Inspiring Stories

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Third Annual Designing Our Own Learning Summer Intensive

    Third Annual Designing Our Own Learning Summer Intensive

    In the summer of 2021, Sound Discipline (now BELONG Partners) 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…

  • Lakeridge Elementary Engages in Culturally Relevant SEL Content Schoolwide/ K-5th grade

    This month we are featuring some important work being done by two educators at Lakeridge Elementary School in the Renton School District. Jenna Middleton, SEL coach, and Angela Varela, counselor, began with a few questions – What could it look like for our students to receive culturally relevant and responsive lessons? How could we incorporate…

  • A Creative SEL Screener Tool for Remote and In-person Learning

    Remote learning has many challenges, one of the biggest being a lack of connection. Without the ability to read body language, see faces, and spot someone in a hallway, how can educators connect with their students to see how their doing?   After the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) mandated the adoption…

  • Lowell Elementary’s Educational Enhancement Site

    When the pandemic hit last year and school buildings were shut down, the staff at Lowell Elementary in Seattle quickly saw the disproportionate impact remote learning was having on many of their students of color and those without stable housing. While some students in their school had the technology and support from their caregivers to…