This year, Unconditional Education West Bay launched a brand new partnership with John Muir Elementary School in San Francisco. With our incredible UE Coach, Raquel Monge, we hit the ground running with several assessments to gather information about the school's cultural strengths and growth areas. While the school is teeming with amazing, skilled adults who love their students and do incredible work with them, there were a few structures and systems needed to harness that energy into effective interventions that move the needle for kids. First, the team came together to create a gorgeous Wellness Center with a defined protocol where children can come to practice coping skills and self-regulate when experiencing strong emotions at school. The room contains centers into which kids can self-select and practice a skill that aligns with their strengths and interests (i.e. art, building, meditation, movement, etc). Next, the team saw a need to support adult wellness on campus, as educators are overwhelmed by elevated student needs in the wake of the pandemic. Raquel teamed up with other leaders on campus to design a series of workshops for staff around wellness, self-care and community-care. Finally, the data illuminated a need around building consistency in staff's responses to behaviors that disrupt learning (i.e. elopement from class, fighting, throwing objects, etc). Raquel worked with the admin team to draft an in-depth behavior response guide and brought it to a larger team for feedback and input. The team is now designing a workshop for staff to train them on the new protocol. With so many innovative approaches happening in the first 3 months of this partnership, we cannot wait to see all that this team accomplishes this school year. Goooooooo, Team Muir!
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Blog Post Written By: Jonathan Barnette Tugbenyoh, Director of School Partnerships
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