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This high school English teacher in the Dominican Republic wanted to combine her students’ knowledge with action. The resulting project did just that.

Trauma-sensitive and trauma-informed schools are spreading around the country. But if they don’t start with how schools themselves can induce trauma, they won’t work.

Oct. 8, was a day of victory for a group of 22 Life Academy students in Oakland, Calif. They are part of a 2-year-old advocacy club called “The Real DREAM Act Movement.” Students met regularly to support in campaigning for the passage of the federal DREAM Act. After several weeks of active letter writing and campaigning, their dream had finally come true: California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law AB 131, a companion bill to AB 130, together known as the “California DREAM Act.”

This fourth-grade teacher, a TT Award winner, offers some classroom suggestions to make Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day an opportunity for deep, personal engagement—not a day off.

The TT audience weighed in on a school dilemma ripped from the headlines: ‘Students petition to display Confederate flag at school, turn in 300 signatures.’