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"While this year has been challenging for our students for obvious reasons, it also prepared them and moved them out of their comfort zone to find success later. They're learning how to push themselves even more and they're constantly building resilience."

Brianne MacNamara, Assistant School Leader

The Philadelphia Tribune featured Building 21 Philadelphia as the School of the Week.

"While many schools across the country have been incorporating new tools and platforms into their lessons for the first time due to the novel coronavirus, Building 21 at 6501 Limekiln Pike, has continued to build on the curriculum they've already implemented."

Read the full article here.

" need to understand how to come up against problems in society. They need to be able to think. They need to be able to challenge. They need to be able to collaborate. They need to feel empowered enough to have a voice and to use that voice to make change. And I think what's happening right now is a prime example of how important those skills are."

Ayris Sanders, Principal, Building 21 Philadelphia

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In Episode 3 of the podcast The Need and Opportunity for a Revolution in Education, hosted by Dr. Chris Unger, Teaching Professor at Northeastern University, Principal Ayris Sanders and Co-Founder Laura Shubilla tackle important questions about learning, including “what’s important to learn?” and “to what end?“

To listen to this episode and the entire podcast series, visit arevolutionineducation.org here.

“To what end is different for every person…we have a set of competencies that we believe are important for all human beings to be able to master to make an impact in the world. How one defines impact, I think, depends on that individual person and what they want to accomplish. I don’t know that there is one end. But I do believe that helping young people to build a strong sense of identity, to be critical thinking and feeling human beings, who feel a connection to self, others, and the world around them, gives them a strong foundation to make an impact in whatever way they choose. And I think the absence of those skills limits people’s futures because it limits your trajectory of what you are able to do, if you don’t have this set of deeper learning and deeper skills.” Laura Shubilla, Co-Founder, Building 21

“…in the last couple of years we’ve seen drastic reductions in suspensions, other disciplinary actions, and incidents of disrespect. These improvements have everything to do with relationships…”

David Sparrow, Director of Behavioral Health, Building 21 Philadelphia

Earlier this month, David Sparrow and Building 21's TriChange Model were featured on the Philadelphia Learning Collaborative blog. This final piece captures part III of our TriChange series.

This excerpt highlights preliminary outcomes to date and provides recommendations for schools thinking about this approach. While this model is young, Building 21 has positive outcomes and recommendations to share. This excerpt is reposted with permission from the

Philadelphia Learning Collaborative

.

Outcomes.

“During the first year, things continued to be pretty chaotic,” Sparrow says, including significant numbers of suspensions. “But in the last couple of years we’ve seen drastic reductions in suspensions, other disciplinary actions, and incidents of disrespect.” Further, attendance is at an all-time high and the graduation rate for 2018-19 reached 88%, significantly higher than that for similar high schools in PA (71%), and for the school district (69%, for both district and alternative high schools). “These improvements,” Sparrow believes, “have everything to do with relationships and with our school community buying into the Tri-Change Model and the culture it promotes. We’ve invested in staff training and hired more support staff, and the culture of our building has changed significantly for the better.”

Recommendations. 

Sparrow offers several recommendations for other schools interested in implementing integrated approaches to restorative practices, trauma-informed care, and cultural competence.

• Investment from leadership is key.  The primary reason this work has been so successful at B21 is that senior leaders have bought into it and invested in training, new staff, and overall support for implementation. If leaders are not invested, it’s not going to work.
• Designate a point person to lead the effort. Identify an individual with experience in restorative approaches and provide them with in-depth training (e.g., IIRC or other resources). Then, invest in a team of people and give them the authority to implement the model, taking into account the needs of faculty and administrators.
• Ensure that school leaders model restorative approaches. Restorative approaches are not just focused on students but also extend to the ways that members of the school community interact with one another. As leaders begin to practice these techniques with staff, everyone in the school community can begin to see and understand the benefits.
• Hold yourself accountable. Schools committed to this work must eventually ask themselves, what do we look for to determine if we’re truly being restorative, trauma-informed, and culturally competent? What do we need to do differently? Answering these questions will involve rigorous self-analysis, including reconsideration of policies, protocols, programs, and daily practices.

The real key to success, Sparrow says, is building relationships across the school community. "If a student knows they're cared about, then it makes all the difference. Reach the person first, and then you can teach him or her anything."

Read more:

TriChange: Part I

Trichange: Part II

"If a student knows they're cared about, then it makes all the difference. Reach the person first, and then you can teach him or her anything."

Earlier this month, David Sparrow and Building 21's TriChange Model were featured on the Philadelphia Learning Collaborative blog. The excerpt below captures part II of our TriChange series, as it discusses what it takes to operationalize the the model within the school.

As David reinforces: "This isn't another intervention – it's going to be the culture of our school." To create this culture it requires commitment; all school staff must be trained and invest in the hard work of approaching every situation with a restorative mindset, an understanding of trauma, a cultural competency, and commitment to building strong relationships. David offers an illustration of what the TriChange approach looks like when a teacher and student have a conflict over a classroom rule and how school professionals support one another when addressing harm to relationships within the community. Finally, David offers insight into the Steering Committee and the role these group members play in coaching other team members and setting the goals for each school year. The excerpt below is reposted with permission from the

Philadelphia Learning Collaborative

. The Philadelphia Learning Collaborative is a grassroots nonprofit that exists to create the conditions for student-centered, deeper learning progressive

K-12 educators and schools

to thrive in Philadelphia.

Rolling Out Restorative Practices.

The use of restorative practices “calls for everyone in the building to be restorative towards another, not just staff and students,” says Sparrow. “It’s across all relationships in the building and involves all school and community stakeholders.”

Staff Training. The 2015-16 school year focused on laying the groundwork for implementing restorative practices, helping staff to understand and buy into the approach, and developing a common vision for implementation. “You have to start with staff and help them understand both the practical and philosophical implications of this work,” Sparrow explains. “It’s a huge commitment, and there’s a lot you’re going to have to go through together.” B21 started by providing professional development in restorative practices for teachers and administrators during its Summer Institute (a two-day, off-campus retreat), as part of faculty meetings prior to the beginning of school, and then through regular professional development sessions during the school year. Sparrow also provided coaching during regular classroom periods, tailored to specific needs and requests of teachers (e.g. on circles, affective statements, and other forms of positive interactions with students).

"I was amazed. I thought: this is something that could transform relationships and get our kids back on track."

— DAVID SPARROW

“Eighty percent of restorative practices is just about cultivating healthy and productive relationships,” says Sparrow. “The human relationship has to come first. You’re not here to teach math, you’re here to teach math to young men and women.” Upfront Discussion with Students. Restorative approaches are presented and explained to students during orientation, first by climate and culture staff as disciplinary alternatives, and then by teachers as proactive strategies (circles and conference) in classrooms. At back-to-school night, teachers, administrators, and support staff discuss with parents and guardians how restorative practices are implemented, the roles each of them plays, and how parents and guardians can help to make these processes successful for their children.

"Having seen how successful these practices could be for highly traumatized students in an alternative setting, I believed they could also be successful in a more traditional high school. And when I interviewed with Dr. Shubilla, we were totally in sync. "

— DAVID SPARROW

At the classroom level, Sparrow explains, “you can start with something as simple as a temperature check in a circle — e.g. how are you feeling? What are your goals for the day, and what do you need to meet them? Then over time, as trust builds you can gradually scaffold questions and issues until you’re getting at the heart of some very challenging issues.” Even so, sometimes even the simplest question in a circle can lead to unintended consequences. Sparrow relayed a story from his Delaware school in which the daily circle question was what is your favorite color? Simple enough — except that one of the students was gang-involved so “colors” triggered a very specific and emotional reaction that led to a much more in-depth and personal discussion than the facilitator had intended.

Necessary but not Sufficient.

As the restorative practices roll-out continued, it became clear to Sparrow and his colleagues that there were clear links between these and parallel efforts underway in the school to promote trauma-informed approaches — which are grounded in an understanding of how trauma and stress can perpetuate themselves in students’ lives and behavior; and cultural competence — which speaks to the importance of understanding the cultural norms and values that students bring with them to the schoolhouse door. “We came to understand,” Sparrow explains, “that we can’t be trauma-informed without being culturally competent, and that we can’t be restorative if our work with students and with each other isn’t trauma-informed. These three things are inextricably linked.”

Sparrow offered an illustration. A white female teacher confiscated a black male student’s cell phone during class. At the end of the period, he pushed past her without comment and forcefully took his phone from her desk. Upset and frightened by the confrontation, the teacher discussed the matter with the principal, who asked her how she would prefer to handle it. The teacher replied that, up to this point, she and the student had had a good relationship, so she would prefer to discuss and attempt to resolve the situation rather than make it a disciplinary issue. She recruited another teacher to serve as a facilitator, held a restorative conference, and after a hard but ultimately positive conversation the matter was amicably resolved.  “This situation,” Sparrow explains, “demonstrates how all three concepts intersect.” The student, based in part on feeling disrespected and misunderstood, acted inappropriately. The principal responded restoratively by trusting the teacher to find an appropriate response. The teacher demonstrated cultural competence by recognizing that her fear was exacerbated by unconscious racial bias, and also acted restoratively in opting to talk through the issue with her student. The student acknowledged the pain he had caused her, the teacher came to understand the underlying issues that prompted his actions, and both left the conference with a stronger relationship and mutual trust.   

Operationalizing the TriChange Model.

In 2018, B21 formally established the TriChange Model, integrating all three domains as foundational elements in the school’s approach to teaching and learning. In short, the model was grounded in common understandings of and commitments to:

• building and sustaining healthy relationships among all school stakeholders
• addressing trauma and its impact on the lives of all community members
• respecting the cultures of others and its importance in their lives

The Model is overseen by the TriChange Steering Committee, composed of a teacher from each grade level, the coordinator of school advisories, and Sparrow, which meets weekly to monitor implementation and discuss strategies for improvement. Grade-level members are selected based on their interest in one or more of the domains, and their desire to grow as educational leaders. Teacher members of the steering committee are particularly important, Sparrow explains, “because they will often have strong credibility and influence with their peers in implementing elements of the Model.” Steering committee members also lead building-wide Professional Learning Communities (PLC), in which all staff members participate. The PLC meets monthly to discuss specific readings in the three domains, address issues they raise, and consider practical applications in classrooms and throughout the school.

"This isn't another intervention – it's going to be the culture of our school."

— DAVID SPARROW

Steering committee members also provide classroom-based coaching sessions to address specific issues around model implementation. Coaching is provided based primarily on the needs of individual teachers, i.e. those who are strong in all three domains will require fewer sessions. Coaching varies widely based on teacher needs and preference (e.g., how can I incorporate content into my circle strategy, or how can I deal with negative racial stereotyping in popular fiction and what books would be more positive?). The steering committee also establishes specific school-wide annual goals relating to the Tri-Change Model. Goals for the 2019-20 school year include:

Developing a diversity, equity, and inclusion statement based on input from the entire school community, which defines specifically what cultural competency means at B21 to ensure common understanding and collective accountability.

Redesigning the Advisory model to focus on building relationships through restorative approaches, and more broadly to serve as the hub of school culture where all three domains are addressed and reinforced daily.

Creating a framework for formal restorative conferences, which are necessary when all other attempts at reconciliation and repairing harm have failed and a structured meeting is required with the victim, the offender, and other stakeholders such as parents, staff, and/or officers of the court.

Read more:

TriChange: Part I

TriChange: Part III

“That’s a big budget! With resources of that size, smart teams could take on the most interesting opportunity of our time—quality elementary and secondary education for every young person on earth.”

“Platform networks that share outcome frameworks (we call them diploma networks like Building 21) have the potential to help schools adopt new goals and learning models and could even help end standardized testing by gaining state waivers based on the quality of their assessment system (and that will eventually require an update to federal policy).

Read more about Building 21 and other new school models on Forbes.com

"This is how we can change the world by voting for who we want to be president and not only for president for other things as well. Our voice is strong enough that if we want it to be heard, we can be heard. gave us confidence. She wanted us to learn and it was true and pure from her heart."

– Destanie Sanchez

Building 21 Allentown students, Destaine Sanchez and Jhon Castro, and teacher, Shannon Salter, were interviewed on PBS39.

Watch it here.

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This week, Building 21 Allentown celebrated an exciting win! They were chosen as one of 20 school winners for the 2020 Prom Challenge, a contest launched by When We All Vote and MTV.

The students and Shannon Salter, Building 21's Civics and History teacher, were surprised with a private Zoom call with Michelle Obama. The contest, which was set up to find the most creative nonpartisan youth voter registration efforts, had over 1,600 applicants.

Read more at CNN and ET Online.

Congratulations to our Building 21 students and their teacher, Shannon Salter!