The Alabama Whole Community Whole Child (WC2) partnership is a decade-long blueprint for sustainable and comprehensive community-wide change. To be successful, community-wide sustainable change must embrace common vision, language, and experiences to address common conditions that give rise to mental, emotional, behavioral, and health difficulties. Common solutions to address common conditions include shared goals, strategies, and aligned supports ensure that every youth is safe, supported, engaged, healthy, and challenged in schools and in the community-at-large. In this article, we discuss the following aspects of the WC2: 1) The need for a public health approach to sustainable change; and 2) the vision of the WC2 model.

Tue Apr 27 07:17 AM

“Dorgol”: A New Word Captures a Simple Leadership Principle

Tue Apr 13 07:13 AM

This week, I participated in a series of Zoom calls with classroom teachers around the country. While we focused on the academic and social, emotional, and behavioral goals of our five-year federal School Climate Transformation Grants, we spent most of our time—not surprisingly—talking about ways to teach students for the rest of the school year.

Tue Mar 30 08:38 AM

Charles Plumb was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience!

Tue Mar 09 07:45 AM

Both observation and personal experience are powerful instructional tools, but the key is to be alert, have a teachable attitude, and open to the instruction. For me, some of the most powerful and memorable lessons have been born out of specific situations and personal relationships. Some of those situations and circumstances were characterized by success and celebration while others were delivered through the school of adversity in the university of hard knocks. The personal relationships that have had the greatest impact, both personally and professionally, are those that taught me to graciously treasure the moment or courageously weather the storm, depending on the circumstances that confronted me in this often-unpredictable journey called life.

Tue Feb 23 07:02 AM

Featured content from Dr. Kevin Elko

Tue Feb 09 08:56 AM

To recover from all the learning losses and dislocations caused by Covid-19, we need to greatly expand the afterschool and summer programs that survived and restart and launch new quality summer opportunities in 2021 and 2022, and afterschool opportunities in the 2021-22 school year and beyond. To make this almost quantum leap forward in summer and afterschool expansion, key state and local leaders should analyze how to create incentives, strengthen family-school community partnerships, increase funding, and reduce barriers for these crucial opportunities. The Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations (CRRSA) Act that was signed into law on December 27, 2020, includes several funding opportunities that can significantly support afterschool and summer learning programs in 2021 and 2022.

Tue Jan 26 08:25 AM

By: Terry K. Peterson, Ph.D. and Felicia Simpson, Ed.S. Research supports the growing potential of summer and afterschool opportunities and Partnerships to facilitate academic recovery from the COVID 19 pandemic. Learning losses, health issues, parents losing their jobs, lack of socialization, lack of childcare, and food insecurity are impacting every community, school, and state during these unprecedented challenges. A growing body of research and best practices show how quality afterschool and summer opportunities can help address some of the negative impacts of Covid-19.

Tue Jan 05 09:39 AM