As educators, we work hard to understand our students’ learning and behavior through several lenses, including child development, cognitive skill, multiple intelligences and cultural background, to name a few. A shared understanding of the impacts of traumatic experience on student learning provides an important added dimension to our knowledge of how students learn and behave. In the current Covid-19 crisis, understanding trauma and its impacts on our students, staff, and families is critical to planning for reopening schools.

Research shows Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE’s) to be highly prevalent among our children, with well over 65% of our students having experienced at least one ACE’s category. Additionally, these adverse experiences can have a broad range of potential impacts on learning and behavior, including language and memory issues, as well as behavioral manifestations that include dysregulation as well as overly regulated behavior. Understanding the impacts of traumatic experience provides educators a fuller view of their students’ learning and behavior, and helps shift educator mindset from one of demanding, blaming, punitive interactions to understanding, inquiry, and skill development. This reframing of how we view our students’ learning and behavior has a significant impact on how we plan for our reopening.

A trauma-sensitive reopening:

• Prioritizes student connection with the school community;

• Addresses the social-emotional needs of students and families before academics;

• Develops needed protocols not only for physical & emotional safety within the schools, but responds to various Covid-related issues; and

• Ensures that we take care of our own needs during these difficult times.