate.

    Today, teachers across subjects like ELA, math, and social studies have participated in a SEA cohort or aligned learning. We’re seeing them plan more intentionally, better target skills, and align instruction with assessment in thoughtful ways. They’re starting to see how mirroring instruction with how learning is measured can shift outcomes. It’s been truly exciting to witness that change. Engaging students through improved teacher clarity, positive classroom relationships (with each other, the teacher, and the content), and providing the students with appropriate levels of rigor has been a game changer.

    Building teacher leadership teams

    Next year, we’re focusing on developing teacher leadership skills, knowledge, and dispositions across the full geographic area of our district. We’re building professional capacity through leadership teams using the PLC+ model, with an emphasis on facilitation skills, research-based practice, and advocacy for strong instruction in every discipline.

    If you’re a district leader looking to boost student engagement through professional development, my advice is simple: You can’t do it alone. You need a team that shares your values and your commitment to the work. You also have to be guided by research–there’s too much at stake to invest in strategies that don’t hold water. Finally, this is a marathon, not a sprint. Aim for small, incremental changes. There’s no silver bullet, but if you stay the course, you’ll see real transformation.

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  • Adding a trauma-responsive lens for student support

    Adding a trauma-responsive lens for student support

    Key points:

    Across the country, our schools are being taxed beyond their capacity to support educational success. We’ve known for a long time that students need a three-dimensional structure of guidance and encouragement to thrive. That’s why the Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework was created–it’s a prevention framework for early identification of varying student needs and the responses needed to maximize academic success. In theory, an MTSS supports academic, social-emotional, and behavioral needs in equal measure. However, in practice, many schools are struggling to incorporate social-emotional and behavioral components in their MTSS–even as many of their students come to school bearing the effects of adversity, trauma, or crisis.

    This imbalance is leaving millions of children behind.

    Each year, at least 1 in 7 children in the United States experience abuse, violence, natural disasters, or other adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). By age 16, roughly two-thirds of children will have been exposed to at least one traumatic event. This can impair their ability to learn well and contribute to absenteeism, while secondary trauma spirals out from these students to classmates and teachers, multiplying the overall impact. Left unaddressed, the imprint of such events could warp the future of our school and public communities.

    Since COVID-19, schools have reported unprecedented levels of absenteeism and student distress, and supporting trauma-exposed students without training puts more pressure on teachers, who are already burned out and leaving the profession at high rates. Therefore, it is clear to me that creating school-wide networks of trauma-informed adults is essential for fostering supportive learning and growth for students, enhancing educator capacity to nurture trauma-affected learners, and ensuring effective trauma resource management within districts.

    Research has identified a supportive school community as a strong childhood protective factor against the effects of trauma. We should be hopeful about our path forward. But the vision and blueprint for this enhancement of MTSS need to come as soon as possible, and it needs to come from state-level education leaders and school district leaders.

    Gaps in support and expertise

    Consider this scenario: A student who recently experienced a traumatic car accident sits near a window in class, experiencing significant distress or dysregulation without outward signs. A sudden screech of tires outside activates their sympathetic nervous system (the one associated with fight or flight), and the student shuts down, withdrawing into themselves. Their teacher, unaware of the student’s trauma history and unequipped with relevant training, interprets the response as a continuation of past misbehavior or as an academic deficit.

    This sort of misunderstanding takes place in a thousand places every day. I would stress that this isn’t a reflection of bad intentions, but rather a symptom of fragmented systems and knowledge. Even when trauma is recognized, lack of intentional collaboration and training often result in missed opportunities or inconsistent support, which cannot maximize recovery from trauma and may, in fact, hinder it, as research on retraumatization suggests.

    There might be mismatched expectations when teachers send students to the counselor, not knowing that they themselves have a role to play in the healing. In other cases, students may be referred to a school counselor and have a productive support session–but on their way back to class, a seemingly benign statement from a third party can be misconstrued or cause dysregulation, unintentionally undoing the support they’ve received. The solution to all these problems is school-wide training on trauma-informed skills. This way, all educators and staff alike develop a shared knowledge, understanding, language, and responses as they collaborate and connect with students. With the right tools, adults on campus have better trauma-informed strategies to use in their relationships with students and in building a safe and supportive school community.

    The proof is all around us

    Trauma training works synergistically within MTSS: social-emotional and trauma-responsive support allows for better academic outcomes, which work to further reduce behavioral problems, and so on. At the Center for Safe & Resilient Schools and Workplaces, we see this play out often with our school district partners. For example, at Pasadena Unified School District, which was recently ravaged by the Eaton Canyon Fire, trauma-informed best practices and preparations have enabled district leaders to reopen schools with sufficient psychological understanding and interventions along with the needed material support for the 10,000 students who were affected.

    A truly effective MTSS model does not treat trauma as a peripheral concern. It integrates trauma-responsive strategies into every tier of support–from universal practices, to targeted interventions, to intensive mental health services. In that environment, every adult who comes in contact with students has the training to adhere to trauma best practices.

    We are at a juncture where the impact of trauma poses serious risks to the education system, but evidence-based approaches exist to solve the problem. Change from the state level down is the best way to transform school cultures quickly, and I urge state education leaders to take action. Any MTSS plan isn’t complete without a trauma-informed foundation, lens, and programming. And our students–each and every one–deserve nothing less.

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  • Teacher stress levels have surpassed pandemic-era highs

    Teacher stress levels have surpassed pandemic-era highs

    Key points:

    America’s K-12 educators are more stressed than ever, with many considering leaving the profession altogether, according to new survey data from Prodigy Education.

    The Teacher Stress Survey, which polled more than 800 K-12 educators across the U.S., found that nearly half of teachers (45 percent) view the 2024-25 school year as the most stressful of their careers. The surveyed educators were also three times more likely to say that the 2024-25 school year has been the hardest compared to 2020, when they had to teach during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Student behavior challenges (58 percent), low compensation (44 percent), and administrative demands (28 percent) are driving teacher burnout and turnover at alarming rates. Public school teachers were more likely to report stress from unrealistic workloads, large class sizes, school safety concerns, and student behavior issues than their private school counterparts.

    “The fact that stress levels for so many teachers have exceeded those of the pandemic era should be a wake-up call,” said Dr. Josh Prieur, director of education enablement at Prodigy Education and former assistant principal in the U.S. public school system. “Teachers need tangible, meaningful, and sustained support … every week of the year.”

    Additional key findings include:

    • The vast majority of teachers (95 percent) are experiencing some level of stress, with more than two-thirds (68 percent) reporting moderate to very high stress. K-5 teachers were the most likely to feel extremely/very stressed (33 percent). Sixty-three percent of teachers report that their current stress levels are higher than when they first started teaching. 
    • Nearly one in 10 teachers surveyed (9 percent) are planning to leave the profession this year, while nearly one in four (23 percent) are actively thinking about it. One-third of teachers do not expect to be teaching three years from now, likely because nearly half (48 percent) of teachers don’t feel appreciated for the work that they do.
    • Teachers are finding ways to prioritize their well-being, but time limits and job pressures often get in the way. Seventy-eight percent of teachers say they actively make time for self-care, but nearly half (43 percent) feel guilty for spending time on self-care and 78 percent have skipped self-care due to work demands. Implementing school-provided self-care perks and mandatory self-care breaks would appeal to teachers, with 85 percent and 76 percent taking advantage of each benefit, respectively.
    • Top solutions that would reduce teachers’ stress include a higher salary (59 percent), a four-day school week (33 percent), stronger classroom discipline policies (32 percent), and smaller class sizes (25 percent). Public school teachers were more likely to prefer a shorter week, while private school educators opted for higher pay. 

    “Teacher Appreciation Week should serve as the starting point for building systems that show we value teachers’ time, talent, and well-being,” said Dr. Prieur. “Districts can do this by investing in tools that reduce the burden on teachers, prioritizing time for self-care and implementing policies that reinforce teachers’ value as an ongoing commitment to bettering the profession.”

    This press release originally appeared online.

    Laura Ascione
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  • How Spokane Public Schools is helping kids engage in real life

    How Spokane Public Schools is helping kids engage in real life

    Key points:

    Social media has connected kids like never before, but what they get in likes and shares, they lose in real, meaningful engagement with their peers and classmates. Lunch hours are spent hunched over smartphones, and after-school time means less sports and more Snapchat.

    The adverse effects of this excessive screen time have significantly impacted students’ social- emotional health. Forty-one percent of teens with the highest social media usage struggle with mental health issues, and between 2010 and 2020, anxiety among adolescents skyrocketed by 106 percent.

    At Spokane Public Schools (SPS), educators and administrators are reversing the side effects of social media by re-connecting with students through school-based extracurricular activities. Through its transformative Engage IRL (Engage in Real Life) initiative, the district is encouraging kids to get off their devices and onto the pickleball court, into the swimming pool, and outside in the fresh air. With more than 300 clubs and sports to choose from, SPS students are happier, healthier, and less likely to reach for their smartphones.

    An innovative approach to student engagement

    Even before the pandemic, SPS saw levels of engagement plummet among the student population, especially in school attendance rates, due in part to an increase in mental health issues caused by social media. Rebuilding classroom connections in the era of phone-based childhoods would require district leaders to think big.

    “The question was not ‘How do we get kids off their phones?’ but ‘How do we get them engaged with each other more often?’” said Ryan Lancaster, executive director of communications for SPS. “Our intent was to get every kid, every day, involved in something positive outside the school day and extend that community learning past the classroom.” 

    To meet the district’s goal of creating a caring and connected community, in 2022, school leaders formed a workgroup of parents, community members, coaches, and teachers to take inventory of current extracurriculars at all district schools and identify gaps in meeting students’ diverse interests and hobbies.

    Engaging with students was a top priority for workgroup members. “The students were excited to be heard,” explained Nikki Otero Lockwood, SPS board president. “A lot of them wanted an art club. They wanted to play board games and learn to knit. No matter their interests, what they really wanted was to be at school and be connected to others.”

    Working with community partners and LaunchNW, an Innovia Foundation initiative focused on helping every child feel a sense of belonging, SPS launched Engage IRL–an ambitious push to turn students’ ideas for fun and fulfillment into real-life, engaging activities.

    Over the past two years, Engage IRL has been the catalyst for increasing access and opportunities for K-12 students to participate in clubs, sports, arts activities, and other community events. From the Math is Cool Club and creative writing classes to wrestling and advanced martial arts, kids can find a full range of activities to join through the Elite IRL website. In addition, five engagement navigators in the district help connect families and students to engagement opportunities through individual IRL Plans and work with local organizations to expand programming.

    “All day, every day, our navigators are working to break down barriers and tackle challenges to make sure nothing gets in the way of what kids want to be involved in and engaged in,” said Stephanie Splater, executive director of athletics and activities for SPS. “For example, when we didn’t have a coach for one of the schools in our middle school football program, our navigators mobilized for really good candidates in a short amount of time just from their personal outreach.”

    In only two years, student engagement in extracurriculars has nearly doubled. Furthermore, according to Lancaster, since the Engage IRL launch, SPS hasn’t experienced a day where it dipped below 90 percent attendance. 

    “That’s an outlier in the past few years for us, for sure, and we think it’s because kids want to be at school. They want to be engaged and be part of all the cool things we’re doing. We’ve had a really great start to the 2024-2025 school year, and Engage IRL has played a huge role.”

    Engage IRL also helped SPS weather student blowback when the district launched a new cell phone policy this year. The policy prohibits cell phone use in elementary and middle school and limits it to lunch and periods between classes for high school students. Because students were already building personal connections with classmates and teachers through Engage IRL, many easily handled social media withdrawal.

    Creating opportunities for all kids

    Key to Engage IRL’s success was ensuring partnerships and programs were centered in equity, allowing every child to participate regardless of ability, financial or transportation constraints, or language barriers.

    Establishing a no-cut policy in athletics by creating additional JV and C teams ensured kids with a passion for sports, but not college-level skills, continued to compete on the court or field. Partnering with Special Olympics also helped SPS build new unified sports programs that gave children with disabilities a chance to play. And engagement navigators are assisting English language learners and their families in finding activities that help them connect with kids in their new country.

    For Otero Lockwood, getting her daughter with autism connected to clubs after years of struggling to find school activities has been life-changing.

    “There are barriers to finding community for some kids,” she shared. “We know kids with disabilities are more likely to be underemployed as adults and not as connected to the community. This is something we have the power to do that will have a lasting impact on the children we serve.”

    Through Engage IRL, SPS has redefined student engagement by expanding access and opportunity to 6,000 students across 58 schools. In just two short years, the district has seen attendance increase, student wellness improve, and dependence on smartphones diminish. By continuing to listen to the needs of students and rallying the community to partner on out-of-school activities, Spokane Public Schools is successfully fostering the face-to-face connections every child needs to thrive.

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