The COVID-19 pandemic and recent racial justice movements have made it very apparent that our current approaches to keeping students safe and healthy in schools need major restructuring and reform. The country lacks mental health supports in many schools at a time when students need them most. Students of color are being punished and removed from…

People who engage in the life of a school is in a unique position to isolate and push back against the growing white nationalist movement and the hateful narratives it touts. Their job is to build schools where everyone feels valued and where our students can grow to be engaged citizens of an inclusive democracy. This sidebar article is adapted…

This article provides excerpts of "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? What America Must Do to Attract and Retain the Educators and School Staff Our Students Need" by the AFT Teacher and School Staff Shortage Task Force. The report stands as recognition that teacher and school staff shortages have been caused by a long-term disinvestment in…

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) launched a national Back to School for All (B2S) campaign in the summer of 2021. The B2S campaign was a concerted effort by teachers and staff across the United States to tackle barriers to safe, in-person learning and to ensure that all students feel welcome. The campaign served as a catalyst for bringing…

The author reflects upon how her field of African American history is in the crosshairs of this most recent battle of the nation's culture war. Once maybe regarded as a niche or narrow area of history (although it is not), African American history has become one of many targets of legislative and activist efforts to end the teaching of honest,…

As queer-identified women and former elementary school teachers who now work in universities as teacher educators, the authors spent the past decade developing a range of approaches to help elementary school teachers integrate lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ)-inclusive practices into their teaching: "expanding…

Adverse childhood experiences (typically referred to as ACEs) are potentially traumatic experiences and events, ranging from abuse and neglect to parental incarceration. A growing body of research has made it increasingly apparent that ACEs are a critical public health issue that can have negative, lasting effects on health and well-being in…

While stepped up immigration enforcement and nativist rhetoric have made immigrant communities increasingly nervous nationwide, a union-led effort in Hammond, Indiana, seeks to convince a growing Hispanic population that--in schools, at least--families have nothing to fear.

Many students participate in a wide range of school or community-based extracurricular programs. Although there is strong evidence such programs promote healthy development programs that specifically serve sexual and gender minority students (e.g., lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer/questioning [LGBTQ] students), and that address…

Few educators or philosophers of education would argue that schools' sole purpose is to keep children safe. Yet a particular subset of students in the United States--lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) students--are often served by their schools as if their mere safety were a sufficient objective in and of itself.…

The many negative effects that deficient building conditions have on educational quality have long been ignored. Until school systems can ensure all students have access to school buildings that are healthy, safe, comfortable, and dry, we cannot hope to adequately protect the well-being of students and staff, recruit and retain teachers, or…

When teachers wonder "What should I do?" in response to challenging student behaviors, the answers are not as simple as they might seem. What teachers can do also depends, at least in part, on external demands (e.g., discipline codes, principal expectations, time pressures on teaching content and testing) that can either facilitate or…

Together, a school district and a local union are working to ensure that educators are trained in restorative practices in order to improve school climates and keep students in school and learning. This article describes how, in recent years, administrators and teachers have shifted from traditional school punishments, such as suspension, to…

Upon the realization that teachers inhabit a "cage" of their own, but one very different from that which ensnares school or system administrators, the author wrote the book, "The Cage-Busting Teacher," from which this article is drawn. The author spent a year interviewing a couple hundred teachers, teacher advocates, union…

Kahlenberg and Potter report on research that shows when teachers are engaged in school decisions and collaborate with administrators and each other, school climate improves. The authors add, this promotes a better learning environment for students, which raises student achievement, and a better working environment for teachers, which reduces…