These SEL strategies address bullying behavior

Uplift Education is a high-performing charter school network in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. We serve approximately 17,000 scholars in a rigorous college preparatory environment, and are in the process of authorizing our schools in the full continuum of the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. The International Baccalaureate focuses on interdisciplinary lessons, cultural understanding, and character development.

Positive school culture and strong relationships are the underpinnings of high academic achievement. We know that bullying can impact school culture and climate, and we also know that a positive school climate has the power to decrease harmful instances of bullying.

Bullying Hurts Academic Performance and School Climate…Read More

Identifying wolves among sheep in the age of student cyberbullying

It’s sad news when research centers can’t agree on whether cyberbullying affects one-in-three, one-in-four, or one-in-five teens.  It isn’t the specific number that’s important; it’s the fact that the number never goes below 20 percent. Imagine being in a classroom of 25 people, knowing that this classroom is not “normal” unless at least five of those students are being bullied.

There are as many ways to cyberbully someone as there are ways to create content online. Social networks? Check. Forums? Check. Blogs?  Check. You get the picture.

Still, most cyberbullies love email, text and IM. They go to great lengths to remain anonymous and most of all get a reaction. The worst effect in my opinion of cyberbullying is well put by a ten-year-old girl from California. “Being bullied isn’t great because after a while you start to believe the stuff that they said to you. I still cry whenever I think about what they said.” …Read More

6 musts when selecting an A+ identity and access management solution

Summer is over, and most schools and colleges are back in session. As with every year, the biggest challenge for IT departments presents itself during the lead-up to the first day of class and the first couple of weeks that follow. Unlike other industries, the education sector has specific identity and access management (IAM) needs. Provisioning accounts for new students and teachers, de-provisioning accounts of students and staff who have left, providing users secure access to the right resources, frequently changing users’ roles, and tracking changes to meet regulatory requirements are just the start.

With IT becoming an important part of the classroom, choosing an IAM solution that can meet all these demands is crucial for the day-to-day function of schools and colleges. Here are some pointers to keep in mind while shopping for an IAM solution that’s a fit for the education industry.

1. Dynamically Provision Accounts for Students …Read More

Why protecting students at school is much more than just internet monitoring

The use of technology in schools has provided students with a whole new way to connect and communicate with each other and their teachers, in addition to being a great source for learning. However, on the flipside, access to the wider internet may mean that there is a temptation for students to access websites with inappropriate content–or use it as a platform where negative behavior can escalate, such as for cyberbullying or other undesirable activities.

Just as technology plays its part in spreading such problems in schools, it also has a significant role to play in quashing them. The use of online filtering and monitoring tools to monitor students’ internet activity has been a requirement of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) for some time now, but it alone doesn’t provide the bigger picture of what’s really happening.

Big Brother vs Protection …Read More

Preventing bullying through…fiction? It works!

When you read, you become another person, if only for a short while. You see how that person lives and how they think. You experience their hopes and fears, and you see how they’ve come to be who they are. If you read five different books, you have a window into the lives of five different people. That’s what empathy is: to feel for that other person, and it opens you up to different experiences you may never have otherwise been able to share.

There have been numerous studies showing that people who read fiction have increased empathy. This is why fiction is one of the most powerful tools we have to combat bullying and intolerance.

When you see the world through another person’s eyes, you realize how similar you are to them, even if that person might seem very different from you.…Read More

How one teacher combats bullying by “Standing up for Pink”

Bullying has, unfortunately, become a common term in today’s education world. All students get into the occasional squabble or call another student a name—but bullying is different.

Bullying is defined by negative actions, which are intentional, repeated, negative, and show an imbalance of power between the students. We’ve come a long way in the past few decades in acknowledging bullying and confronting it as a real problem in our schools. At some point, we decided this wasn’t just a normal part of school; it was something that was deeply hurting the development of our students, and we didn’t have to accept it.

As a teacher, it is my responsibility to teach my students compassion, empathy, and respect at a young age. These things become fundamental values to them as adults.…Read More

How video cameras help improve classroom learning and campus safety

When Micah Watson, an 8-year-old with autism, came home with bruises, his parents suspected their son had been mistreated in a closet-sized “calm room” at Plano ISD’s Miller Elementary School. It took two years for the child’s mother, Bethany Watson, to finally see video from that day, which showed Micah being forced into a tiny padded room at the elementary school in Texas. The door was held shut while the child yelled, “No! No! Let me out now!” At one point the teacher egged Micah on with, “Kick me. You’ve already done it. I don’t care.”  The student was knocked to the ground in an attempt to remove his shoes. When the child begged to be let out, the teacher responded, “No.”

This horrific incident led to important changes at Plano ISD and throughout the state of Texas. The teachers involved in the incident were fired. All calm room spaces at Plano schools must now be at least 50 square feet and without doors. This episode, combined with similar high-profile occurrences across the state, led Texas to pass SB507, requiring cameras in special education classrooms. Advocates of the law say the video cameras go a long way in both easing parent concerns and in protecting teachers from wrongful accusations.

The topic of video cameras in the classroom has been brewing for years. Schools that have deployed cameras in public areas have experienced dramatic safety benefits. For example, Fraser Public Schools in Michigan found that the incidents of fighting dropped to near zero. Police officers have found body cams provide an important defense against false accusations.…Read More

3 school security musts for summer kick off

I don’t really need to belabor the point that securing educational institutions is both incredibly challenging and crucially important; it’s a bit like describing the importance of water to a fish. Schools and universities are here for the primary purpose of education, but they often have groups devoted to healthcare, finance, retail, and research, among the other usual administrative departments like human resources and accounting.

And with that breadth of service comes an alphabet soup of security compliance regulations that you need to be aware of; like HIPAA, CIPA, COPPA, FERPA and PPRA. And within higher education, there is also the expectation of an openness of information within and throughout the organization. How on earth can colleges and universities be expected both to fiercely guard and freely share information?

Information and Assets in Context…Read More

Warning: These fraud attacks are wreaking havoc on education

On March 14, it was reported in CSO (a leading cybersecurity outlet) that 110 organizations experiences successful phishing attacks targeting their W-2 records. This put more than 120,000 taxpayers at risk for identity fraud.  Despite warnings from the IRS in early February, employees continue to fall victim to the bad guys’ ploys.

This wildly successful phishing scheme works like this: malicious actors spoof (or pretend to be) the CEO or President of a company and email a CFO or similarly positioned employee to request copies of all employees’ W-2 forms. The employee falls victim to the fake email, shares confidential information and the damage is immediately done.

W-2 Fraud attacks are particularly dangerous because of the ongoing fall out. In fact, IRS Commissioner, John Koskinen wrote in a statement, “This is one of the most dangerous email phishing scams we’ve seen in a long time. It can result in the large-scale theft of sensitive data that criminals can use to commit various crimes, including filing fraudulent tax returns.”…Read More

How I use Skype to prevent school violence

21st century schools must include effective and high impact approaches to school violence prevention and student conflict resolution. Unfortunately, “school-wide” or “outside speaker” approaches to reducing student violence and conflict have largely proven to be ineffective.

Too often these “imported models” do not have a lasting impact on student conflict and violence prevention.  Students listen to the “guest speaker” and then go back to the old habits after lunch. Predictably, these “dose-effect” programs rarely exist long enough to be properly evaluated.

However, emerging interactive video technologies can support new and innovative approaches to the preventive and reflective side of school violence prevention and conflict resolution.…Read More

Teachers and IT: How to keep kids safe on Chromebooks

Just a few short years ago, Apple was the undisputed king of tech in schools. If you didn’t have iPads in your classroom, you were planning to get them soon. But today the momentum has shifted dramatically. Google’s Chromebook has almost completely replaced Apple’s iconic tablet as the first choice for classroom-tech initiatives.

Chromebooks are in many ways ideal for classrooms, allowing teachers to leverage online resources to provide richer, more differentiated educational experiences to your students. In addition, Chromebooks have multiple, substantial layers of built-in security, providing peace of mind regarding certain types of cyber threats.

To improve on that security, school IT probably also use a secure web gateway appliance and a firewall to protect students and staff from web-borne threats. Depending on the solutions the school or district has chosen to install, this is effective—as long as the devices are connected to the school network.…Read More

Cyberbullying is NOT a technology issue-here’s how to really combat it.

Cyberbullying continues to grow and present itself as a huge challenge for schools, government policy makers, stakeholders, parents and the community—but is regulating access to technology and social media the answer?

Though the online platforms may be relatively new, cyberbullying should not be separated from bullying. Both behaviors are about relationship power and control, otherwise known as “relational bullying;” therefore, it requires a relationship management-based type of approach in dealing with its impact and prevention.

When conducting my Digital Age Parenting classes, one of the things I share with parents is information about how their child is using a device to say and do things to hurt someone or put themselves in danger. However, the device is only facilitating the interaction between the person and the situation.…Read More