Restart Schools<\/a> are granted \u201ccharter-like flexibility\u201d to adopt innovative strategies that can lead to better student outcomes.<\/p>\nCotton started her work at Kimberley Park by focusing on what she called the \u201cextreme behavior\u201d of the students, caused by the trauma she knew they experienced on a daily basis.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I came in, kids didn’t know how to walk in the halls, they didn’t know how to respond to each other. You could tell there were lots of needs,\u201d Cotton said.<\/p>\n
Then 10 days after she took the job, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of schools in the Winston-Salem\/Forsyth County Schools district.<\/p>\n
Cotton worried about what her students were dealing with at home, but the closure also presented an opportunity to hit the reset button for the school, its staff, and its students.<\/p>\n
The flexibility of being a Restart School gave her the ability to retain staff members who shared her vision for the school, and bring new members on board. She also got support from the superintendent to beautify the school building and grounds, removing bars from the windows, replacing broken doors, painting murals on walls and floors, and planting new flowers and shrubs outside.<\/p>\n
She and her staff established new norms for the school, including a weekly Friday morning assembly called \u201cHarambee,\u201d a Swahili word that means \u201call pull together.\u201d<\/p>\n\nStaff members, including principal Diamond Cotton (far right) lead Kimberley Park Elementary School students in affirmation chants during a weekly Harambee assembly. (Katie Dukes\/EducationNC)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\nDuring Harambee, staff members lead students in singing and dancing, teachers or volunteers read aloud, students receive awards for academic improvement, and Cotton announces which staff member will be receiving a free lunch in recognition of their work (which she pays for from her own pocketbook).<\/p>\n
When students began returning to classrooms for the 2020-21 school year, she started with the youngest students, who had no previous experience with the school. She and her staff brought back one grade level at a time, establishing new norms and expectations as they went.<\/p>\n
By the time the fifth graders returned, the school\u2019s appearance and culture was nothing like they remembered from their years before, and the new norms had already been accepted by the rest of the school\u2019s students. The KP School (as it\u2019s often called) was reborn.<\/p>\n
But despite the changes to the school, students were still bringing the trauma they experienced in their lives off-campus into the hallways and classrooms.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s not unusual for there to be a shooting down the street and our kids to be impacted by it in some way, shape, or form,\u201d Cotton said.<\/p>\n
She knew she needed to find a way to help them talk about and process their feelings.<\/p>\n
\u201cA big part of it was culture and making sure that we were providing an environment that was supportive of the needs our kids had, even if there were deficits coming from home,\u201d Cotton said. \u201cAnd so that’s how we landed on the Feeling Friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cotton had welcomed Miss KK into a school where she had previously worked and knew the Feeling Friends had been visiting Forsyth County classrooms for more than a decade. With the flexibility granted to her as the leader of Restart School, she had the opportunity to adopt Cuthrell\u2019s entire Feeling Friends curriculum schoolwide.<\/p>\n
Cotton and Cuthrell started with providing professional development to the staff, training them in social-emotional learning, giving them the \u201cfeelings vocabulary\u201d of the Feeling Friends, and giving them the books, music, puppets, or activities appropriate for their classrooms and grade levels.<\/p>\n
Parker said that when students get upset now, instead of lashing out or shutting down, they have conversations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can tell you their emotions, and they can tell you why they’re feeling that way,\u201d Parker said. \u201cBecause the teachers are teaching that curriculum, so they’re getting that SEL that they wouldn’t normally get if it’s not embedded into instruction.\u201d<\/p>\n\nThe entryway to Kimberley Park Elementary School in Winston-Salem. Mia Parker, the school\u2019s family engagement coordinator, can be seen in the main office, providing support to a student. (Katie Dukes\/EducationNC)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n\u201cPeople walk into our building, and then they’re like, \u2018It just feels different.\u2019 And that’s what I want,\u201d Cotton said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see the school going in a very positive direction,\u201d Parker said. \u201cSo much so that if it were not for the fact that I’ve given the state 32 years, I wouldn\u2019t retire!\u201d<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s not just the kids who are learning.<\/p>\n
Parker described a powerful moment when a veteran teacher stood up during a recent staff meeting to say that she had seen the Feeling Friends curriculum working for her students, even though she hadn\u2019t initially been on board.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that was what made it so impactful for her to say that,\u201d Parker said. \u201cShe validated that she’s learning, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Feeling Friends curriculum at KP School has also included emotion coaching workshops for parents, which Parker believes is an essential part of the curriculum\u2019s success.<\/p>\n
\u201cMiss KK also teaches them how to deal with their emotions, and how their adverse childhood experiences impact how they perceive their children and what they project to their children,\u201d Parker said.<\/p>\n
Cuthrell works with people of all ages, from preschoolers, to teen athletes<\/a>, to parents.<\/p>\n\u201cIt’s a holistic program that’s good for everybody, that\u2019s rooted in love, that\u2019s based in love,\u201d Cuthrell said.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s replaced Miss KK\u2019s bedazzled bucket hat with a simple black beanie, but Miss KK still shines through. \u201cBecause love is the most important feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
This article<\/a> first appeared on EducationNC<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.\u201cWhat\u2019s the most important feeling?\u201d a woman in a bedazzled bucket hat calls out to an auditorium of 300 young students. \u201cLOVE!\u201d the students shout in response. The word explodes from them, as if yelling it with enough force will transform the word into the feeling itself, and then Miss KK will truly know what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":709800,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categories":[190],"tags":[1103,5983,1211,995,4157,5984,1174],"series":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/709795"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/709795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":709877,"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/709795\/revisions\/709877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709795"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=709795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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