Blog - Sound Discipline

14Jun 2022 by Mary Power

Graduation – Sound Discipline’s Identity and Values

In the News, Resilience, School Partners, Teachers

It’s June – graduation season: These times are so precious and vital. Graduations mark the unfolding of our stories.

What is the story of the 2021/2022 school year? Heads nod when I sum it up this way; This was a year like no other. The return to in-person learning as the pandemic raged on meant doing the best we could under constant stress, strain, and uncertainty. Teachers and administrators worked harder than ever. Community partners showed up in creative and responsive ways. Families leaned in to support their school communities.

Our students showed the effects of isolation and …

20Apr 2022 by Mary Power

Rooted Relationships

Connection, In the News, Relationships, Teachers

Everywhere I turn, now, I see the topics of trauma, restorative practice, and liberatory pedagogy, like mushrooms springing up in the deadwood and the decay of the factory model of education. I also see fear – of culturally responsive teaching, critical race theory, and even social emotional learning. The most neutral way to describe it is as a conversation about values. At Sound Discipline, we are in that conversation, about values, and about how to go deeper and be braver, how to show up with a vision that is big and powerful enough to meet this moment and accelerate change.…

07Apr 2022 by Mary Power

Orcas in the C’s at Lakeridge Elementary

Inspiring Stories, School Partners, Teachers

Lakeridge Elementary 1st grade Orcas who participate in the ‘Orcas in the Cs’ program.

For so many schools, it has been a tumultuous two years from school-on-a-screen to in-person learning. This is definitely the case for Lakeridge Elementary in the Renton (Washington) School District. For new 1st graders, school was in constant transition. Starting kindergarten on Zoom, they learned what it meant to be part of a classroom community through a screen. Later, when welcomed back into the school building as 1st graders for the first time in the fall of 2021, they began learning how to be part of …

17Mar 2022 by Mary Power

The Mindful Mentors Project in Tukwila School District

Community Partnerships, Inspiring Stories

The Mindful Mentors Project, in the Tukwila School District, brings together teens and third graders to connect as mentors and mentees, who engage together in learning about social emotional learning, mindfulness, and movement.

Partnering with the students on this project are Thrive Centered (formerly Thrive Yoga), an organization that centers embodiment and provides somatic-based SEL and restorative practices for youth K-12, Sound Discipline, Tukwila Elementary School, and Foster High School.

Foster High School Mindful Mentor Andy Huynh

In Spring of 2021, Thrive Centered, founded by Damithia Nieves, and Sound Discipline, recruited six high school students to serve as mentors. …

07Mar 2022 by Mary Power

An Interview with Tonya Wilson

In the News, Race and Equity, Racial Justice

Directly impacted by the prison system, today Tonya Wilson is the Reentry Outreach Coordinator of Freedom Project, and a board member of the Freedom Education Project of Puget Sound (FEPPS) at the University of Puget Sound. A Tacoma native, Tonya is a TEDx speaker and appeared in the documentary “Since I’ve Been Down.”

“It would be easy for someone to have looked at my mom’s life and to look at all effort expended on her behalf as wasted resources.”

– Tonya Wilson, from her 2015 TEDx Talk Cracked Sidewalks

On March 15, 2022, from 12-2pm PST, Sound Discipline is …

16Feb 2022 by Mary Power

Lakeridge Elementary’s Journey

Inspiring Stories, Problem Solving, Race and Equity, Racial Justice, Teachers

What is it like to transform a school into a place where all young people feel they belong, they matter, and they can grow as learners?

Lakeridge Elementary, in the Renton School District, has been on just such a journey. In the spring of 2020, while navigating remote learning during school closures, the skilled Lakeridge data team, supported by Sound Discipline facilitators, decided to focus data collection on identifying patterns of racial disproportionality in discipline and identifying ways to develop a truly inclusive school community.

Analyzing Data and Looking for Patterns

A typical data team is made up of members …

18Jan 2022 by Mary Power

Dr. Jody McVittie Reflects on a New Phase

Featured, In the News

January 2022; We are on the threshold of a new year, and I am also on the threshold of a new phase of life. Beginning in February, I am shifting from my role as Director of Strategic Partnerships to a transitional role as part-time Strategic Advisor. For the next 6-9 months, I’ll focus on a few specific projects: evaluation, curriculum development, and capacity building. As I move toward full retirement, I’m looking forward to spending more time with my grandchildren, playing with some art projects, and exploring a small collective climate project that has interested me for a time.

This …

18Jan 2022 by Mary Power

The Power of Shared Purpose

In the News

Every day, we live in the tension between immediate practicality and purpose. Sometimes scary obstacles, challenges, distractions, and habits of mind obscure or induce amnesia about our deep purpose. What’s worse, the more aware of purpose we are, sometimes the more agonizing it is to struggle between our defaults and a response that connects with our purpose! (Or am I the only one?).

Do I need this kid to grow up loving learning, or just to get their homework done, brush their teeth, and get to bed so I can rest?
Do I need my student to experience belonging, or

…

13Dec 2021 by Mary Power

Specialists Find Special Time with Students

Connection, Inspiring Stories, Problem Solving, Relationships, Teachers

Imagine you’re a librarian at an elementary school. You have the unique opportunity of getting to interact with EVERY student in your school community and hopefully instill in them a lifelong love of reading. Cool, right? Here’s the catch: unlike a classroom educator, your time with students is limited and spread out. So, how do you develop those deeper relationships that support students to engage in learning?

The Specialist staff at Terminal Park Elementary in Auburn, Washington were feeling this struggle of not having enough time to get through their content while also getting to know their students as individuals. …

13Dec 2021 by Mary Power

Taming the Brain’s Negativity Bias with Gratitude

Brain Science, In the News, Trauma

Schools — places chartered to support young people to reach their full human potential — can instead be places where adults get stuck in negativity bias — perfectionism, hurt, fear, cynicism. It’s our body’s default response to stay safe. Our brains are wired to notice danger, threats, and problems. Because of this, we sometimes simply do not see the strengths, beauty, and potential in one another.

Let’s start by talking about strengths

One educator we began working with several years ago was struggling to see the good in her students. In the beginning, she believed Sound Discipline approaches were nonsense. …