• Lunch time! How Bryn Mawr Elementary Creates Community in the Lunchroom

    We all have distant memories of a loud, chaotic lunchroom, where students often had their heads down for being too loud and left lunch a bit dysregulated and less ready to learn. At Bryn Mawr Elementary, the staff has creatively addressed one of the key sources of stress for all schools this year – how […]

  • How Teachers can move from “What is Wrong with You?!” to “What Happened to You?”

    We now know that childhood trauma, including ongoing toxic stress, has a profound impact on brain development and behavior. In fact, behaviors teachers see in the classroom that seem to make no sense may actually be a student’s adaptive responses that show a brain’s capacity for prioritizing survival. When we blame the student or take […]

  • How Parents & Caregivers can move on from “What’s Wrong with Me?”

    Our early experiences shape us in profound ways. If those experiences were persistently stressful or traumatic in your early life, you may suffer from the results of adversity, just like millions of other parents and caregivers. Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey teamed up on a new book titled What Happened To You? that illuminates […]

  • We Belong & Matter: Community Conversations

            Sign up for our newsletter to be notified of upcoming community conversations. Previous Events Disrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline: A Free, Online Community Conversation In partnership with Sound Discipline, CHOOSE180, The Freedom Project WA, and the documentary film Since I Been Down. Tuesday, March 15, 12 – 2:00pm. Registration for this event […]

  • How to Help Kids Rebuild Their Stamina for the New School Year

    Masked up, many children have headed back to in-person learning. Though the academic load has not yet become heavy, the time in isolation has taken its toll in many ways. Just like an athlete returning to training after post-injury recuperation, our kids need to slowly build back the stamina they once had.  We can help […]

  • Teachers & Students Need to Rebuild Stamina for this School Year

    We may be back to in-person learning, but it’s anything but normal. Masks, social distancing, altered scheduling, and new safety protocols make the days almost unrecognizable from where we were in March 2020. One of the biggest differences? The amount of stamina you may have for this new normal. And it won’t just be you. […]

  • Gathering Student Input and Learning About Feelings

    Redwood Elementary in Grants Pass, Oregon is one of the schools in our District Partnerships program. Last school year, the school’s data team collected data about student behaviors that were most challenging to the staff. One of the challenging behaviors was defiance. Initially, the data team started thinking about it from the teachers’ perspective, wondering […]

  • Repackaging Consequences Does Not Create Equitable Learning Communities

    As the new executive director of Sound Discipline, I spend a lot of time studying everything I can about education equity, and social emotional learning. A few weeks ago, I read an article that I found disturbing:  “How Novice and Expert Teachers Approach Classroom Management Differently.” Citing a 2021 study, the author asserts that it […]

  • Terminal Park Elementary

    We Welcome a New Whole School!   Sound Discipline is pleased to announce a new Whole School partnership with Auburn School District’s Terminal Park Elementary.   Terminal Park Elementary in the Auburn School District will be a Sound Discipline Whole School for the 2021-22 school year. Professional development for the entire staff will be the initial […]

  • Third Annual “Designing Our Own Learning” Summer Intensive

    This summer Sound Discipline hosted our third annual “Designing Our Own Learning” (DOOL) intensive summer program. For a look back at the first two years of the program, check out Facilitator Alan Wong’s post on the College Spark Foundation’s blog. For two weeks in August, diverse students and teachers from Evergreen High School and Dimmitt […]