Eliminating Barriers to Student Success
FirstLine’s whole child education framework is designed to prepare students in mind, body, and spirit for positive life outcomes. This means focusing on our students’ social and emotional learning as well as providing excellent academic instruction. Social and emotional learning is the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions. Through professional development in trauma-informed education and school community-building practices, FirstLine is embedding a culture of social and emotional learning and Community Commitments that are grounded in racial equity across our schools, and in our network administrative spaces.
Recognizing that children become better prepared to master rigorous academic standards as adults become more skillful in nurturing them socially and emotionally, FirstLine partners with Tulane Safe Schools to develop teacher competency and empathy for students with the highest learning difficulties due to adverse childhood experiences (ACES).
We are also implementing a comprehensive social and emotional learning program based on the Valor Collegiate Academies model in Nashville, Tennessee. Valor’s “Compass Developmental Pathway” teaches self-regulation, trust, and conflict resolution and develops supportive relationships through regular character-development Phase Work and direct peer feedback through community Circle Work. Students develop ten habits across five disciplines: Sharp Mind (curiosity and diversity), Noble Purpose (joy and identity), Big Heart (courage and kindness), Aligned Actions (determination and integrity) and True North (balance and presence). The model has resulted in exemplary academic achievement in Nashville, where over 50% of Valor’s families live in poverty. FirstLine is piloting the program at Langston Hughes and Live Oak in 2019-20 and implementing a strategic plan to embed it at all of our schools in the near future. Check out this video about the Valor program.