SCHOOL HIGHLIGHT: Ford Elementary

When we start our partnerships with schools using the Unconditional Education Model, we are upfront with our partners that the goal is to work ourselves out of a job.  Research has shown that school change takes between 3-5 years.  During this time, we hope to help schools develop, implement, and maintain sustainable systems that they can continue holding on their own.  Ford Elementary, located in the West Contra Costa Unified School District, is an example of success in this regard.  We started the partnership at Ford with a full time Unconditional Education Coach for the first four years.  In the next two years, we stepped back our support and had a coach on site 3 days a week to maintain the systems and continue to build capacity of the school-based staff.  This scaffolded support was especially helpful as it fell during the two years of distance learning. For the current school year, we have a consultation model where school staff are running the systems that have been put in place while receiving weekly consultation and guidance from Seneca to maintain and continue to improve on those systems.  The school has been able to sustain may of the structures that were put in place by the Unconditional Education Coach including:

• Monthly all day Coordination of Services Team meetings to help problem solve, plan, and coordinate student interventions
• Bi monthly Office Discipline Referral meetings where staff examine data from behavioral discipline referrals and create interventions based on the patterns that are occurring.  They are also able to get feedback from teachers regarding the interventions that are implemented
• Monthly Culture and Climate Team meetings where a diverse team uses data from the Tiered Fidelity Inventory, Trauma Informed Index, and School Climate Assessment Index to develop a year long plan to improve culture and climate.
• Beginning of year Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) expectations lessons, with a mid year reteach event scheduled for January

We are so proud of the long term impact that the Unconditional Education Model has had on this school community, and hope to continue creating these sustainable systems on our other school campuses.  

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Blog Post Written By: Laura Lin, Director of School Partnerships ​