Inspiring Stories

  • Our Work in Action

    Our next Demonstration School Tour of the 24-25 school year will be in Renton, WA on April 22, 2025. If you would like to RSVP or want more information, email us at hello@belongpartners.org.

  • Campbell Hill Classified Staff use Data and SEL Strategies to Help with Transitions and Recess

    Campbell Hill Classified Staff use Data and SEL Strategies to Help with Transitions and Recess

    The classified staff of Campbell Hill Elementary, in Renton, WA, works hard every day to be sure that students know they are safe, belong, and matter in the unstructured spaces like the school playground and cafeteria. This team of educators meet monthly to align their practice, continue their learning about social emotional learning and trauma-responsive…

  • School Discipline Data Points to the Need for Self-Regulation Skills

    School Discipline Data Points to the Need for Self-Regulation Skills

    Terminal Park Elementary School in Auburn, WA is one of our Whole School partners. They have an active Data Team made up of staff who are leading the implementation of Sound Discipline work at their school. Data Teams in our partner schools gather and analyze discipline data – which is documentation of when a student…

  • DOOL Youth Inspire Educators to Share Power and Create Equitable Learning Environments

    DOOL Youth Inspire Educators to Share Power and Create Equitable Learning Environments

    On October 8th a diverse crowd of educators filed into the Laser Dome at Seattle’s Pacific Science Center. However, none of them were there to see a laser show! They had all come to experience an immersive workshop designed and facilitated by youth from Sound Discipline’s DOOL program. DOOL (Designing Our Own Learning) is in its…

  • Auburn School District’s All-Staff Wellness Day Lays Foundation for a Culture of Care

    “SEL is about preparing students and staff for quality instruction, quality learning, and quality interaction, because that’s where we are spending all of our time.” – Assistant Superintendent Rhonda Larson, Family Engagement & Student Success Dept Thursday, September 1, we were thrilled to spend the ENTIRE day with Auburn School District Staff during their first…

  • Orcas in the C’s at Lakeridge Elementary

    For so many schools, it has been a tumultuous two years from school-on-a-screen to in-person learning. This is definitely the case for Lakeridge Elementary in the Renton (Washington) School District. For new 1st graders, school was in constant transition. Starting kindergarten on Zoom, they learned what it meant to be part of a classroom community through…

  • The Mindful Mentors Project in Tukwila School District

    The Mindful Mentors Project, in the Tukwila School District, brings together teens and third graders to connect as mentors and mentees, who engage together in learning about social emotional learning, mindfulness, and movement. Partnering with the students on this project are Thrive Centered (formerly Thrive Yoga), an organization that centers embodiment and provides somatic-based SEL…

  • Lakeridge Elementary’s Journey

    What is it like to transform a school into a place where all young people feel they belong, they matter, and they can grow as learners? Lakeridge Elementary, in the Renton School District, has been on just such a journey. In the spring of 2020, while navigating remote learning during school closures, the skilled Lakeridge…

  • Specialists Find Special Time with Students

    Imagine you’re a librarian at an elementary school. You have the unique opportunity of getting to interact with EVERY student in your school community and hopefully instill in them a lifelong love of reading. Cool, right? Here’s the catch: unlike a classroom educator, your time with students is limited and spread out. So, how do…

  • 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…