Sped Corner

If you have not already read the email from Ian Roberts, our Chief Schools Officer, in its entirety, I urge you to do so. (The email was sent on Friday February 22 at 8:23am.) Unfortunately, there were a couple of events that involved young Aspire scholars and law enforcement. As someone who grew up in South Central and encountered police officers more times than I can remember, I find myself thinking about each one of those situations. I invite you to think about how many times you have been face to face with a peace officer. What were the circumstances? Were the officers there to “serve and protect” you or were they trying to “serve and protect” someone else from you? What did that feel like? Now, try and think about these experiences, but place yourself in the eyes of our young scholars. As Ian mentioned in his email, unfortunately there are certain groups of students (students of color and students with disabilities) who are disproportionately impacted by such experiences. We MUST ensure that we are disrupting systems of oppression. We must fight against fueling the school-to-prison pipeline.

There is no doubt that with leaders like Ian, and many others in our organization, we will experience changes that are going to help us ensure we are providing the strong and positive educational experiences our students need and deserve. For now, I encourage you to think about ways in which we can improve our behavior response systems here at Firestone. Below are several slides with ways in which we should and should not respond to student behavior including general verbal strategies, general nonverbal strategies, and movement and positioning considerations.