The school programs giving kids a real advantage

Schools don’t always get everything right. But many are doing amazing work every day! 

In this episode, we explore how educators are helping kids thrive and succeed in the classroom. Discover how technology, assistive tools, social-emotional learning, and career programs are supporting students. Parents can see what’s working and learn how to reinforce it at home. Celebrate the progress happening in schools and the programs helping students reach their full potential.

• Read: What is social-emotional learning?

• Read: What is assistive technology?

Julian Saavedra: If you're a parent, it probably feels like every headline about schools is bad news. Staffing shortages, budget cuts, low test scores. And yes, there are real problems in education that deserve attention. But here's what we don't hear nearly enough about: There are also a lot of things schools are getting right. And from what I see, they're making a real difference for kids every day.

Welcome to "The Opportunity Gap", a show about navigating the education system. I'm your host, Julian. I'm an assistant principal with over 20 years of experience. Today I'm going to share what I see schools and teachers doing well, especially when it comes to supporting students who learn and think differently.

It's worth knowing about these things so you can look for them in your child's school. And then, depending on what you find, you can reinforce them or, if they aren't happening, ask for them. Because when families and schools work together, good things get even better.

All right, so let's get into it. Let's start with something I see happening quietly in a lot of schools and why it matters more than you think. Did you know that schools are utilizing technology in new and exciting ways? A lot of us hear about the technology that's happening, but we might not realize that schools are actually embracing it.

I know a lot of us have heard the buzzword AI. How are schools using AI? Well, a lot of schools are utilizing AI to help them analyze data. And what I mean by that is there's so much information that we get about students. We get test scores, intervention data, we get attendance information, we get discipline information, and that's a lot of things to try to figure out and analyze.

AI is helping us analyze that data in a really fast way. And because we can analyze the information quickly, it allows schools to deliver interventions and support a lot faster than it's ever been. Now obviously, there's a lot of pros and cons to AI and that's for another episode, but I will say that schools across the country — and I know my school specifically and in my school district — we have a very clear-cut policy on AI for usage and protection of information.

So don't worry that we're sharing everything to anybody and people can access that. That's not the case. But the benefit to our teachers is so amazing. Now we can analyze data and we can give the instruction that our students need at the individualized level better than we ever have before.

(04:13) How schools use assistive technology and prioritize social-emotional learning to create safe environments for students.

Julian: The other aspect of technology that I'm really excited about is assistive technology. And this is specifically for our students with learning and thinking differences. And when I talk about assistive technology, I'm referring to using headphones, maybe noise-canceling headphones that allow students to decompress in a way where they can participate in a lesson, or I'm talking about personal listening devices.

For students who struggle to hear, audio can help amplify what they're hearing in the classroom. I'm talking about advanced speech-to-text devices. So we have laptops or we have iPads or we have other devices where kids who struggle to type, they might be able to just speak and express themselves faster than we've ever been able to use.

There's so many different things that our kids are using in the classroom so that they can access the curriculum like everybody else in the general education setting. And this is only in the last four or five years where we have technology that really is allowing kids to do things that they've never been able to do before.

I encourage you to check out an article that we'll link in the show notes from Understood.org that goes into depth about all the different ways that assistive technology is really helping our kids. All right, second thing that you might not have known — and hopefully, you're experiencing this — but I want to tell you from somebody that's in schools every day.

Schools by and large are safe spaces. They are safe physically, they are safe emotionally, they are safe intellectually. So many of our teachers and so many of our school systems are intentionally providing support and training on social-emotional learning and specifically the social-emotional well-being of our kids. That's something that when I started my career, we didn't really talk about that as much.

A lot of the training that I received as a teacher back in the early 2000s was all about lesson planning and preparing for instructional rigor, but we didn't talk about the mental health of kids. We didn't talk about culturally responsive teaching. We didn't talk about social-emotional learning and how we create positive experiences for our kids in the classroom.

All of those things have now recently been incorporated into teacher prep programs and into professional developments across the country. And all of it is to ensure that schools are a safe place. Schools have become a place where they encompass so many social institutions in one place.

Our schools are the place where kids make friends, our schools are a place where they get social-emotional support, our schools are a place where they do extracurricular activities, our schools are a place where families come in and get training, and our schools have just become almost a hub for our neighborhoods. And because of that, our students are receiving access to resources and supports more than they ever have in the past.

Kids are learning about their mental health. Kids are understanding the language and they're more fluent in how to get the support they need for social-emotional learning. So if you didn't know, now you know that schools are a safe place and that social-emotional learning has become a priority for schools across the country in a way that wasn't happening in the past. And largely, they're getting it right.

(08:58) Career and technical education programs and transition services for students with learning and thinking differences.

Julian: The last one, the third one, and the one I'm really the most excited about. Did you know that schools are giving students more and more exposure to career and technical education opportunities? What I mean by that is many of the listeners paying attention or watching or listening to the program right now, maybe your kids are young.

But at some point, you're going to have to start thinking about what happens after school. And historically, if a child wanted to do something that was not related to college, they had to figure it out by going to training school or getting a job, and there wasn't a lot of support. Now, there's so many programs that are embedded into high schools and even middle schools for workforce training and career opportunities.

I know in my school, we have academy-based pathways where 10th graders are learning about how to produce films. And if they choose, they can learn about graphic design or they can learn about business administration. Kids are learning how to do their own taxes. Kids are learning how to make their own business plans. Kids are learning about biotechnology.

I have 12th graders that are working in labs in colleges as 12th graders. And so they're prepared to go and work in a lab by the time they graduate high school. Now maybe some of them will go to college if they choose, but it's not the only option for them. And so a lot of our families don't realize that so many of our schools are creating opportunities for kids to have a diversity of experience and exposure that we didn't have before.

Now let's talk about our students with learning and thinking differences. What a lot of families don't realize is that there are really high-quality transition services embedded into high schools all across the country. So I know in Pennsylvania, every student with an IEP has access to the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation where as early as ninth grade, they can have a personalized experience where somebody is assigned to them specifically to help make sure that whatever they want to do after high school, they get access to that during high school.

And there's many programs for students with a variety of learning and thinking difference needs where they can get job training and job shadowing opportunities so that they don't have to be left out on their own once they graduate. One of the programs I love is a program called "Bridges to Work".

And it's a program where students who have complex learning and thinking difference needs — students with autism, students with severe anxiety or severe ADHD — who might not be prepared for a typical college setting, they get a chance to work in companies that are specifically trained to support kids with learning and thinking differences when they're still in high school, and they're then guaranteed to have jobs available once they graduate.

Now, I don't know about you, but when I hear about things like that, I get really excited because I know that schools are doing a really good job of preparing the next generation of our workforce. So if you are concerned about it or you're worried — what's going to happen to my kid when they get older? — I can guarantee you that a lot of our schools out there have so many programs available.

You just have to ask and you have to look for those resources. All of that is to say, I hope that today you got a really good taste of all the things that schools are doing right. Specifically, schools are using technology in new and exciting ways, schools are doing a really good job of creating safe spaces and supporting social-emotional learning.

And schools are increasing diverse offerings for continuing education and career and technical education so that our workforce is prepared for the next level. The way that you can support schools is make sure that you get involved and you get informed. Pay attention to all levels of the school system you're in to figure out what is the trajectory of offerings for my child across their school experience.

And by and large, the biggest thing you can do — spread the word. Tell your friends, tell your family members, tell your community members. There's really good things happening in schools and we want some love, we want to get shouted out. Schools are places of service. Teachers are in the business of service. We are working hard to support you, but we also want to know that we're doing something right.

Listeners, I can't thank you enough for watching, tuning in. I'll see you next time, OG family. Thanks for listening today. We love hearing from our listeners, so if you have any thoughts about today's episode, you can email us at opportunitygap@understood.org. And be sure to check out the show notes for links and resources to anything we mentioned in the episode.

This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood.org is a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/give.

"The Opportunity Gap" is produced by Julie Subrin and Gretchen Vierstra. Video is produced by Calvin Knie and edited by Jesse DiMartino. Briana Barry is our production director. Jordan Davidson is our editorial director. From Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key and Scott Cocchiere. Thanks again for listening. Until next time, OG family.