We Welcome Our Newest Whole School!
Sound Discipline is pleased to announce a new Whole School partnership with Kent School District’s East Hill Elementary.
East Hill Principal Paul Tytler had this to say about the school’s collective decision to become a Sound Discipline partner: “We know social emotional learning is a priority, and beginning this program is going to be hard work. But we are going to be doing hard work no matter what next year. We want to do that in partnership with smart people who can help us become who we want to be for our kids and families.”
East Hill Elementary School is a Title 1 school serving 426 economically and racially diverse students, and is part of the Road Map Project region. Their three-year Whole School partnership will begin in the fall of 2021 with intensive professional development. Educators will be learning and practicing skills to align their practice and school culture around trauma-informed, restorative, and Positive Discipline classroom and schoolwide approaches.
Many Washington schools struggle with discipline disparities. Sound Discipline works alongside schools to change the inequitable policies and systems that contribute to these disparities. East Hill Elementary will have a data team made up of staff who work with Sound Discipline facilitators to collect and look at discipline data, and then identify patterns and disproportionality, and define problems. The team will focus on the systems that are not working and on the skills that are lagging in adults and students, and propose and implement trauma-informed and culturally responsive solutions.
The Whole School model has been successful at reducing use of punitive and exclusionary discipline and fostering thriving cultures at 15 south King County schools during the 20-21 school year, as well as schools in eastern WA, Seattle, and Oregon. Read a case study of our partnership with Bryn Mawr Elementary in Renton.
In addition to engaging all of East Hill’s 37 educators (teachers and classified staff), Sound Discipline will also offer opportunities to East Hill families to learn and take home some of the same approaches used at school.
Sound Discipline Director of Program Stacy Lappin says, “Principal Tytler and his team at East Hill are taking action to walk the talk of their equity and inclusion values. They are committed to building an equitable learning community where everyone knows they belong and can learn and thrive. We are thrilled to come alongside these committed and caring educators and families as they make deep and lasting change.”
For more information contact info@belongpartners.org or 206-782-1595.