'Everyone should have someone to go to'
There's a revolution under way at a small Chicago public school near a North Side housing project.
(Al Podgorski/Sun-Times)
Three years ago, Schneider Elementary began confronting the social and emotional needs of its students head on -- instead of drowning in them, as far too many Chicago public schools do.
The result?
• Many students now turn to a social worker instead of lashing out. "My stress went away and I didn't have to take it out on my classmates," Kelly Centero, an eighth-grader, said last spring.
• Kids with run-of-the-mill problems get immediate help: When a six-year-old started hitting other kids, for example, he spent three weeks in behavioral counseling instead of stewing in the principal's office. The hitting stopped, keeping the boy out of special education and returning order to his kindergarten class.
• Once-reluctant parents now visit the school social worker. "Parents want to shun mental health, but parents seek out our social worker now because they're so comfortable with him," said first-grade teacher Nyree Broom.
Fighting, suspensions and cursing out teachers, once almost daily realities at Schneider, are largely in the past. In 2003, the school reported 22 violent or serious incidents of misconduct. Last year, they reported just one.
A drop in enrollment played a role -- most Schneider families live in the nearby Lathrop Homes public housing project and many have left in recent years as the city prepares to overhaul it. But a profound shift in how Schneider helps its mostly low-income kids also made the difference.
In a series of four editorials this week, the Chicago Sun-Times is calling for a radical rethinking in how Chicago Public Schools addresses the social and emotional needs of its students. In too many schools, these needs go unattended but not unnoticed -- needy, distraught kids regularly disrupt class and drag down achievement, with some ultimately turning to violence.
This is wrong. Schneider Elementary shows it's possible to try to get it right.
With help from Children's Memorial Hospital, Schneider began formally teaching its students what some aren't getting at home: anger management, goal-setting and self-control. Critics might dismiss teaching these skills, known as "social and emotional learning," as fluff -- just teach the kids to read and write -- but research shows it leads to better behavior and higher test scores.
Every student now knows how to "do the turtle" or the "calming down" steps -- where an angry kid retreats into his "shell," takes several deep breaths and emerges without lashing out at classmates. Most classes run daily community meetings, giving kids a time to share what's happening in their lives, boosting the odds it won't come out at the wrong time -- say, in the middle of a math lesson.
Schneider Elementary, near Damen and Diversey, also added another social worker. Previously, Schneider employed a social worker and psychologist just one day a week, as at many other Chicago grammar schools, who worked almost exclusively with special needs students.
The extra social worker deals with everything that is usually neglected or handled haphazardly without another professional: He counsels kids and some parents and trained school staff to teach a social and emotional learning course. He hooks up kids who need more intensive help to a nearby DePaul University mental health center, which is taking on a larger role this school year.
Most important, the social worker was there for the kids three years straight.
"These kids don't want to spill their guts to someone who will be gone in six months," said middle school teacher Sarah Engstrom. "They cry to me when I introduce them to [a new counselor each year]: 'You want me to tell another person I've been beaten and raped?' "
The model in use at Schneider isn't perfect -- many kids and teachers are still struggling.
But it's a vast improvement over the status quo. All but the most resourceful Chicago schools scrape by with far less help.
Every school, especially the ones in our toughest neighborhoods, should be like Schneider.
And this week, the public school system started on the path to take the city there.
It launched a pilot program, similar to the Schneider effort, at five schools. It's also moving about 35 schools that currently have grants or programs that deal more directly with kids' social and emotional needs toward the Schneider model. It hopes to bring this approach to all schools by 2011.
But we fear the effort could easily flame out or be poorly implemented.
Unless we start sounding the alarm bells.
"Everyone should have someone to go to," Engstrom said. "You'd never say you don't need a math or physical education teacher."
Tomorrow: A better way.