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Last year, our staff adopted the positive discipline approach to replace ineffective no-tolerance policies. Positive discipline is based on the practice of problem-solving instead of punishment. At its core are weekly class meetings, where students work through problems together. At the beginning of the year, teachers “train” students to present problems and offer solutions. Within this process, both teachers and students explore topics such as mutual respect, encouragement and recognizing mistaken goals. One of the biggest challenges is to shift our focus from punishment to solutions.

Students are dying. On Nov. 27, Josh Pacheco took his own life. He had come out as gay to his mother a couple months before his death. His parents learned recently that Josh had been bullied at school.

I am intellectually aware of Paola’s poverty. Nine out of 10 students at our school come from families whose income level meets the federal poverty guidelines. Paola, an immigrant from El Salvador, is one of them. The first-grader lives in a small apartment with her grandma, mom, sister and uncle. Combined, the adults earn less than $26,170 a year.

Anti-LGBT sentiment mars a Mississippi theatrical performance.

Practices that honor student identities, build intergroup awareness and support diverse learning styles.

After learning that a group of mostly African-American women was removed from a wine train for allegedly being too loud, this teacher reflects on how similar dynamics affect students in classrooms.

Michelle Alexander wrote The New Jim Crow to start conversations about race and mass incarceration in the United States. This toolkit develops student vocabulary about these themes and challenges them to create interview questions for another author who writes about social justice.

A weekly sampling of articles, blogs and reports relevant to TT educators.