 Hello, I'm Linda Darling Hammond, President of the Learning Policy Institute and want to welcome you to this webinar on safe and supportive school environments. This has been a critical time in our country around developing safer school environments that are also welcoming and supportive to students in this post pandemic era and also in an era where gun violence, where school shootings have become so commonplace that almost every state has shooting drills during school each day. It's been a very difficult political moment as well as an educational moment. But recently a year ago the Congress managed to pass the bipartisan safer communities act. And we will soon hear from one of the leaders in the Congress who was involved in that. We're going to take up the question today in this webinar of what can and should schools do to create safe and welcoming environments. What does the evidence say about what works and what matters in this regard. And I'm delighted that we are going to start off with Congressman Bobby Scott, who is the ranking member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, of which he's been a member for 30 years and he led the committee from 2023 Congressman Scott. It is wonderful to see you under his leadership of the committee past the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015 that really leaned in on how to provide equitable opportunities for support, both in terms of academic and a well rounded education with the services that students need to succeed. He spearheaded critical parts of the congressional response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and he worked with others to pass the bipartisan safer communities act. The intersection of education, civil rights and equity has been a cornerstone of Congressman Scott's career, making sure our education system is fair and equitable as well as adequately resourced and accessible has been at the heart of his work for over five decades in public service. He's also been the godfather of the National Conference on Educating Black Children and the National Equity Coalition, working tirelessly with educators to open up those opportunities we thank you Congressman Scott for joining us this morning. We know it's a busy time on Capitol Hill. Well, unfortunately, thank you, Linda. Thank you all for your hard work over the years, promoting equity and telling us what we need to do based on evidence and research. Regrettably, we're not as busy as we should be. We're not getting done nearly as much as we should, but we'll just have to see in the next couple of days what we can get done, but I want to thank you for what you've been doing. On the school safety issue I've said on crime policy generally there is a threshold question you have to ask, you have to answer, and that is whether you are following the evidence and research, or whether you're just promoting slogans and sound bites. And once you have answered that question, the rest is easy, but regrettably the slogans and sound bites have been ruling the day in crime policy and a lot of education policy, and your evidence coming forward with evidence has been extremely helpful. I want to thank you and everyone on the call for your focus on evidence and research, and make sure that we do the best we can for our children. We know that schools should be safe and welcoming environments for all students. But for many students, we know it's just not the case, abusive disciplinary methods where students are subject to harsh and dangerous practices, such as being locked in rooms forcibly restrained or even face down with restricted breathing can create dangerous environments for students and most challenges for their health safety, academic recess and social development, and actually make things worse over time because after they've been through that experience they're ready to really get into fights. And so those are regrettably the restraints and things like that. We know don't work are not good modifiers of behavior, and, and we can do better and that's why your research is so valuable. These abusive disciplinary practices are obviously disproportionately found in schools attended by minorities. And also with inflicted on those with disabilities, black students, male students in this Congress, I remain committed to advancing the keeping all students safe act which prohibit any school receiving federal funds from from secluding a child or using various restrained practices. As policymakers researchers and educators on this call, we must be mindful also to those who care for our children. They need to be supported and parents need to be in the loop. That's why keeping all students safe act would be also provide school staff with the evidence based training they need. If they have any restraints and seclusion, then they got to know what, what can they use. And if they don't know what else to use then you're back to to the policies that don't work. This will allow parents to work with the school and the students to prevent problems from happening in the in the future. This gun related violence couple and coupled with the alarming rise of school shootings has left students even afraid to attend class as often results in knee jerk reactions back to the slogans and sound bites. Put more police in school invest in metal detectors turned schools into fortresses. The research is clear that more guns and schools, even if you can build them like Fort Knox, do not make students or teachers safer. It's likely to negatively impact the most most vulnerable students if you treat them like criminals. Lo and behold, they're probably become criminals and start acting like criminals. These measures create a culture of fear and anxiety, anxiety that exacerbate the school to prison pipeline and can impose barriers that make schools less accessible to students with physical and do nothing to reduce violence. And as again, we can choose slogans and sound bites or evidence we know from the evidence that these metal detectors do not reduce school shootings. But they do a survey purpose for people yelling at you at a school board meeting you say oh we're going to do metal detectors, they tend to shut up. So you get metal detectors. That's the last Congress we did pass a bipartisan safer community act, which enhances certain restrictions and penalties on firearm purchases for most evidence based practices. It's for school safety, authorizes grants to expand access to mental health services and appropriate emergency funding for mental health resources and school safety measures. Although this was the first significant legislative effort in 30 years that addresses anything involving firearms. We know that no one policy will prevent every school shooting and there's still a lot more work to be done. So I want to thank you again, Linda and everyone on the call for all that you do, particularly presenting, presenting evidence so that we have something instructive to work with other than the poll tested slogans and sound bites. And I look forward to a productive discussion on behalf of your panelists and look forward to their recommendations. And with that I'll pass the mic back over to Linda. Thank you so much. We thank you Congress was God both for following the evidence in so many parts of the congressional work that you do and in the leadership that you've shown on so many of these issues. And as you said, ironically, you know, quite often the measures that people want to take to create safety actually create more anxiety. And that's the best of a feeling of safety for many of the students who are experiencing those and so now we're going to go to the evidence, and I'm going to introduce Jennifer to Polly, who is one of the authors of our report on safe schools thriving students. What do we know about creating safe and supportive schools. Linda is a senior researcher at the Learning Policy Institute and director of our whole child policy table. And with that, Jen, please take it away and inform us about what the research shows. Thank you Linda, and thank you also to Congressman Scott that was that was great and perfect for this report. So, as both Linda and Congressman Scott we're saying that we took an interest in learning about the evidence because we wanted to know what actually works when it comes to keeping kids both physically and psychologically safe. We know that there's always an increased interest in school safety after there are mass school shootings. And we also know that students face other violence at schools as well. And those episodes of violence at schools hold negative consequences for both students and educators. So we undertook this this report because we know that there is widespread agreement that all children deserve a safe and healthy school environment, but there's significant debate about how best to promote student safety proposed strategies generally fall into two broad categories strategies that increase physical security, and those that build a supportive school community in order to protect against violence. This study that Linda name safe schools thriving students examine the research evidence behind several strategies, schools can adopt to improve school safety to help policymakers make evidence based decisions. And I'll hold one second while we catch up on the slides. Thank you. So moving into the first branch will first discuss the evidence regarding strategies focus on increasing physical security, often known as school hardening measures. And we can skip ahead to slides. Perfect. So one of the strategies to improve the physical security of schools has increased substantially over the past two decades. And as of the 2019 20 school year almost all schools had security cameras required visitors to sign in and wear badges and controlled access to the building during school hours. So when we look at those top. Physical security measures. We see that when schools control access to the building and badge staff and visitors. There are no studies out there of the impact of these measures on school safety, and this could be perhaps be due to the prevalence of these activities and the relatively low cost of enacting these policies. These cameras have increased in use substantially over time. There's no evidence that they improve student safety or reduce school violence. And then metal detectors which aren't actually that much in use across schools, but are often proposed as a school safety measure as Congressman Scott said, because of their perceived ability to prevent weapons from being brought into the school but the evidence behind them does not support expanding their use of the two studies examining the relationship between metal detectors and school safety. One found reports of fewer weapons being carried to school, however, neither found that the presence of metal detectors reduce the number of reported threats physical fights or student victimization and school. Some studies have found that metal detectors are associated with decreased feelings of safety among students. Next we looked at the presence of school resource officers. School resource officers are sworn law enforcement officers with arrest powers who work either full or part time in a school setting. In the 2019-20 school year approximately four out of 10 and about seven out of 10 secondary schools, excuse me four out of 10 elementary and seven out of 10 secondary schools had a school resource officer who routinely carried a weapon in school. Research shows their presence has limited effects on school safety. They increase the number of weapons detected and decrease the number of fights within schools, but have no effects on the rates of school shootings or gun related incidents. And the presence of school resource officers often have substantive negative impacts on students, particularly students of color and students with disabilities. On average, the presence of school resource officers increases suspensions, expulsions, police referrals and student arrests, all of which can have long term negative impacts on students. Studies of school resource officers, the implementation of their use suggest factors that may partially explain these negative effects on students. First, there's high variability in how school resource officers are utilized across schools, with some officers spending the majority of their time teaching classes related to public safety and violence prevention, while they spend the majority of their time on law enforcement activities. In some schools, school resource officers have no role in school discipline, while in other schools they have a major role in discipline. An involvement of school resource officers in everyday school discipline has been found to lead to weaker relationships between students and teachers and increase the severity of punishment against students. Colliderals often also lack clearly specified roles and responsibilities. In the 2017-18 school year, only two thirds of schools with a school resource officer reported having a policy outlining the officers roles and responsibilities. And even in schools that reported having a policy, about a third of those principles were unaware whether the policy covered important topics, such as engagement in student discipline and use of firearms. Studies have also lacked, excuse me, identified a lack of training as an issue with one study finding that many SROs had not received specialized training prior to entering their school position. And the training that school resource officers do receive is highly variable. In a 2018 survey of school resource officers conducted by Ed Week, found that school resource officers were more likely to have received training on law enforcement techniques, such as responding to active shooters, then in areas focused on the specialized needs of youth, such as child trauma and working with special education students. And the last one we looked at in physical security was arming school staff. In the wake of school shootings over the past decade, some politicians have proposed arming school staff. And as of 2020, 28 states allow schools to arm teachers or staff in at least some circumstances. However, this policy lacks broad public support. And there is no evidence that arming staff in K-12 schools would improve school safety, and evidence on firearm deaths outside of schools suggests that having more guns in schools could be detrimental to students' safety. And so next we turn to strategies to build supportive schools communities given the growing interest in improving school safety by addressing the underlying causes of school violence and strengthening the factors that protect against the perpetration of school violence. Multiple studies have examined what places students at risk of perpetrating violence and the factors that protect against school violence. Studies examining mass shootings, school shootings and school violence align in finding a common set of risk factors among perpetrators, in addition to ready access to guns. These include childhood trauma, mental health concerns, and prior perpetration of violence. In contrast, research identifies empathy, school attachment and belonging, social support, and supportive student-teacher relationships as factors that protect against school violence. When students feel welcome and connected to their school community, they have improved mental health, academic, and behavioral outcomes and are less likely to engage in high risk behaviors. As a result, strategies such as mental health supports, social-emotional learning, restorative practices, and building positive relationships in school climates should be considered as part of school safety strategies. The first one we looked at is increasing access to mental health supports, which have been shown to benefit students and schools. Studies have found that counselors reduce disciplinary incidents, disciplinary recidivism, and they improve teachers' perceptions of school climate and student behavior as well as increasing academic achievement. A meta-analysis of school-based mental health services in elementary schools found overall positive effects on students' mental health when there was access to it. But schools' ability to provide needed supports is strained. Many students do not have adequate access to school counselors or psychologists. As you can see on the screen, the American School Counselor Association recommends a student-to-school counselor ratio of 250 to 1, but nationally schools average a ratio of 408 students to 1 counselor. Similarly, access to mental health services is limited. The National Association of School Psychologists recommends a ratio of 500 students to 1 school psychologist. Yet in 2020-21 school year, the national average of students to psychologists was 1,127 school psychologists to a student. And many schools also lack the ability to provide diagnostic mental health assessments to evaluate students for mental health disorders. During the 2019-20 school year, only 55% of public schools reported providing diagnostic mental health assessment services, and 42% offered mental health treatment services to students. More than half of schools reported that their ability to provide mental health services to students was limited in a significant way by inadequate funding, while another 40% described insufficient access to mental health professionals as a barrier. Next, we looked at social-emotional learning. Part of the reason we looked at this is because there is such a strong evidence base, but it also in the 2021-22 school year, approximately three-quarters of schools use a social and emotional learning program or curriculum. And there is a large body of research on social-emotional learning programs that find that they help promote the development of social-emotional competencies. They reduce the rates of behavior problems and emotional distress. They increase rates of pro-social behavior. They improve relationships with others, and they increase students' engagement and learning and academic achievement. Next, we looked at restorative practices. Restorative practices build community and resolve conflict with opportunities to make amends and are an alternative to exclusionary discipline practices, which you heard Congressman Scott talk about, which are not only ineffective in improving school safety, they are harmful to students' academic achievement and attainment, and they are inequitably applied to Black students and students with disabilities. Studies of restorative practices consistently find that they improve school safety, reduce the use of exclusionary discipline, decrease rates of student misbehavior, and improve school climate, and they also have recently been found to improve academic achievement. And last, we looked at building positive relationships. So structures that support positive relationships within schools include small learning communities, advisory systems, block scheduling, looping, smaller class size, and really emphasizing strong school family connections. This is especially important when it comes to school safety so that they can avoid the cracks that certain students might fall into and not have anybody to talk to about any of the issues they may be facing at school or at home. Multiple studies have found that positive relationships between students and staff throughout the school can help prevent physical violence and bullying. And one study found that they can improve communication between students and teachers about potential threats, which can play a significant role in disrupting violent incidences. So the policy recommendations we feature in our report are listed on your screen. The research evidence suggests that investments in increasing students' access to school-based mental health services, adopting restorative practices, supporting social emotional learning, and developing structures and practices that support the development of positive relationships between educator students and families will help promote school safety and student well-being goals. And to better understand the state of school safety measures across the country, we also recommend that policymakers incorporate measures of school safety and student well-being in state and federal data collection, and better support states and districts in conducting equity reviews of school safety measures and their impact on discipline outcomes. And last, I will just say, as Linda mentioned, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and obviously Congressman Scott played a big part in that. We wanted to look at how states are distributing those Bipartisan Safer Community Act funds. The Bipartisan Safer Community Act funds that went through the Department of Ed through Title IV Part A were designated as stronger as the stronger connections grant programs by the Department of Ed. We did a quick scan across all of the states to see what they were doing with those states. And the good news is the majority of states have prioritized student well-being and mental health. You can see Washington and Ohio, two of those states that, in their grant program, were focusing on student wellness, creating positive and inclusive and supportive school environments, and helping kids really engage in learning so that in a way that they feel both, excuse me, so supporting schools to help students feel both physically and psychologically safe in schools. And with that, I'm going to pass it back to Linda for our great panel discussion. Thank you so much, Jen. And we have a wonderful panel. And I think we'll want to see who they are. We have with us this afternoon, Dr. Jennifer McComis, who's the Chief of Research at the Learning Policy Institute and co-author of the report that we're discussing today. She does a spectacular job of overseeing our research teams and mentoring and managing our research and project staff. And we're fortunate to have recruited her from the Rand Corporation where she was a leading researcher for more than two decades. And we have Dr. Jacqueline Rodriguez, who's the Chief Executive Officer at the National Center for Learning Disabilities as CEO. Jackie leads a team in the forefront of the Learning Disabilities Rights Movement. And she works on issues ranging from equity and high quality education through high leverage culturally responsive practices and inclusive education. We have Tony Thurman, who's the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in California and a dear friend and colleague who is an educator, a social worker, a public school parent. He came to this role from the California legislature. He's also been a local school board member and lived to tell about it. And over the course of his tenure, he has championed many historic initiatives on behalf of California students, including leading our schools through the pandemic, helping to safely reopen California schools, expanding mental health resources and community schools, afterschool and summer school programs, and supporting restorative practices to build strong relationships in schools. Dr. Ivory Tolson, who is the Director of Education Innovation and Research at the NAACP and Professor of Counseling Psychology at Howard University. And Ivory has served as the President and CEO of the Quality Education for Minorities Network, Editor in Chief of the Journal of Negro Education. He was appointed by President Obama to devise national strategies to sustain and expand federal support to historically black colleges and universities. And then he was executive director of that White House initiative. He's also served as a research analyst for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, and we welcome all of these amazing panelists with us today. And I'd like to start off with one sort of one sentence question for each of you and then I'm going to come back to Superintendent Thurman for a framework about how to pursue safe schools as has been done in California. But when you think of a safe school, what are the things that come to mind, just in a few words about what that looks like and feels like and can I start with Jennifer McCombs? You should probably start with somebody else because I would say that sort of like in this I think about sort of like the students experiencing care and connection from adults like I think about that a lot when I think about what safe schools feel like. But in my mind, I also I go to thinking about the structures and practices that under bird that those types of connections don't happen by accident. They take a lot of like resources time training and structures inside the school system to make it all come together. Perfect. Jacqueline I'm going based on who's on my, my zoom screen. I'll pick up or Jennifer got us up. I agree wholeheartedly a lot of systems in place. I always think about what do I see what do I hear what am I smelling and I in my mind. I'm seeing kids smiling kids engaging kids talking. I'm hearing a lot of conversation between teachers and faculty and wraparound service providers in classrooms, and they're talking to students and students are actually responding and have agency in that conversation. And in classrooms where there is capacity for movement and the ability for students to go into particular areas of their choice when they need to learn more about something or investigating something, and they're not refrained specific seats or chairs, and they're not situated in a classroom where it's around an exit in particular. Perfect. Superintendent Thurman. Thank you for having him and panelists and Congressman Scott. You know, I was thinking about the schools that I visit and I wanted to give a shout out to so many of the schools where when you go, you feel welcome. Someone welcomes you when you enter. You enter into a place where you see structure. You see community. You see people who are connected. And this is what's happening in most of our schools and unfortunately sometimes something happens that might disrupt that, whether it's an outside person or even sometimes an inside person who for whatever reason is experiencing some kind of stress that enters into the school but I love going to schools and being welcomed and feeling like I'm in a community. People know each other. There is, as you all talked about people are smiling people are excited to learn their curiosity is just moving and and and sadly, we deal with things that sometimes disrupt that but this panel is going to help us get through that. Ivory. I'm sorry everyone else is less about what you see and more about what you feel, but there are certain things that you can identify that make you feel a certain way. So, when I see students playing instruments as you walk in the door, when I see artwork on the wall, I see messages, the interactions between students and their peers and students and their teachers smiles on the faces. All of that are indications to me that it's a safe and affirming learning environment. That's great. I love I love these images makes me want to be in all of those places. Superintendent Thurman, I want to start with you. You've worked hard. And it's been a huge priority for you and for Governor Newsom to ensure that students feel safe and are safe in schools. And as you know California is undertaken a proactive agenda over the last decade with legislation to reduce access to weapons on the one hand and legislation to replace school exclusions with positive reports for student behavior on the other and that's dramatically reduced suspensions and violence in schools. Can you talk to us about what California has done and is doing to create safe inclusive thriving environments. Thank you Dr. Darling Hammond for the research from the learning policy Institute all of the studies. So we would plus one what we heard and the experience of those in our schools mirrors very nicely with what was stated about the research. We don't want to create these hardened environments that make our students feel uncomfortable. We want to create environments where they feel supported, and if there's any level of stress. We want to get support for students and educators to be able to address that stress. And when they become teachers and staff, they become the first line of support for recognizing when someone is experiencing stress. And we have a great training called mental health first aid that educators get trained in. And it's not asking them to become a therapist it's simply helping them to recognize when someone is experiencing stress or trauma, and so that we get them to the right person and this is one of the trainings that is being offered at schools throughout the state and certainly in the country. But we've made significant investments and programs that are proven to work restorative justice. You know our state has administered over $150 million in restorative justice dollars, because we know that the punishment approach. It has not delivered the results that have been intended, but when we approach things in a restorative way. We are able to work through challenges, we build relationships, keep students safe. You know, many of you have touched on the need to address the mental health needs of our students and our state. Our state has invested significantly in many different ways, you know community schools we're investing now $5 billion in community schools those are the wraparound supports that can connect a student to counselor or health program or social services, but also to really talk about the conversations about how we end the school to prison pipeline, how we engage the community in the school. Our state is focused deeply on mental health programs our governor has launched a $5 billion of mental health program that I call the no wrong door program, where you can connect students at school or through community behavioral health, and those programs start to work together and speak together, regardless of what kind of insurance you have you have private insurance or Medicaid. We have to make sure that we give supports and, you know, Dr. Darling Hammond and I have worked together to secure the funds that will allow us to recruit 10,000 additional mental health clinicians in our schools and so we know that school is the center of many things, and we find ways to address many of our students. Yeah, I was very moved by the conversation and the research about school resource officers, you know as a former school board member as Dr. Hammond said, what I noticed is that sometimes schools misuse school resource officers, they use them as the dean of students, they use them to address student behavior, and that's where it begins as a breakdown. And the research shows that contact with students, invariably, sadly, creates a criminalizing experience for students who are maybe just doing things that students do. I have to say that well trained school resource officers actually do develop relationships with students. They know how to intervene in ways that are more about preventing and de escalating they have great training and de escalation, and they have relationships with students that prevent things from rising to the highest level of threat, at which point we do need someone with a law enforcement background to engage and so our school districts need training, not just for school resource officers, but also for security who are able to de escalate activities with our students a lot of times school security don't get much training, but they're put into situations where they have to engage with all kinds of behavior work. One of the pieces of legislation that we've introduced and we're working on still is a new model for working with students that we call behavioral intervention. Really, it's, it's a fancy way of saying folks who can do de escalation, those who build relationships with students, those who know that sometimes conflicts at school start outside of the school, and they find themselves back in the school. We start on social media sometimes someone has had hard words for someone else. And so we're trying to really build out this new model where staff who work in the hallways who work in the schools, get training in de escalation and restorative practice and conflict mediation. We put out a message to our schools that we want them to limit the number of suspensions and explosions. I'm seeing things freeze on my screen, and I think it might be my internet. They don't think it's you Linda I think. I think it's always. Superintendent Thurman. So we will come back around to his, I want to hear the rest of that story but we'll come back around when the internet improves on his end. We'll move now I think to another question that's related to the point he was making, which is one of the statistics that has really stood out to me is that among school shootings. More than 95% are from students who used to be in that school, and more than 85% of the students express their belief that they've been bullied during the time that they were in school so reducing things like providing mental health services on the one hand and reducing things like going on the other is part of the solution to the school shootings issues as well. Oh, Tony you're back that's great. I'm going to let you finish your thoughts because I won't go any further other than to say that we are really pleased to work with folks from congressman Scott's district. Next month we're having a training on school safety. We've invited the folks from the Sandy Hook promise foundation to be with us to share what they've learned from tragedy to how we can help. We've also invited some new partners into the conversation who have technology that can actually detect a gun. Even if it's been even if it's disguised and you know we're really doing everything that we can to help our schools but they have the resources to bring on training to do more mental health. And we echo all the things that the research has shown, rather than hardening providing more supports for students and their families and in the community and building partnership will result in safer schools so thank you for having me on and I look forward to hearing from our other panelists. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I'm so glad we got you back. I want to build on that and go to Dr McCombs and ask about the evidence base for school safety strategies. In terms of what works what recommendations do you have around practice why should we, what kinds of practices should we be paying attention to in schools. Yeah. So, I want to build on sort of like this question and a little bit of what superintendent Thurman said, and I think that there are two things that really come out of the research very clearly and the first is that investments in counselors mental health services and restorative practices, social emotional learning structures to support positive relationships, pay off in terms of improvements as well safety, improve student well being, and also achievement. And the second is investment in supports for students is desperately needed so it's really heartening to hear about California's investments. So, one of the things that's striking is that when we look at the data and Jen presented this miss schools have a lot of physical security in place already 91% of schools have security cameras alright. However, the vast majority of schools lack sufficient staff to adequately support students. So the average concern psychologists have caseload like two times what is recommended 42% of schools report being able to to provide mental health services that's like almost two thirds of schools that aren't doing that. And investments and supportive services aren't simply what's recommended based on the research, you know, sort of like their what schools currently lacks sufficient access to, which means sort of like it's like just an extra propelling of sort of like why we need investments in this it's like what schools actually need they don't have enough of, and what is going to be effective and helping to support. You know, positive environments, protective environments that you know for now and then also Linda as you talked about sort of like this idea about how it pays forward. The more that people feel connected the more that we are establishing those protective connections, sort of like early in life that has spillover effects later in life as well. So we know the research on, for example, social emotional learning supports when, when we take the time to help students learn how to be together in community, how to interact with each other how to resolve conflicts. Academic achievement also increases so it's the pathway to that achievement rather than a distraction from the purposes of schools. And as Dr Rodriguez, the data consistently show as you know that students with disabilities and students of color are more likely to be negatively impacted by exclusionary discipline policies and school hardening. Can you talk about the impact of these measures on students and why it's important to address the issue of disparities in the context of school safety. Absolutely. So I think what would be helpful for those in the audience that are thinking about disability as a part of the intersectional identities that students bring to and with them to school. Some data might help. So we'll start simply by stating the facts, right? Students with disabilities are absolutely disproportionately impacted by the presence of law enforcement in schools. We can just essentially agree on that that's what literature says that's what evidence has demonstrated. We're deeply concerned about this and still the action has a report called unlocking futures youth with learning disabilities and the juvenile justice system. We provide recommendations throughout the report to address the issue, but I also want to bring to attention that according to the civil rights data collection, not just students with learning disabilities, but all disabilities served under idea represent only 13% of the total population while they represent 27 double and more of the percent of students referred to law enforcement. Huge disparities exist. And in particular, even greater disparities exist for black and Latino men and with disabilities, which make up 3% of enrollment, but quadruple the amount of student arrests. We just stopped there. I think we would recognize why this topic is so incredibly important, but we, we even think further students with disabilities are almost three times more likely to be arrested than their non-disabled peers. And they're estimated at this point to make up 30 to 60% of the incarcerated youth. And that statistic is incredibly hard to even pin down given the variance of 30 to 60 simply because we don't even have accurate data. So, as I mentioned, 13% of kids have a disability, but they account for 20% of in school suspensions and 25% of out of school suspensions. And let's just finalize that with corporal punishment, which I think we could all agree needs to be outside of schools but is still allowed in almost half of American states across the country. So, knowing that, right, we can also, I think, agree in a couple of premises. We are incredibly supportive of the congressman's initiatives, and those are the superintendent. I think we all agree that SROs have a place in schools, but that place needs to be clearly defined and there needs to be adequate training and support to create those valid and supportive relationships with schools. And schools need to be welcoming. They must be inclusive and they have to be positive for all the students that come through their door. And I just want to call out the fact that that includes students of all identities. And they need to have those identities affirmed. They need to walk into schools knowing that they can be their authentic selves. I agree that it should be appropriate to suspend or expel or refer a student to juvenile justice for a minor offense, but yet it's happening day after day, week after week. And thankfully the Office of Civil Rights is really engaged in this work. So, let me wrap this up by giving the folks listening some opportunities to consider what to do next to the so what factors I'd like to say. We are incredibly supportive of the counseling not criminalization in schools act. This ends federal funding for school based law enforcement, but yet redirects the funds to counselors to teachers and deposit of supports for children in school, with which we have all said on this call so far are really the bread and butter of how schools become affirming places. We really want to see grants provided to states and districts to invest in positive approaches to addressing school climate and prioritizing and awarding these grants to conduct research on the connection between learning and attention disorders and disabilities and the potential risk for involvement in the juvenile justice system. As you can imagine, doubling those in the school systems with an LD, for example, in the incarceration system is just not okay, and it has to stop. So if we can increase capacity for school counseling for mental health programs and for teachers to learn how to create safe learning environments in their own classrooms and do that with the support of a superintendent like Dr. Thurman and knowing that they that superintendent has their back when they're in the classroom working with all students, that's going to be a part of the strategy to solve the issue. Yeah, one of our participants notes in the chat that some students developed disabling reactions and anxiety. In response to school practices and then as we know that traumatized reaction, then triggers hyper vigilance and you know behaviors that would not be occurring in a calm and you know productive space. So Dr. Tulson I want to kind of come to you and ask, given you know both the disproportionate impact of exclusionary discipline and some of these other traumatizing experiences. What are the proactive measures that a school can take to both create a culture of belonging and to bring families into the school community to help bridge the gap. What kinds of things can schools proactively do. Yeah, so I can think of a few. I think that schools have to do as a self assessment. And these are four questions, I think every school should ask themselves. And I'll touch on some of the things that schools can do. But the first question to ask yourself is, are your students happy. Generally, are they happy. When you asked us to describe a safe learning environment, I think all of us have happiness somewhere in there. And if they're not happy. Find out why students who are hot will tend to act out more people students who don't have good food to eat. If their food in the cafeteria is just really nasty to them, then you may not have good experiences with them. If they don't have enough outdoor time, if they don't have enough green in their environment, if they don't have any opportunities to express themselves freely. So all of these are are connected to safety. So just a simple question, how happy are your students. And if your students are very, very happy, you probably have less problems. If your students are miserable, then you probably have a lot of problems. And the good news is, it doesn't take much to make them happy. Some of the, all those things I just said, the second thing is, are your students culturally affirmed. And do they feel like they belong in that environment. Can they see themselves reflected in what they're learning. And can they see themselves reflected in the people who are teaching them. Do they see themselves on the walls, do they feel included, do they feel like they belong. And, you know, all these things having a culturally responsive pedagogy, having activities having art, all these things help students feel like they, they belong. So the next question is, do your students have a safe way to communicate with adults about problems that they might have are things that they observe. There is a study that says that more weapons are taken away from schools from students talking to an adult, then metal detectors. They don't want those weapons in the school because it's going to hurt them before it hurts anybody else. What they need is a safe and confidential way to talk about it. Now, we have created education systems where students see as a means of survival, talking less. They learn very early that keeping quiet is a way to do better in school. First that we need to make sure that they understand their voice is important. And the fourth one is, do your teachers and staff have ongoing trainings on this topic. And are they given the right amount of data in order to understand the problems that are happening. There are a lot of conversations I have with with with professionals at the school, and I might ask, why do you suspend students, and they'll say, because students are being violent towards teachers are their peers. But then when you look at their books, it's really because students are chewing gum. Our students aren't wearing the right clothes are students have come to school late. Instead of them, you know, that better late than never doesn't even apply to them. So, look at the books, talk about the data that we have and have ongoing training, because we can have we can implement different processes like a restorative justice. And a lot of times we've implemented restorative justice, but teachers don't really embrace it, because they haven't been bothered and they haven't gotten the basic training on how to check their own biases, and the importance of that safe learning environment. And there's so many sources of data that teachers and other school staff can use to figure out how students are feeling you know the school climate surveys, taking those seriously on pursuing those following up in one of our reports that's coming out soon. There's a set of examples about how students are actually conducting professional development for teachers about what they feel they need. And you know there are lots of ways than to begin to reset the the culture there. I want to pursue this question about the ways in which we can examine the sort of next steps for creating school safety. Dr. Rodriguez, you know the disability community has been advocating for changes to school environments from decades at this point from accessibility of resources to accommodations to positive behavioral interventions to eliminating seclusion and restraint which Congressman Scott spoke to in his remarks earlier. What lessons have you learned about what's most effective at creating the kinds of school settings that are supportive for all students including students with disabilities. So Linda, perhaps I can touch a bit on the seclusion and restraint piece because you're absolutely right the disability community including NCLD has been advocating now for decades to update and make significant changes to policies around seclusion and restraint. It's our premise. And I think that of the disability community that seclusion does not belong in schools should not be used in schools. And I think if anybody's using seclusion as a behavior management technique. That is one of those non examples that we should be you know heralding from the mountain tops restraining students in particular also should be using such rare instances that it has to do with the student is a threat to themselves or to another person. And yet, we know that 80% of students subjected to physical restraint are kids with disabilities. And 77% of those same students that are subjected to seclusion are kids with disabilities. So they're disproportionately impacted in this space. And oftentimes I think because they're not necessarily getting those questions that Dr. Tolson just mentioned answered by their faculty by their staff by their families, and they're not able to communicate either what is going well, or what is not going well in their schools in their classrooms or in their after school activities in such a way that an adult with some sort of agency or authority is listening and then taking action. I think one thing I would do when I mentioned to those listening is we're really really excited and very thankful that the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Civil Rights has made this a part of the agenda under this administration has taken active steps to mitigate states where seclusion and restraint has become not just disproportionate but egregious and is issuing guidance as well as your colleagues letters. So that has been fruitful. But the bottom line is that I think we can all agree, zero tolerance policies do not belong in schools. I don't have any evidence to suggest that they actually support student well being academic outcomes or any lifelong supports, and they were grounded in the incarceration and system from the beginning. So to me, it makes perfect sense that those policies only lead to further juvenile issues and into a system that where students don't belong. And the person in Scott said it really perfectly earlier, they perpetuate systemic racism. And that's not something we're saying as a sound bite, there is ample research and evidence that demonstrates that zero tolerance policies are bottom line harmful to students of color right. We talked about positive behavioral intervention so I'm going to highlight that as not only a strategy but one that has a basic literature, you know that has demonstrated outcomes. And we know that PBIS and systems, even when implemented with fidelity still has incredible outcomes for all students, and they don't just support the systems students of kids and kids with disabilities. They support all kids, and they encourage kids to talk to one another, so that the bullying decreases, and the sense of compassion, that sense of integrity, and the sense of empathy actually increases. So we want to see not only more research in this area, but more fidelity and implementation when it comes to school systems. And finally, if you're out there advocating and you're thinking about what's happening in Congress that you can support, you know will draw your attention to the school climate bills. Totally supportive as the congressman earlier the keeping all students safe act, an incredible piece of legislation that ends seclusion and really puts guardrails around the use of restraint in schools. We're also supporting the protecting our students in schools act, which effectively ends corporal punishment in schools, and finally the safe schools improvement act which establishes federal standards to protect every student, not just students with disabilities, but I'll argue we should keep students disabilities at the center of our decision making from bullying and harassment in public school systems. I'm going to, in a moment, start to address some of the questions that have come from our listeners. And I want to encourage everyone to chime in I do want to note that if people want to see some great examples of school environments like those that you and Dr. Toulson just described. There are two case studies of inclusion schools middle and high schools that have developed this very strong positive environment, Bronxdale high school in New York City, and gateway high school middle and high school in California. We can put those in the chat if you want to see them and these are places where students are involved as both peer mediators with, you know, with each other as leads in advisory systems where students are learning social emotional skills as in a context where there's there's an explicit way of addressing the fact that everyone learns differently and everyone comes with a different set of talents interests skills and ways of learning. And we're really creating a compassionate environment as you put it is part of the explicit curriculum. So there's, there are lots of our colleagues we can learn from on this. In terms of the questions coming from the audience. One of them that was sent in during the registration was how can we really engage families to reinforce and help create student environments that are supportive and relatedly how do we best provide the right kinds of professional development so I want to see if anybody would like to address either of those related questions. Jen look like you're getting ready to lean in. I'll take on the professional development piece first because I think that this is a thread that's come throughout this conversation is sort of the need for support and training for all scores school staff. And so we see this in terms of like thinking about how do we train people who are what we're moving towards restorative practices we're getting rid of exclusionary practice. How is it that we prepare and train all of our school staff to be able to implement that. There's a special tie into to thinking about school resource officers for schools that have them and the importance of training for those individuals. And one of the things that we see from the implementation research is that a lot of them come in not having sufficient you know we think about I think it was 37% receive training related to teenage brain only 54% of school resource officers report training working with students and special education programs. Right and so these are areas where we need to sort of like if you have score resource officers be paying attention to these things sort of like what are the parameters what are the roles what are the training that's needed. And thinking systemically about all of your school staff and helping to implement the conditions of teaching and learning. From a parental perspective, you're one of the things that I've been thinking about as a parent myself is one thing that we need to do is actually be advocating for the things that matter the most with our school boards. And to be reinforcing and supporting schools who are trying to do these types of evidence based practices in order to provide them political backing for implementing them. And what about thank you very much and what about engaging families what can we do to bridge the divide and ensure that families are able to be more welcomed and productively engaged. So, I'll speak maybe from personal experience like Jen I'm a parent of a school age child. And what I have found is that schools deeply want to engage with families, but are reluctant to or don't necessarily know exactly what and how to implement those types of strategies. And it's interesting because I think there's a meeting of the minds where families want to be involved and invested in the school system and administrators and teachers equally agree that they should be in the system but in what capacity. So I'll highlight one space that I've seen some really, really cool promise. So in the state of Ohio right now. I'm a faculty member from Bowling Green State University and another colleague from a similar institution has been working with the state of Ohio to develop a set of modules for families of students with disabilities in an effort to not only provide knowledge around disability around awareness about impact but also around advocacy and the advocacy isn't necessarily the local or state or federal level but within their own school buildings. And so they're taking these modules, attending these courses and at the culmination, they're able to better communicate with their school administrators about what supports their own students might need or the special ed program in that school in principle, like in general. And principles across spaces in which this is being disseminated have said that this is really important because it's not just having families come to a PTO or a family school association meeting or a parent teacher conference but they know their kids just as well as a teacher might and they also understand that the community partnership is deeply important. And so how can parents actually be a part of the decision making process in those schools. But let's start also by providing awareness knowledge and skills to. So that's one way I think if people wanted to replicate that I'm happy to share the information in here, but a neat option for kids with disabilities and their families to be more invested in schools. Yeah, and you know when we think about it a lot of the schools that I have been putting in place these kinds of supports, really rethink the way that the school schedule is designed you know, instead of, you know, back to school night when you're not supposed to talk about your own child they've found the time and carved out the opportunities for home visits for student teacher family conferencing for a variety of ways that as you say, parents can learn also about how to support productive behaviors, because everybody comes from different, you know, experiences. So, thinking about what the job of the school is beyond the just factory model offering of courses is part of making the room for that kind of engagement. We have a question about the role of diversity and representation in the not only the teaching force but in the staffing of schools and creating the kind of environment that will be supportive and welcoming. I really want to ask you to respond to that because you've done so much work on this question and I'd love to hear your thoughts. Yeah, so diversity is very important. It's important that students have teachers educators that look like them, but I also want to caution not to be superficial about it. It's not just about how many black and Latino and you know how many men versus women. It's not just about that, because even though we may have racial diversity, it's hard to achieve economic diversity among your teacher force because they all have the same job and the same level of education. And sometimes that difference between how a middle class person will think, or how a college educated person may think is a lot different than what a lot of, than how a lot of parents think. You know, for instance, a lot of, a lot of parents, they see the school as professionals who know how to do a certain thing kind of like we see doctors, we're not going to tell doctors how to treat our illness because we don't feel like we have that kind of expertise. Educated parents will tell teachers how they think they should be teaching. There's lesser educated parents. A lot of times they're reluctant to do that. And sometimes they get exploited because they don't ask those types of questions, because they just don't know the types of questions to ask. And then a lot of times they receive a lot of bias misconceptions, you know, because you can have a professional parent who's missing all the meetings, because they're they're traveling and doing things that society sees as important. But a lot of times we don't get the same type of accommodations to those who are working as a concierge or as a truck driver or, you know, things like that. So, so these are all, you know, when we think about representation, we have to think about every type of representation, but the thing more carefully about the ways in which we can't replicate them that naturally as a black person, I can share that black experience by someone who is working class, raising several children on their own. I have to get out of my comfort zone have to get into your world, and I really have to learn your perspective and in order to connect the way that I need to connect. Can I just ask one follow up question. You know you've done so much work with HBC use with historically black colleges and universities. And of course we've had a set of studies that have found that, on average black teachers black students have had the opportunity to have black teachers have stronger outcomes in many ways achievement and graduation and so on college going. But also that students were taught by a teacher who's been trained in an HBC you a teacher of any race. I have the same positive outcomes and I love your thoughts about what goes on in the teacher training in HBC use that may be enabling that kind of productive teaching. Yeah, that's a good question and I believe that HBC culture, one that doesn't look at weeding out but looks at building up. It's not the hyper competitive environment that you may see as some of these other big institutions, more of a nurture nurturing environment. And so a lot of the students are simply practicing what they've experienced. And with that being said, I do want us to understand that HBC you teacher preparation programs are constantly under attack, and that all of the things that HBC, HBC students do that are so successful that doesn't come up in the class examinations, our interest examinations are these types of things so there are biases in some of the ways in which we rate, whether or not a teacher education program is effective. There's biases that work against HBC use. So we do need to think about those types of issues also. Yeah, yeah. Well you mentioned that you know so much of the framing of the work in HBC uses around the collective around how we advanced together and I think that framing is what we've talked about in schools generally that you're building a sense of collaboration cooperation, you know, we're in this together, which counters the social media shaming that people do that counters the various ways in which kids also create a sort of status differential. You know between and among them that then affects students in negative ways and creates that sense of powerlessness that then often translates into trauma and rage is is you know part of that hyper competitive, you know, framing that quite often goes on in school generally so there's a lot of common themes in both how we prepare educators and then how we support educators and students to do the work together in schools. We are coming up close to the end of our time and I want to thank everyone I want also let folks know that Superintendent Thurman had a really bad internet connection he sent us a note earlier that he was not able to get back on so we appreciated his participation in the beginning of this, and all of you throughout the webinar. We want to let people know that the webinar itself, the PowerPoint the various studies will all be on a event web page that you can find at the Learning Policy Institute so that you can catch up with all that went on here further and deeper on the issues that are of concern to you. We also have a follow up webinar on October the 17 at four o'clock Eastern time one o'clock Pacific time and various in between the coasts. And this is going to really deal very explicitly with approaches to restorative practices, both how they can be engaged in in a meaningful, fully implemented way, as well as what the outcomes of those kinds of practices can be. So with that we're going to thank you very much for attending and bring this webinar to a close.