Union Response to Students' Stress and Trauma

Members from all 3 councils and all three campuses spent the March 24 Wellness Day participating in the IFT Trauma Informed Training Session. Here were some key takeaways:
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Kara Schnoeker: On March 24th during the teacher institute, I was fortunate enough to attend the Trauma-Informed Teaching Training Session with colleagues and friends. It is hard to put into words how useful and enlightening the training was. Those of us who attended training were able to collaborate with each other on how to best support our students, our colleagues, and ourselves emotionally. We had really amazing and productive conversations as a whole group and in small groups. I felt like we accomplished so much in such a short period of time, and it sparked some much-needed conversations and assessments on how we respond to different scenarios in the classroom. It is amazing to me how so many of us shared similar thoughts and feelings, but had never discussed them in a group setting. This training was a wonderful experience, and I am very happy that I made the decision to attend.
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Tiffany Stellhorn: 1) I experienced an in-depth hour-long training on how to do a restorative circle. Even though I’ve experienced restorative circles within my classroom, with assistant principals and parents, this training strengthened my ability to create a conducive learning environment. I don’t have a fear or nervousness about the Advisory period next year. 2) Throughout the day, we went into depth of our strengths as a district and our challenges as a district. We realize that only half our staff will read about our experience (and that’s optimistic). We have this Advisory Period next year where we have no idea where/what to expect. However, at this training, we connected as colleagues. I gained friendships and trust with others I never would’ve done on my own. It re-filled my “cup. 3) The overarching goal I feel now is how can we as a union help each other. Towards the end of the day, we were left with the “Now what?” Those of us in the training created a Google Chat/Space to start sharing ideas of how we continue. Next step so far is to attend the DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) Summit on June 8th.