This week, Colorado School Grades is partnering with Moms Fight Back to highlight school safety issues. Check out Moms Fight Back founder Heidi Ganahl’s first post about questions to ask when searching for a safe school for your child, and her second post about what moms can do to prevent bullying.
This week, Colorado School Grades is partnering with Moms Fight Back to highlight school safety issues. Check out Heidi’s first post about questions to ask when searching for a safe school for your child.
by Heidi Ganahl
74% of eight to 11-year-olds say teasing and bullying happen at their school according to the National Crime Prevention Council. Bullying in schools is not an unusual problem, it is not bias to age or gender and it occurs in every state across the US. The importance of taking bullying seriously cannot be overstated. Victims of bullying and bullies themselves often struggle in school, experience a low self-esteem, become depressed and turn to violent behavior. Michigan State University School Violence Specialist, Glenn Stutzky, stated, “We have a whole generation of adults in the educational system that still view bullying as ‘just that’s the way it is.’” If we want our children to be safe, enjoy school and grow up to be respectable adults, we cannot accept this as the status quo.
As moms, we must remember that our children may be involved in bullying in a variety of ways: they may be the bully, they may be the victim, or they may be the witness of bullying. All three of these situations require us to guide our children effectively and to do what we can to empower them to behave with respect and kindness toward others.
Mom’s Fight Back has written several posts on bullying including “Cyberbullying 101 + Prevention Tips,” “Schools and Students Take a Stand and Get Creative | Bullying Prevention,” and “Kids Making a Difference: Anti-bullying.” Today we want to share with you 9 things you can do as a mom to protect your child from bullying at school. These tips have been curated from the National Crime Prevention Council and StopBullying.gov.
1. Keep communication open. Ask your children how their day was and listen to what they say about school, social events, and their classmates. Pay attention and provide encouragement / guidance on any concerns or problems they share. Know who their friends are and help them feel comfortable talking to you.
2. Talk to your children about bullying and make sure they understand its consequences. Discuss what bullying is and how they can stand up for themselves and others safely. Explain why bullying is unacceptable and the negative impact it can have on people’s lives. Educate your children on where they can get help at school.
3. If you witness or hear about any bullying, respond right away. Do what you can to stop the bullying – even if your child is the one bullying.
4. Encourage your children to help others who need it and to stand up for those being picked on or teased.
5. Model how to treat others with kindness and respect. Never bully your children or bully others. Children who are bullied at home often react by bullying others. If your kids witness you hit, ridicule or gossip about someone, they will be more likely to do it themselves.
6. Support the bully prevention programs in your local school and community. If a program does not currently exist, reach out to other parents, teachers and concerned adults and start your own.
7. Teach your children how to solve problems without violence or harsh words. Recognize and praise them when they address issues, frustrations, or negativity in a peaceful and positive way.
8. Remember the importance of your kids feeling confident enough to stand up for what they believe in. Don’t hesitate when it comes to giving positive feedback and strive to have a safe and supportive home environment.
9. Encourage your kids to participate in activities they love. Pursuing their interests and hobbies can boost their confidence, help them make new friends and can help protect them from bullying.
By addressing bullying ahead of time, we have a better chance of keeping our kids engaged, happy and confident at school and at home. We will also be playing a part in the effort to decrease school violence and youth suicide. Let’s work together to be proactive and make a positive difference in the lives of our children.
Heidi Ganahl, founder and CEO of Camp Bow Wow and The Bow Wow Buddies Foundation, is also the founder of Moms Fight Back. Moms Fight Back is building a community of Colorado moms to tackle the issues only a mom is brave enough to take on! Our mission is to make moms the most important players in politics and problem solving for a happier, healthier, safer world for our kids! We may not be soldiers on the front lines, but we are soldiers nonetheless, fighting for our children’s lives; fighting to keep our kids healthy, sane, happy, safe. If not us, then who? Take the first step and join the army of moms at Moms Fight Back!
This week, Colorado School Grades is partnering with Moms Fight Back to highlight school safety issues.
by Heidi Ganahl
At Mom’s Fight Back, our main concern is keeping children safe. One of the best ways to do this is to address, understand and improve school safety. With the standard of School Choice, we have learned that choosing the right school for your child is hard enough when you are simply comparing teachers, curriculum, and performance. A vital element of your research however, should focus on school safety standards and procedures. When trying to determine the security and safety of a school, parents should speak with school officials, research the neighborhood and look into the history of school violence in the area.
The 2013 Indicators of School Crime and Safety Report, created by the National Center for Education Statistics and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, stated, “For parents, school staff, and policymakers to effectively address school crime, they need an accurate understanding of the extent, nature, and context of the problem. However, it is difficult to gauge the scope of crime and violence in schools given the large amount of attention devoted to isolated incidents of extreme school violence.” While it may be difficult to get the full picture of school safety, it is important to ask questions and seek out those in charge of school safety.
To help you get started with your research, we have curated 7 important questions you can ask when searching for the safest school for your children. To learn more, please visit www.ColoradoSchoolGrades.com, Education World, or ReGroup.Com.
The National School Safety and Security Services created a list of 10 Practical Things Parents Can Do To Assess School Security and Crisis Preparedness that may also be helpful when researching schools. One of their suggestions is to simply ask your children about the safety in the school they are currently attending. Students will likely be aware of any security issues that exist or what would help them feel safer at school. The article also provides multiple questions that you can ask school officials and school safety specialists to create a clearer picture of the school’s safety status.
If you need help getting started on what to look for when researching schools in general or going on school tours, www.ColoradoSchoolGrades.com has a great article that provides helpful tips. Once you have come up with a list of potential schools, www.ColoradoSchoolGrades.com also offers a tool to compare up to four schools at a time.
Heidi Ganahl, founder and CEO of Camp Bow Wow and The Bow Wow Buddies Foundation, is also the founder of Moms Fight Back. Moms Fight Back is building a community of Colorado moms to tackle the issues only a mom is brave enough to take on! Our mission is to make moms the most important players in politics and problem solving for a happier, healthier, safer world for our kids! We may not be soldiers on the front lines, but we are soldiers nonetheless, fighting for our children’s lives; fighting to keep our kids healthy, sane, happy, safe. If not us, then who? Take the first step and join the army of moms at Moms Fight Back!
This week, Colorado School Grades is partnering with Moms Fight Back to discuss important issues in school safety and particularly how to keep safety in mind when picking a school for your child.Moms Fight Back is led by a Colorado mom motivated to help other parents with tough issues such as Internet safety, bullying, sexual abuse and assault, and gun safety.
Some more on the organization: Moms Fight Back is building a community of Colorado moms to tackle the issues only a mom is brave enough to take on!
Our mission is to make moms the most important players in politics and problem solving for a happier, healthier, safer world for our kids! We may not be soldiers on the front lines, but we are soldiers nonetheless, fighting for our children’s lives; fighting to keep our kids healthy, sane, happy, safe. If not us, then who? Take the first step and join the army of moms at Moms Fight Back!
In this Q & A, Andy Mendrop of DSST Public Schools describes the charter management network, which runs many of the state’s top middle and high schools.
DSST’s mission is to transform urban public education by eliminating educational inequity and preparing all students for success in college and the 21st century. We have a focus on being ready for college throughout our curriculum from 6th through 12th grade. Our students are required to pass rigorous courses, like pre-calculus, before graduating from DSST. They also participate in both an internship, which gives them an eye into the working world, and a senior project which asks them to research and write an extended paper on a topic before presenting it to a panel of adult DSST community members.
Our team uses ed. tech tools to assess and determine how each of our students are doing on specific skills. This helps our entire staff to determine what type of help each of our students need. Teachers work with specific students both during and outside of class to help them understand any skills they may have missed to help ensure that they continue to be successful and on track in their class.
All DSST schools focus on creating a culture of support for students to help them be successful at school. Every morning our students meet in a small group of roughly 15 students that meet with a teacher. This gives our students and parents a solid connection to our schools.
After our students meet their advisories they go to Morning Meeting. Morning Meeting is a time when our entire student body and all of our staff meet in one room as a community. The content of the meetings focus on our six core values, colleges and creating a strong community so that everyone can achieve their goals.
Our schools also focus on helping students to realize their academic potential through our one-to-one laptop ratio and educational technology.
We are often asked “with your focus on Science and Technology do you also offer art classes, sports and extra-curricular classes?” Our response is simple: yes! We believe that a well-rounded education is important in order to have a successful academic career and a fulfilling life. Our schools offer sports, art classes and a host of after school clubs.
www.DSSTpublicschools.org
Click the photo to watch!
Many thanks to 9News for a terrific story on a fantastic school!
The best gift you can give your child as a parent is selecting a school that fits their needs and that will offer a quality education. As a mother of three children ages 6, 10, and 12, I have done more than my share of research to identify quality schools that fit their needs. My children currently attend a private school, a charter school, and an innovation public school.
So, one might ask what does the process to identify the right school for your children look like? Below are some tips based on my experience selecting the right schools for my children.
The first thing I do is write down a list of things that are important to me. For example, teaching style (project based learning, expeditionary, foreign language immersion, etc.), curriculum used (I have acquired knowledge of certain programs and I’m also a public school employee) and level of parental involvement.
I use my priorities list to narrow down schools that fit those needs. With my list I look at the schools SPF or School Performance Framework (available here), which gives me and indicator of how effective the school is at teaching their students. Another tool I use in this process is a parent based school rating website Great Schools to see how other parents have rated the school and their experiences. Colorado School Grades is another good resource to consider. I also can use this information to address areas of concern on my school visits.
Then, I set up school tours where I look for quality and content of student work being displayed in the hallways and well as visuals that display school culture. I also like to visit a classroom room where my child might be placed to get an idea of how students are instructed. School leadership is crucial for a school to thrive and succeed so when I visit schools I always make it a point to meet the school administrator to truly get a feel of the pulse of the school.
Now that I have given the school/s on my list my parental seal of approval, I like to take it a step further and have my child visit for half/full day if possible. Because they will be attending the school I want it to be a place where they feel safe, comfortable, and loved. Their experience most likely will be different from mine and this can add new perspective to your decision. If your child has and IEP (Individualized Education Plan) or any other learning plan, this would be the time to meet with who will be supporting your child and understand the services available.
Finding a school that is the best fit for your child can be a lot of work but it is well worth it. Don’t be afraid to ask bold questions and advocate for your child’s needs. You want to be ready to make an informed decision for a school that best fits your child’s needs for a great education.
Nabeehah Brown is an early childhood educator in Colorado and is the mother of 3 children attending school in Denver. She is also member of Stand for Children Colorado.
You’ve made that list of schools to tour, so what should you look for on the tour?
I found it helpful to keep the tours sorted in a spreadsheet. Here’s mine including school names, addresses, websites, tour dates, admissions deadlines (if applicable) and other pertinent details. After you take the tour, add a few thoughts about your reaction to the school into the spreadsheet while it’s fresh on your mind. After a few tours, you may find it helpful to segment the schools you’ve toured into yeses, no’s, and maybes in terms of whether you’d like to apply/put on your choice form. That can help you select what information you need to retain and what bits you can mentally file in the dusty back of the drawer.
And don’t get too attached to any one school right away. I figured that out long after the fact. It’s natural to have strong feelings about a particular school. The campus, the teachers, or the culture may really appeal to you on a deep level. But our priorities evolved throughout our tour de choice. I fell hard for one school immediately, and spent the rest of the following week trying to convince my husband that we needed to give our kids “the best” and who needs to go to Disneyland when you can go to school X and so on. And then we had our son tested and the testing consultant steered us in a completely different direction, and school X plunked right off the table.
At the end of the day, if I could go back to 2013 and talk to myself before touring schools, I would say—think carefully but open-mindedly about the schools you’d like to tour. Go into each one ready to see what there is to see and feel your feelings about the place. Capture the logistical details (and your reactions) in one place that you can refer back to you later. And then let that information marinate for a bit. You’ll have time to make a rational choice later on about which schools you want to try to get a spot in.
Megan Freedman is a freelance writer and researcher, with a special focus on medical and wellness topics. She lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband and three children
In this Q & A, Traut Core Knowledge’s Principal Mark Wertheimer describes his school, which is among the top 10 elementary schools in Colorado this year.
Our vision is educational excellence in knowledge, skills and character, with strong parent-teacher-student partnerships.
Our mission is to provide excellence and fairness in education for elementary school children. Excellence in education means raising academic standards and achieving success for all students. Fairness in education means providing equal opportunity to learn for all students. We accomplish this through our five pillars (see below).
Two projects undertaken by our second grade classrooms can help illustrate this mission in action. All second grade students memorize, illustrate, and recite the preamble to the Constitution. They then create a classroom constitution—one which embeds our character qualities within its verbiage. The students, principal, and classroom teacher all sign this document in a classroom ceremony.
Later in the year, all students research their family backgrounds. They then select one of their countries of origin and create a presentation on that country (as well as how their family came to the USA) which is performed in front of family and friends in our cafeteria.
We have over 60 staff hours per day allocated toward intervention needs. These interventions include providing differentiated instruction across ability levels, grade levels, and subject areas. We are continually fine-tuning these services, providing cross-training for our staff to be nimble enough to accommodate the needs of our population, whether it be for primary or intermediate grades, struggling or advanced students, or for math or language arts assistance.
These interventions, combined with the extensive expertise provided by our veteran classroom teachers, help us continue to our legacy as a school which continually performs at the very topmost levels in the state.
Nevertheless, as our motto states, we “Never Give Up” in our pursuit of the highest levels of academic excellence for all students.
Probably the single most unique aspect of Traut Core Knowledge School is our Parent Partnership. Traut’s governance goes beyond traditional promotion of parental involvement, input, and volunteerism, allowing for both staff and parents to have direct say on decisions impacting the school. Parents and staff have an equal vote on the Site Based Management Council, with the principal being only one member on the staff side.
Another unique aspect of our school is our wide diversity of backgrounds. One of our character traits is “Appreciation of Individual Strengths and Cultural Backgrounds: Being considerate of others without compromising your own values.” This character trait serves us well as we work with over 21 home languages, over 25% non-white students, representation from all the world’s major religions, an ever-increasing free/reduced lunch program, over 11% English Language Learners, and more.
Over 75% of our staff were or are parents. This by-product of our Parent Partnership means we are “home” to many families—even beyond the time their children actually attend here. The biggest problem facing education (and society) today is the breakdown of the family. It takes a family to raise a child, and our “family” atmosphere helps us be part of the village that supports our families.
Aside from the Parent Partnership pillar already mentioned, no description of Traut would be complete without mentioning our other four pillars—all five supporting pillars being built upon the foundation of Choice. These pillars are Core Knowledge: a content-rich curriculum—not an end in itself, but rather a means to achieve an excellent grasp of information and the ability to use that information thoughtfully; Character Education: we have identified twelve character traits, rooted in respect and responsibility, which are integrated throughout the school day; Student Responsibility: as key partners at Traut Core Knowledge School, students will succeed as they recognize and accept their responsibility for their own learning; and Mature Literacy: beginning with systematic phonics instruction accompanied by plentiful opportunities to read meaningful text, which yields mature, competent readers.
Parents want to know that their child is safe. We are careful to make sure that everyone who enters the building is visually acknowledged by a responsible adult. We have resources in place to assure adequate supervision is in place for hallways, lunchroom, recesses, and carpools. We also have a database which assists us in making sure we know where all students are at all times, including when they attending before and after school events and field trips.
Secondly, parents want to know that their child is “known” and cared for by the staff. We take special care to make sure all children connect with their teachers, tutors, and other staff. We foster positive relationships, as these are vital to the success of children.
Last but not least, we provide an incredible richness of academic opportunity for all students, which has been shown to be highly effective in seeing academic achievement across the board, no matter what the measure, every year since we began in 1992.
https://tra.psdschools.org/
Copyright © 2013 Colorado Succeeds. All rights reserved
Thanks to Riptide Hosting, Inc. for the Windows® Virtual Server web hosting
Built by 
|