Session 4

Post your Blog information here:

Personal or Professional

               Personal or Professional

• As you read the blogs in Activity 1, you may have noticed that the line between professional ideas and personal opinions became blurred. How do you think this kind of transparency affects the school community? 

• Were you more drawn to those posts with personal reflections or did you prefer to read blogs in which the author focused on the issues important to school leaders? 

• What are your initial thoughts about the type of blog you would want to maintain? 

• How would this type of blog meet your administrative needs? 

Conflict Resolution

Conflict Resolution Programs

Reduce Aggression & Enhance Learning

An excerpt from A Powerful Peace: The Integrative Thinking Classroom

Found in: classroom management, discipline

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The effect of aggressive behavior on the classroom environment is significant. For three decades studies continue to show that the majority of surveyed teachers feel that aggressive students undermine learning for others and most feel that academic achievement would improve dramatically if the problem were remedied.

Three quarters of the public surveyed agrees. The research shows that a set of social skills commonly lacking in people prone to violent and aggressive behavior [include poor] impulse control, problem-solving, and anger management (Committee for Children, 1997, p.1). Victims and bystanders of aggressive and angry students often lack assertive communications skills, as well (Marano, 1995).

Conflict resolution program evaluations show that programs which address these issues not only reduce aggression and violence in communities and their schools, but also provide "life-long decision making skills" (U.S. Dept. of Justice, 1997, p. 55), and enhance the self-esteem of students.         

Stop the Violence

Student, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Program

Overview

The STOP School Violence Act of 2018 seeks to improve school security by providing students and teachers with the tools they need to recognize, respond quickly to, and prevent acts of violence. Both the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services offer grants to improve security within our Nation's schools and on school grounds through evidence-based programs.

How BJA Supports the STOP School Violence Act of 2018

BJA provides grants to states, units of local government, and Indian tribes to:

• Train school personnel and educate students on preventing student violence against others and themselves.
• Develop and operate anonymous reporting systems for threats of school violence, including mobile telephone applications, hotlines, and internet websites.
• Develop and operate:
  • School threat assessment and intervention teams that may include coordination with law enforcement agencies and school personnel
  • Specialized training for school officials in responding to mental health crises
• Support any other measure that, in the determination of the BJA Director, may provide a significant improvement in training, threat assessments and reporting, and violence prevention.

Evidence-based Strategies and Programs

Award recipients must use evidence-based strategies and programs such as those identified by the National Institute of Justice's Comprehensive School Safety Initiative. Specifically, the STOP Violence Act requires that any programs, practices, technologies, or equipment funded by BJA demonstrate a statistically significant effect on outcomes based on:

• Strong evidence from at least one well-designed and well-implemented experimental study
• Moderate evidence from at least one well-designed and well-implemented quasi-experimental study

Promising evidence from at least one well-designed and well-implemented correlational study with statistical controls for selection bias.