The training is called ‘Reframing Behavior,’ provided by the Crisis Prevention Institute, an international organization that provides evidence-based programs. It’s paid for by $90,000 in Title IV funds, which provide student support and academic enrichment.
The core mission of the training is for district employees to understand neuroscience in terms of the body’s response to stress and anxiety, which then affects how they teach and learn. This training will improve educators’ self-regulation of their emotions, so they can then help a student move through a fight, flight, or freeze response and return to learning.
District staff Andrea Raines, Susan Cole, and Megan Demolina are the core team — representing the human resources and student services departments — overseeing each school's facilitators. Those facilitators were trained back in December; now it’s time for them to lead their school through about an hour and a half of training each month until April.
The core team said staff typically have about 30 minutes of online tutorials through CPI and will spend an hour discussing student behavior in small or large group settings. They hope these trainings will establish a common language when responding to behavior. Anywhere from teachers, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, administrators, and other support staff are all getting trained.
When it comes to reframing an adult’s perspective, the training has four main components: understanding how the brain works or the basics of neuroscience; learning self-awareness through tools to increase emotional regulation; accepting that student actions are not always intentional (that they are connected to a fight-or-flight or freeze response), and developing relationships over time to build a positive working environment.
Susan Cole, a district school psychologist, acknowledges that educators face many variables that are out of their hands, but they do have control over some things.
“The way they respond to students and the way they set their environments up for students to be successful is very much within their control, and we're sort of helping build that sense of efficacy so that students engage and learn,” she said.
Cole said that’s where the adult self-awareness piece comes in. Take a hypothetical student named Johnny, who is disruptive in class.
“What might Johnny need might be the first step, but again, I think even before that, helping teachers recognize the emotions and the feelings and the thoughts that Johnny's behavior elicits, and so what do I do with those thoughts feelings so that I can respond to Johnny in a productive and effective way?” she said.
The core team said some of the strategies for educators could include breathing exercises or counting to ten before reacting, but the approach is different for each person.
Andrea Raines, the district’s beginning teacher and educator development specialist, puts it another way, saying, it’s about the environment.
“We are either creating those safe, responsive environments or triggering [ones]. So, being aware of that, and that some things may be stressors to our students and colleagues, or there are those things that may create that feeling of safety. And how do we really create those spaces where people are ready to be present?” she said.
Cole said that the district hopes that this new approach to student behavior will eventually yield better academic and behavioral results.
“We would expect to see better attendance, better engagement within our classrooms, teachers feeling happier in their work and feeling successful in meeting the diverse needs of their students. I think certainly we will see diminished office, discipline referrals as teachers feel confident in addressing the behavior in the classroom and helping that student regulate in that space,” she said.
Megan Demolina, who oversees elementary school counselors, said the training has helped her understand that “neuroplasticity is our superpower, and it really is the piece that helps us as humans, all the humans adapt, like learn, change, and adapt to our environment.”
Guy Stephens is the founder and executive director of the non-profit Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint. He’s worked with CPI on some of their training — and has spoken with district staff and community members about what reframing behavior can do for a school culture.
“Kids that are having big behaviors aren't necessarily intentionally trying to harm people, but they're often in situations where they're very dysregulated,” he said.
Students with signs of dysregulation are often the most vulnerable. Many have come through the foster system, live in impoverished homes, or have higher than average adverse childhood experiences (ACE) scores. Living within one of these environments doesn’t mean students automatically have these behavioral issues, but these factors often put them at higher risk. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be an outburst — it could be a student who withdraws and doesn’t engage in class. In other cases, some students have disabilities or are neurodivergent, and educators need to learn how to reach them.
Stephens said that these individuals often exhibit hyper-viligant behavior.
“They are far more likely to have stress-related behavior, and that's not intentional. I'm not saying ‘bad behavior’ or ‘misbehavior.’ This is a child that doesn't feel safe. When you don't feel safe, your thinking, logical, rational brain, your prefrontal cortex, is not online, and you are responding from a place of stress, so we know that trauma affects the brain,” he said.
For the core team and Stephens, understanding some of the root causes of behavior issues doesn't mean that schools won't maintain boundaries and rules or require the students to repair the harm they've done. Their point is to have a culture where adults know how to de-escalate a situation. That's where they would use their neuroscience knowledge and respond in a calm voice when directing behavior. But even before that — they're taking care of their needs first.
“This is not to continue to put demands on a nervous system that is already reaching, exceeded its capacity,” Stephens said.
However, for educators to choose another response that doesn’t escalate a situation, Stephens said they have to be supported by their colleagues and administrators. They have to have the staff supporting them so they don’t feel alone in responding to a student acting out.
“The poor teacher can be in a situation where the child is not being appropriately supported. They're having big behaviors, and they've really got a tough situation. That's something that has to be fixed. That's not okay to leave somebody in that kind of situation,” he said.
The core team and Stephens agree that sometimes educators might be the only positive adults providing support and space for a student to develop healthy habits and responses. They say the key to addressing student behavior is to go upstream; it’s usually something deeper that needs to be discussed than the behavior itself.
“We come up with a function of the behavior. It was ‘attention seeking’; it was ‘avoidance.’ It was trying to ‘gain access to something;’ that's not deep enough. We need to understand, really, the experiences and what's below them if we're going to be successful. It’s seeing behavior as a brain and nervous system response so that you can change how you respond,” he said.
Cpi by Ben Schachtman on Scribd
CPI Presentation November 2024 by Ben Schachtman on Scribd
Prior reporting on NHCS student behavior
- Recent NHCS staff surveys show concern over student behavior, experts say solutions are complex
- NHCS faces sanctions for racially disproportionate emotional disability risk rates
- Love Our Children continues to push for change in NHCS suspension policy, data sharing
- NC Center for Safer Schools says bullying is a top concern
- NHCS losing millions due to suspension disparities; board votes to hash out semantics
- “It’s about being a good human”: New Hanover County school officials on social-emotional learning
- Statewide survey: Overall satisfaction, but specific areas of concern for New Hanover County Schools
