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​Please scroll down to read our Unconditional Education blog posts.

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OUR UE MODEL AND SERVICES

SCHOOL HIGHLIGHT: Lodestar

11/22/2019

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​Lodestar is an EL Education School with a project-based model, supporting students in becoming lifelong changemakers. Lodestar is the sister school to Lighthouse Community Charter school and first open it’s door in 2015 at the Patten University campus in the Fruitvale District in Oakland, CA. After two short years on this campus, the school was forced to change locations to the St. Jarlath Church campus in 2017 until finding their forever home in Sobrante Park in 2018.
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Currently located in Sobrante Park, the school leads with core values of Agency, Social Justice, Integrity, Love, and Community:
  • COMMUNITY: We are best when we respect, value and celebrate our diversity and strengthen our connections.
  • INTEGRITY: We act on our shared and personal values, especially in the face of adversity.
  • LOVE: We extend ourselves so that all feel a sense of belonging and acceptance.
  • SOCIAL JUSTICE: We act with courage and commitment to move toward a just and equitable world.
  • AGENCY: We are empowered to pursue purposeful action as life-long changemakers.
Lodestar is in our 4th year of operation. It’s currently K-8 and are growing to be K-12. They currently broke ground this year and in process to building their high school. There’s lots of exciting growth and potential for Lodestar in the coming years. 

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Blog Post Written By: Meka Tull, Director of School Partnerships
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STAFF HIGHLIGHT: Mercedes Hudson

11/22/2019

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Name: Mercedes Hudson
Your Position: School Psychologist Intern
What led you to your current position: It has always been my passion to work with, support, and advocate for students and their families. When deciding what to study for my master's degree, I was inspired by other school psychologists in my program (Meka and Toshia!) to consider school psychology. In my research, I was pleasantly surprised that the work of a school psychologist would not only increase my knowledge and expertise in special education but put me at the tables and in the conversations to give voice and help to serve justice to the students and families who are underserved. I am excited about the new journeys of this position and continuing this great work. 
Fun Fact/Quote: “I’ve come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, it’s is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized.” 
What does your average day look like: The joy of this work is that everyday can bring on new adventures. At any given moment I can be found facilitating a social skills group, in session with a student, presenting my findings in an IEP meeting, consulting with a teacher, collaborating with teams in meetings, note taking in a training, being advised in supervision, meeting with families or simply laughing with co-workers as I rush out the door to get to class. The possibilities are endless! 
Why do you do this work: I do this work because it brings me joy and allows me to fulfill my purpose in helping students and families navigate the unfamiliar grounds of special education. 

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STAFF GUEST POST: Supporting Teachers and Addressing Burnout

11/22/2019

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At the end of October, a month usually accompanied with increased behavioral challenges, I returned to an article that speaks to teachers’ rising frustrations with student behavior: "Is School-Discipline Reform Moving Too Fast?" To be clear, I don’t believe that discipline reform is “moving too fast.” As Dan Losen, the director of UCLA’s Center for Civil Rights Remedies, states in the article: “I don’t think you can go too fast if you are trying to remedy an injustice.” This article helps me consider the best ways to support teachers who may be feeling overwhelmed by student behaviors.
 
Over the past few years, school districts nationwide have drastically reduced the use of suspensions and expulsions. The catalyst to this has been recognizing exclusionary discipline’s pernicious effect on students’ life outcomes, as well as its disproportionate application on students of color, particularly black students. While many teachers believe in the intent behind these reforms, they feel the impact is increased leniency towards disruptive behaviors. They also feel unprepared to support students who previously had been frequently suspended or expelled. As a result, in many school districts, the decrease in suspension rates has meant an increase in teacher turnover. 

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After reflecting on the article and considering my own experiences, I am focusing on two strategies to support teachers at my school who seem burned out due to student behavior. First, I model Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and restorative practices, both of which I believe will help teachers manage disruptive behaviors better than punitive or exclusionary practices. In my opinion, the teacher with the best classroom management at my school also uses the most PBIS and restorative practices. Her most common consequence is to require students to check in with her before going to recess if they are not meeting her classroom expectations. During this time, she encourages them to reflect on the root causes of their behavior and describe how they can cope with or resolve these root causes to be successful in class for the rest of the day. Students appear to recognize the purpose of this consequence—they willingly talk to the teacher—and regularly turn around their day following the check-in. Sometimes, teachers suggest to me that PBIS and restorative practices result in lower expectations and unruly classrooms; I hope, by showing that the opposite is usually true, that teachers will be more likely to buy in to these practices and lessen their own burnout.

​Secondly, I encourage teachers to adopt a positive, growth-based mindset about students with challenging behaviors, a skill that I find fundamental to my own sustainability in this work. Even with strong classroom management skills, it can be easy to feel like you are failing when students consistently display oppositional behavior and struggle to meet classroom expectations. I want to help teachers not to take oppositional behavior personally and to recognize the gradual student progress that can be easy to overlook—something that I am working on as well. When teachers express to me that a student isn’t making any growth, I encourage them with data while also emphasizing the anecdotal positive effects that they are having on the student. In my experience, teachers are more supportive of inclusion, much slower to send out students for misbehavior, and happier overall when they feel like they are having a meaningful impact on a student’s development.   

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In the article on school discipline reform, Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, says: “It is easy to ban suspensions. It is much harder to do the real work so suspensions are no longer necessary.” I believe the Unconditional Education model has the potential to advance both. We want our school partners to minimize their use of suspensions and expulsions. However, unlike what is practiced at many of the schools cited in the article, we also attempt to build teachers’ capacity so that they can support students who now are in the classroom, instead of in the office or at home because of their behaviors. I am excited by the prospect of supporting teachers in this effort, both for their own sakes and, ultimately, for the wellbeing of our students.
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Blog Post Written By: Theo Grant-Funck, Senior Student Support Assistant
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STAFF HIGHLIGHT:Keri Montesino Stewart

11/18/2019

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Name: Keri Montesino Stewart
Your Position: Unconditional Education Coach @ Grant Elementary
What led you to your current position: My main focus has always been creating systems and supporting schools to create experiences that are fun and meaningful for all stakeholders. Seneca’s focus on MTSS and Unconditional Care aligned perfectly with vision for schools so I jumped at the opportunity to be a UE Coach. This job truly provides a beautiful balance of being able to support students and educators on a individual level to make positive connections but also opportunities to examine the systems critically  to make improvements that have lasting impact for everyone.
Fun Fact/Quote: 
“Chocolate cake heals most, molten chocolate lava cake heals all”
“Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.” (Colleen Wilcox)
“Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” (Anonymous)
What does your average day look like: The fun part about this job is that the days are never the same. Some days I may be spending time in classrooms supporting students and teachers, other days I may be facilitating team meetings to support school initiatives. I also spend time coordinating and planning interventions and school-wide events to ensure student success. Additionally, I also have the privilege of meeting with teachers and community partners to strategize different ways to support high needs students. There is never a dull moment, except trying to catch up on paperwork 😊.
Why do you do this work: I am really hopeful that any school that is filled with loving and supporting adults who have high expectations for students and develop a love for learning, can change the life trajectory for at-risk students. I believe the connections we make with students and families have positive effects on their self-worth and their dreams for the future. I believe that we have the power to change the world, one student and one school at a time. 

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STAFF HIGHLIGHT: Samantha Adamson

11/18/2019

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Name: Samantha Adamson​
Your Position: Student Support Assistant @ Rosemary Elementary School in Campbell/San Jose, CA
What led you to your current position: I interned at a non-profit community based organization working in the community with children, youth and families during my final year of undergrad in San Luis Obispo. During this time, I really deepened my passion for working with this population by seeing them in their homes and communities and developing my understanding of the expansive and varying needs of each individual. Upon graduating and returning to the bay area, I knew that I wanted to find a similar organization to work for in order to gain more experience in this field before going back to school to get my Masters. When I found Seneca, I knew immediately that I wanted to work with them because of their emphasis on Unconditional Care--which is also what led me into the Unconditional Education realm rather than continuing in community based work.
Fun Fact/Quote: I went to both elementary and middle school in the same school district that I am now working in--Campbell Union School District!
What does your average day look like: Everyday is SO different. But on the most typical day I arrive to campus, respond to emails, figure out scheduling for the day, and prepare our student's behavior trackers for "Check in Check out". From here, I check in with 2-3 students and push into the classroom with the student that seemed like they might need the most support. I then provide targeted supervision during Kindergarten recess and lunch time for a student who is working on increasing safety. Throughout the remainder of the school day I push into various classrooms to provide behavioral support on a scheduled and as needed basis (again, this changes everyday). I check out with 2-3 students and reflect on where they were successful and where they may have needed more help and also provide whatever incentive they might have earned--this could be a break with a preferred peer or adult, something from our Seneca prize box or simply a walk around the school with a preferred adult. I finish my day with teacher meetings, emails, and mental health notes.
Why do you do this work: I am extremely passionate about providing support to children, youth and families in order for them to access their right to education, regardless of what might be happening at home or behaviors that may come out at school. The earlier we can intervene and provide support to these children and families, the better their chances are of feeling successful in the school environment which is something I believe everyone should experience. I also really want to see a change in our education system where we can have integrated mental and behavioral health services in conjunction with academics in order to provide support to the students who need it to help them access their learning. The more we expand this work and the Unconditional Education model into various school districts and show them that it's both effective and efficient, the more we can make an impact on the larger level.

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STAFF GUEST POST:  The TRUE Meaning of Partnership – A Shining Example ✩

11/18/2019

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As you all know, one of our All-In Partnership Project! UE Program Goals for the 2019-2020 school year is #Together: We are embedded into school communities. This means that as partners with schools, we focus on adaptive integration to ensure coherent service delivery for students and efficient processes for staff, thus building trust, relationship, and TRUE partnership. As this goal is one of the pillars of our Unconditional Education Model, it is one that cannot be highlighted enough, and can be pretty easy to achieve 😊.
While reflecting on the meaning of TRUE Partnership, I immediately thought of our partnership with Verde Elementary School in West Contra Costa Unified School District. We are currently in our 4th year of partnership with Verde and it has been an inspiring journey to witness and be a part of. After starting out with just 1 UE Coach, our staff has grown to include 1 UE Coach, 1 Clinician, and 3 Student Support Assistants thanks to a truly blended funding model consisting of school site funds, district home office funds, Medi-Cal funds, and foundation grants. There are many things that made, and continues to make, this partnership so successful. I wanted to highlight a couple tips and share a shining example of a beautiful way the partnership was celebrated.

Partnership Tips

Alignment and clear expectations
  • When the partnership first started, we made sure there was an alignment of values and goals with the home office team and the school site administrators to ensure a strong connection on all levels. This is revisited formally twice a year to hammer out the details of partnership by defining the structure, outlining what the partnership should accomplish, and understanding what constitutes each partner’s domain to help eliminate confusion for both partners. 
Consider partners a part of the team
  • One reason we stand out in the services we provide is evident in how we consider the schools we work with as partners and not just “contractors” coming in to provide a service. Instead we embed ourselves into the school communities we work with; we’re teammates! And, as with any good team, clear and well-defined roles should be established in effort to avoid possible confusion or misunderstandings. To make the partnership as valuable as it can be, it should be about learning, growing, benefiting from each other's knowledge and experience while also celebrating one another’s successes.
Give the partnership room to grow
  • Remember, we’re not just pooling resources; we’re also combining our abilities to scale and create sustainable systems to build capacity of the other adults on campus. Flexibility and extensibility are key, as extensibility is a vital element in any partnership because both our collective ability to extend resources can mean freedom for staff to innovate new ideas and ways in which they can best support the staff, students and families we are privileged to serve.  A valuable partnership should be capable of sharing resources and adapting over time.
Make honesty and transparency your “watchwords”
  • We were able to establish a successful partnership, ensuring it had the ability to grow through honesty and transparency about the services we could provide. That meant maintaining open and frequent communication as well as personal interaction as often as possible.
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A Shining Partnership Example

​During a team meeting, the Verde team identified that although there had been much progress made, they were not sure the principal was seeing it and was feeling a bit “down”. We discussed how much progress had been made thus far, acknowledging that none of it would have been possible without the principal’s leadership and partnership and thought it would be a meaningful, powerful intervention to acknowledge how much we appreciate all of his efforts. As a team, we decided to honor the principal by naming October 17th “National Mr. AV Day”. With coordination from the UE Coach (Anna Scaiano), and support from the Verde Team (Kyle Sinkoff, Monse Vazquez, Abby Romero, and Terence Adams), the entire school community (staff and students) rallied behind this surprise day and showered the principal with cards, decorations, and small tokens of appreciation throughout the day, as a way to appreciate him. The Seneca team threw him a surprise party, decked out with food and decorations, where he was presented with a registered star named after him in his honor, which also was another example of partnership as the mascot of Verde are the Stars. This was a true example of partnership and #Together as everyone on campus worked together to make this happen!
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A Huge SHOUT OUT to the Seneca Verde Team (Anna, Kyle, Abby, Monse, Terence, Laura, and Robyn) for your hard word, dedication, thought & commitment to making Verde & Seneca a beautiful Partnership!!!
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Blog Post Written By: Amber Fretwell, Senior Director of School Partnerships
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SCHOOL HIGHLIGHT: Rosemary Elementary School

11/18/2019

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Our school highlight this week is our newest partnership with Rosemary Elementary in Campbell Unified School District. Our UE partnership with Rosemary was the result of an expansion with Santa Clara County interested in building strong culture and climate and effective systems of support within schools with high needs student populations. 

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Rosemary Elementary serves a diverse student population of 450 students Tk-5th grade. A large majority of students identify as Hispanic/Latino and almost 80% of them quality for free and reduced lunch. Our partnership with Rosemary is based on the foundation of their Vision “To provide a safe, healthy and rigorous learning environment that develops the social, emotional and academic needs of the whole child.” We have four full-time Seneca staff on the site – Jennifer Uribe-Sanchez (UE coach/CIS), Crystal Garcia (CIS), Samantha Adamson (SSA) and Matthew Kang (SSA). 

Another powerful support that Seneca has been prioritizing is All Staff PD to help build the capacity of teachers. We have already provided the following trainings:
  • Trauma Informed Education – Part 1
  • Building Emotional Resilience Among Educators
  • COST/SST Process Roll Out 
The teachers on campus are our greatest resource in affecting long term sustainable positive change within their classrooms, and to closely partner with them to provide support with individual students has been a rewarding experience for our team. 
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To build upon our program-wide goal of #Together (Integration into school systems) our team continues to partner with the Principal and District administrators in adapting UE systems and frameworks; and continually reflecting upon our processes with the intention of maximizing efficiency and the quality of services we provide to the students and families. Based on all the strong and amazing work our Rosemary team has already established, we look forward to celebrating many more milestones and successes with our partnership as they year unfolds. 
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Blog Post Written By: Puja Satwani, Unconditional Education Coach
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STAFF GUEST POST: What are you cooking up this holiday? Cultural Humility?

11/11/2019

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This is the time of year where students are cutting out turkeys out of construction paper and soon, they will be sharing about their Christmas list. However, that is not the case for everyone. During this time I think about how schools are creating space for those who may not celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas and in what ways can we build an inclusive environment for all to honor other cultural traditions and practices to reduce feelings of pressure to be like everyone else or shameful because one may not celebrate those holidays. 

Another thought that surfaced recently in thinking about the Thanksgiving holiday is how to honor the narratives of the natives of this land and recognize how their side of the story is not told. I think back to my elementary school days where I was told stories about how the pilgrims and the natives came together to share food to demonstrate peace between the groups of people. I still see this story being told in our classrooms and I feel there is an opportunity to role model cultural humility by learning stories from the natives of the land to honor their voices during a holiday that may remind them of trauma that the entire native population had to experience. 

So as you are thinking about what you are going to cook this holiday season , just take a moment and  think about the untold stories and how we can start to create spaces to listen and learn from diverse cultural traditions and practices. 
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There are many critical practices for promoting anti-bias education. Here are a few to consider when entering this season of holidays and events that favor those students who participate in the dominant culture:​
  • Teaching Culturally Sensitive Holidays
  • Critical Practices for Anti-bias Education 

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Blog Post Written By: Cristina Sanchez-Cruz, Behavior Support Specialist at Montalvin Elementary School
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SCHOOL HIGHLIGHT: #Together: Embedding Into School Communities at Elmhurst United Middle School

11/11/2019

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​Unconditional Education is about serving the students who need the most intensive level of support on a school campus while also positively impacting the culture and climate of that school community as a whole.  Clinical Intervention Specialists Brittany Allinger and Caroline Larrieu Casias embody that mission every day through their outstanding work at Elmhurst United Middle School in Oakland.

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Brittany (left) and Caroline (right) represent on Twin Day during Spirit Week this year
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​Schools in low-income communities face enormous challenges of resource scarcity as they fight to promote equity and social justice.  Caroline and Brittany bring valuable clinical leadership to Elmhurst through their strengths-based approach to both the micro ​(student/family-focused) and macro (system-oriented) levels of practice. 

​Their work with students and families is grounded in respect, creativity, and cultural responsiveness.  With empathy and courage, they facilitate deeper levels of communication, connection, and understanding among family members facing serious challenges.  Through ongoing reflective practice, they continually explore how identity, power, and privilege impact their work.

Caroline and Brittany are often called upon to respond to behavioral and social-emotional student challenges and crises on campus.  In addition to responding directly, they also bring a systemic lens to those situations by consulting with school leaders to build staff capacity and implement effective and efficient systems of student support.
 
One example of the Seneca team maximizing the secondary benefit of their presence at Elmhurst came last school year when Brittany partnered with another Elmhurst staff to design and present whole-class lessons to all 6th graders focused on healthy coping strategies in dealing with emotional challenges, raising awareness and promoting inclusive dialogue about the temptations and risks of self-harming behaviors.
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Creativity is in full force in Caroline’s office where student insights are embedded into the works of art she co-creates with her students
With huge appreciation and respect to Caroline and Brittany for their work, as well as shout outs to other Seneca staff who’ve been a part of the Elmhurst/Seneca partnership over the last thirteen years, such as Mark Thibadeau (Clinician, 2007-2016), Amy Blair (Clinician and UE Coach, 2011-2016).
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Blog Post Written By: Jason Keppe, Director of School Partnerships and Training Director
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STAFF HIGHLIGHT: Sanita McNeally

11/11/2019

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Name: Sanita McNeally 
Position: Student Support Assistant (SSA) @ Wilson Elementary School
What led you to your current position? I love working with children. I wanted to be a part of a program that helps children and families in need.
Fun Fact/Quote? I can run a lap in 55 seconds.
What does your average day look like? My average day starts off with greeting my client off the bus and then heading to breakfast together. I provide ongoing support in the classroom and write mental health notes during his independent time. After school we usually take part in SSA group and collaboration meetings.
Why do you do this work? I do this work because more children are displaying social-emotional behaviors that cause them to struggle in school. I would like to help children learn skills to maximize their ability to control their behaviors to learn. 
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