Fix School Discipline Toolkit for Educators | Page 14

Top Ten Pieces of Advice from Educators
for Educators

1. Start somewhere. Don’t wait for buy-in or your
principal; move forward with the few and the rest
will come.—Karen Junker, Teacher and Coordinator of School Culture and Climate
2. Make the shift from an adult centered paradigm
to a student centered one. It is your responsibility to help kids like school.—Principal Billy
Aydlett
3. Don’t be afraid to show your students genuine
emotions and show that you actually care about
them. That is the easiest way to get buy-in with
children and impact their behavior.—Cecelia Ina,
Teacher
4. Come up with a clear personal and professional
definition about what serving all students means.
Focusing on the social and emotional aspects of
education is a great start.—Principal Billy Aydlett
5. Collaboration is the name of the game. Invite
other parties to the table so that they can start
helping you come up with solutions.—Superintendent Ramona Bishop
6. Adults must walk the talk. If you want students
to use circle process to resolve their conflicts,
then you too have to resolve harm this way and
spend staff meetings, professional development
in community building circles. —RJ Program
Manager David Yusem

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How we can fix school discipline

7. Create strong bonds and networks with your
coworkers and figure out who you can lean on.
—Karen Junker
8. Pull together a small group of like-minded
individuals in your school —teachers, community
members and students and parents—who will
be instrumental in collaborating to create better
practices.—Assistant Superintendent Harriet
MacLean
9. Operate from a trauma informed position. When
students exhibit some type of behavior, they may
be attempting to cope with what is happening in
their lives. Ask them, “What happened to you?”
and not “What is wrong with you?”—RJ Program
Manager David Yusem
10. When thinking about making changes, keep asking yourself, “Is this the academic environment
or school climate that I would want for my own
child? Is this good enough for my own child?”—
Superintendent Ramona Bishop