While schools in the U.S. and elsewhere are increasingly teaching social and emotional learning skills, many use a more piecemeal approach, creating a designated class for talking about feelings, or focusing that attention only on the most troubled kids.

After more than two years of helping students cope with the challenges and complexities of the COVID-19 pandemic, comes a new hurdle for educators and families: Supporting our young people through the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two. 

Austin LeMay, the campus culture director at Tenaya Middle School in Fresno, California, ensures morale is high by connecting the school community and hosting Friday dance parties during the lunch period. 

California schools saw “massive reductions” in all forms of school violence and weapons use over an 18-year period from 2001 through 2019. Alongside those declines came increases in students’ senses of “school belongingness” and safety, according to a longitudinal study published recently in the World Journal of Pediatrics. 

The U.S. Department of Education announced Project School Emergency Response to Violence (Project SERV) grants to four Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) that were disrupted by bomb threats last year: Texas Southern University, Delaware State University, Claflin University, and Howard University.