How can districts reverse chronic absenteeism and gain a deeper understanding of why students don’t come to school?
Can we measure how “connected” students are to their schools? How do we impact the level of connection they feel with potential mentors in their lives?
I invited Jen Perry to episode 172 of the De Facto Leaders podcast to discuss this topic and explore ways schools can assess student engagement and put meaningful programs in place to increase it.
Jen Perry is Senior Manager of Learning Design and Whole Learner at Edmentum. Jen has worked over 30+ years with youth in educational and community settings. As a teacher, administrator, and trainer, her passion has been to help educators develop an understanding of the importance of social emotional learning and build trauma-informed responses and systems. This work has included supporting youth, administrators, and schools in understanding behavior and implementing transformational change through strength-based approaches.
In this conversation, we discussed:
✅Using positive youth development models to support youth involved with the legal system.
✅Changing our assumptions about kids who have “risk factors” and resources.
✅Helping youth build developmental assets through community navigation and academic support.
✅Research on the effectiveness of high-impact tutoring in increasing attendance and student engagement.
✅How do we help kids connect academic work to meaningful life goals?
✅Giving students the language they need for self-advocacy and self-awareness.
You can listen to the entire episode here:
In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:
Whole Learner Foundations: Understanding Behavior and our Default Setting
Jen Perry on Students and Connection
Jen Perry on Teacher Well-being
Targeted Skills Instruction-Accelerate High-Impact Virtual Tutoring Services
Learn more about where to connect with Jen on Linked here or at edmentum.com.
In this episode, I mention the School of Clinical Leadership, my program that helps related service providers develop a strategic plan for putting executive functioning support in place in collaboration with their school teams.