At the heart of Unconditional Education are the relationships we build. A commitment for each and every student to feel supported, welcomed, connected and safe in their school community. However, it can be easy to lose hope and sight of this vision as we support school sites where the impact of violence is ongoing, and administrators and staff are managing crises on a daily basis.
As of January 2024, it has been one year since Seneca began our partnership with Monroe Middle School. While it often takes more time to build our relationships and embed ourselves in a school community, the administrative team at Monroe Middle School, led by their principal Ruth Stephens Radle, has embraced us fully. She shines a light on the many challenges students and families face in the Monroe Middle School community and strives to improve upon the school climate and support for young people. For her this means- first and foremost - focusing on school staff’s relationships with the youth.
Her commitment to relationship is exemplified by one impactful activity that I’d like to highlight as an inspiring practice– the dot activity. Ruth shares her inspiration to bring the 'dot activity' to Monroe Middle School came from Project Cornerstone, where their education director looked into the research about what drives resiliency in students. Not surprisingly, students who do well usually have at least one adult in their life they feel connected to and supported by. This is at the heart of what Seneca Family of Agencies believes as well, which makes our partnership a perfect match.
At an all staff meeting in the beginning of the year, Ruth posts the names and pictures of all 700+ students from her middle school on the wall, divided by grade level. Each teacher is then asked to look at the faces of all the young students and place a yellow dot sticker to the left of a student’s photo if they have a relationship with the student in which the student would go to them for help if needed, and place a red dot sticker to the right of the student's picture if they have any worries about the student, whether it is academic, social- emotional, or behavioral concerns.
Looking around the room you can immediately see a snapshot of how all the students are doing, as well as how the teachers feel about their relationships with the youth. Ruth shares that often the students who have a lot of red dots also have a lot of yellow dots. It is the students with no yellow dots that she is the most worried about.
In the next meeting, Ruth engages her whole staff team to focus on the students with no yellow dots, asking each teacher to choose 3-4 students who they will intentionally reach out to in the next few weeks. This year Ruth shares she also provided teachers with specific, research-based strategies to choose from to engage with the students they have identified. For example, a strategy called the "2 x 10" focuses on engaging the student in a 2-minute conversation over 10 consecutive days, working on building a relationship and getting to know the student outside of the classroom. The Monroe Middle School's intervention team then focuses their efforts on the students who had 3 or more red dots, delving into other data measures to further determine what the risk/need is for each of those students and how to address those needs.
This is now the 2nd year Ruth has had Monroe Middle School's teachers engage in the 'dot activity'. She shares there are still a lot of barriers to overcome - mostly in people's mindset about the importance of this activity and the amount of time needed to dedicate to it, but as Ruth quotes Rita Peterson's Ted Talk, "kids don't learn from teachers they don't like". Relationships are what is critically important to building students' resiliency and success, not only in education but also in life.
Partnering with Ruth and Monroe Middle School is an exciting opportunity for us to join in the vision of expanding teacher's perspectives from being "hyper-focused" on certain students to seeing the connectedness and community-health across the entire student-body. Seneca’s Unconditional Education model truly values celebrating what's going well for children, families and schools, and the Dot Activity allows the whole school team to do just that. Additionally, Ruth's vision of collaboration emphasizes that it is not any one person's job to "carry it all". Working together we can have an accelerated impact on the lives of our students and "all lift this together". Just as Unconditional Education aims to help every student thrive, Ruth's vision is that all the adults at Monroe Middle School will see their part in eliminating barriers through coming together as a community. As Rita Peterson reminds us - "Every child deserves a champion, an adult who will never give up on them."
As of January 2024, it has been one year since Seneca began our partnership with Monroe Middle School. While it often takes more time to build our relationships and embed ourselves in a school community, the administrative team at Monroe Middle School, led by their principal Ruth Stephens Radle, has embraced us fully. She shines a light on the many challenges students and families face in the Monroe Middle School community and strives to improve upon the school climate and support for young people. For her this means- first and foremost - focusing on school staff’s relationships with the youth.
Her commitment to relationship is exemplified by one impactful activity that I’d like to highlight as an inspiring practice– the dot activity. Ruth shares her inspiration to bring the 'dot activity' to Monroe Middle School came from Project Cornerstone, where their education director looked into the research about what drives resiliency in students. Not surprisingly, students who do well usually have at least one adult in their life they feel connected to and supported by. This is at the heart of what Seneca Family of Agencies believes as well, which makes our partnership a perfect match.
At an all staff meeting in the beginning of the year, Ruth posts the names and pictures of all 700+ students from her middle school on the wall, divided by grade level. Each teacher is then asked to look at the faces of all the young students and place a yellow dot sticker to the left of a student’s photo if they have a relationship with the student in which the student would go to them for help if needed, and place a red dot sticker to the right of the student's picture if they have any worries about the student, whether it is academic, social- emotional, or behavioral concerns.
Looking around the room you can immediately see a snapshot of how all the students are doing, as well as how the teachers feel about their relationships with the youth. Ruth shares that often the students who have a lot of red dots also have a lot of yellow dots. It is the students with no yellow dots that she is the most worried about.
In the next meeting, Ruth engages her whole staff team to focus on the students with no yellow dots, asking each teacher to choose 3-4 students who they will intentionally reach out to in the next few weeks. This year Ruth shares she also provided teachers with specific, research-based strategies to choose from to engage with the students they have identified. For example, a strategy called the "2 x 10" focuses on engaging the student in a 2-minute conversation over 10 consecutive days, working on building a relationship and getting to know the student outside of the classroom. The Monroe Middle School's intervention team then focuses their efforts on the students who had 3 or more red dots, delving into other data measures to further determine what the risk/need is for each of those students and how to address those needs.
This is now the 2nd year Ruth has had Monroe Middle School's teachers engage in the 'dot activity'. She shares there are still a lot of barriers to overcome - mostly in people's mindset about the importance of this activity and the amount of time needed to dedicate to it, but as Ruth quotes Rita Peterson's Ted Talk, "kids don't learn from teachers they don't like". Relationships are what is critically important to building students' resiliency and success, not only in education but also in life.
Partnering with Ruth and Monroe Middle School is an exciting opportunity for us to join in the vision of expanding teacher's perspectives from being "hyper-focused" on certain students to seeing the connectedness and community-health across the entire student-body. Seneca’s Unconditional Education model truly values celebrating what's going well for children, families and schools, and the Dot Activity allows the whole school team to do just that. Additionally, Ruth's vision of collaboration emphasizes that it is not any one person's job to "carry it all". Working together we can have an accelerated impact on the lives of our students and "all lift this together". Just as Unconditional Education aims to help every student thrive, Ruth's vision is that all the adults at Monroe Middle School will see their part in eliminating barriers through coming together as a community. As Rita Peterson reminds us - "Every child deserves a champion, an adult who will never give up on them."
Blog Post By: Jennifer Lin, Clinical Supervisor
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