The True Meaning of the
Compassionate Schools Model
By David Thompson, Director of Student Services
One afternoon this past summer, Johnston Elementary
faculty went to a nearby playground to hand out
popsicles and play with children who have been
affected by violence in their community.
At Community High, teachers and staff are learning
wellness skills that will help students be able to
handle the chronic stress they experience day-to-day.
The school counselor at Fairview Elementary works
with groups of students on a play that teaches the
benefits of knowing behavior triggers and using
mindful practices.
Walk into many BCS classrooms and you will see calm
zones with sensory tools for students to use to reset
the brain for learning.
We all want our children enrolled in schools that are
caring, compassionate, and sensitive to the needs of
individual students. We often hear an emphasis on
academic achievement and teaching the whole child,
but we know that stressed brains cannot learn. The
Compassionate Schools initiative in Buncombe County
Schools is a whole child approach that provides a
framework for understanding how chronic stress and
trauma impacts students’ ability to learn, function
socially, and respond to certain events that they
perceive to be stressful.
In a compassionate school, the staff responds to
behaviors caused by chronic stress as an opportunity
to teach sensory self-awareness. It provides students
a structured way to self-regulate their behavior and
return to the learning environment. Teachers know
that students cannot meet academic goals until
their more basic physical and emotional needs are
met. However, this does not mean that students are
not held to high academic standards. A most basic
compassionate practice is ensuring that all students
have the supportive learning environment where they
can achieve at the highest level.
In addition to Compassionate Schools, all elementary
students are using an evidence-based Social/Emotional
Learning curriculum called Second Step. The core
of the SEL program is to teach problem-solving,
relationship building, self-regulation, and conflict
resolution. All of these skills are then integrated into
a bullying prevention curriculum. Teachers using this
curriculum are reporting that there are significant
differences in the quality of social interaction of
their students, as well as better ability to maintain
attention and learn more effectively.
7