Schools should be a place of safety and connection. Instead, many children, especially children who have experienced trauma, don’t experience school that way. Sound Discipline partners with educators to transform schools into equitable learning communities where all children know they belong and can learn and thrive. Working with us, educators build learning communities that:
- Integrate and sustain SEL (social-emotional learning) practices that apply brain science, trauma-informed, restorative, and Positive Discipline practices;
- Train and support educators to apply and model classroom practices that are solution oriented and instill critical social emotional life skills;
- Foster inclusive school-wide cultures that promote student agency and well-being;
- Build data driven practices to identify and implement solutions that address harmful systemic patterns of inequity.
Our Partner Schools
Learn about our school partners.
Are you outside of the Seattle area and interested in working with us? Take a look at our District Partnership Model, sign up for one of our virtual workshops, or contact us.
Is our school a good fit?
Readiness is important. Questions to ask:
- Does our school aim to be a community in which every student can feel safe, belong, learn, and thrive?
- Are we seeking to be more inclusive, trauma-informed, and culturally responsive so that all members of our community feel welcome and can learn?
- Are we routinely collecting and using data to observe discipline and student engagement patterns, develop solutions, and improve continuously?
- Is our school seeking to partner with families and the community?
- Is our school able to make a 3-year investment in this direction for long term sustainability?
Our Process
Every school is different. We co-design with you an approach that meets you where you are as move toward sustainability for these practices.
- Meet with us! Introduce a leadership team to the Sound Discipline Approach. We’ll also be glad to share references of school leaders using the Sound Discipline program to transform their learning communities.
- Plant seeds and invite buy-in. Start with open professional development offerings with practical tools that can be used the next day. Planting seeds this way grows skill and knowledge while inviting buy-in. It decreases resistance that often arises from what are perceived as top-down directives.
- Take small steps. We will help you establish systems for collecting and easily using discipline data.
- Make it sustainable. With Sound Discipline Facilitators as your coaches, build a discipline data team that meets monthly to review discipline data.
- Engage your whole school. Build skills and tools with additional training for your staff. Watch your school climate transform.
School partnerships are tailored to your school’s needs, with Sound Discipline offering many levels of engagement.
Training and Professional Development
For schools interested in beginning to apply trauma-informed and culturally responsive practices, Sound Discipline offers workshops, regular professional development, and coaching to begin to explore this work at the classroom level. From the outset, educators begin to apply new tools and practices that lead to immediate and noticeable changes for themselves and their students.
Data Team School
For schools interested in the integration of social learning and discipline, it is helpful to start by building a system of reflective data use. The whole school receives an introduction to trauma-informed practices and then a representative team of educators begins to collect and use data to initiate small iterative school-wide improvements. This includes:
Professional development workshop – Reimagining Resilience: Using a Trauma Lens. This three-hour workshop is an introduction for school staff to trauma-informed practices and builds a foundation and common language for educators, so they are prepared to implement solutions proposed by the data team.
Monthly data team meetings. We work with a representative team of staff members from the school to collect and look at discipline data, and then identify patterns and disproportionality, define problems, and propose and implement trauma-informed and culturally responsive solutions. The data team looks for small changes that can have a positive impact on school culture. We focus on systems that are not working and on the skills are lagging in adults and students, and work on solutions.
Tier 3 support. We facilitate a strengths-based protocol to work with staff to support students who are struggling the most to connect and belong at school.
Three-year commitment.
Whole School
For schools interested in transforming their practices, Sound Discipline provides a comprehensive set of services. In order to participate at this level, 80% of the staff must buy-in to a 3-year commitment.
In addition to the services offered to a Data Team School, Whole Schools receive:
- Professional Development 22-26 hours of staff training on trauma-informed practices and Positive Discipline
- Coaching and support around implementing or improving systems
- Extra support and training for classified staff
- Coaching for educators and school leaders
- MTSS A strengths-based MTSS approach for social emotional learning
- Class meeting observations
Demonstration School
Demonstration schools are Sound Discipline Whole Schools who are willing to hold regular open houses to share the Sound Discipline Whole School model with other professionals and interested community members.
All open houses are currently on hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but you can learn more about Sound Discipline Demonstration Schools here.
Additional Services for School Partners
In addition to the above components, schools in one of our programs may also request additional services, including:
- Advanced levels of the Reimagining Resilience workshops
- Positive Discipline in the Classroom workshops
- Classroom observation and coaching
- Classified Staff training
- SWIS Training
- Tier 3 coaching
- Administrative coaching
- Parenting and caregiver workshops
- MTSS approach for social emotional learning
Contact us at info@sounddiscipline.org or 206-782-1595 for more information.