The definition ‘at risk’ is typically assigned to a school or district that has not been able to meet the accountability standards outlined by the state and the U.S. Department of Education. 

However, there is another factor putting our schools at risk that has nothing to do with student performance and everything to do with society at large. As of this publication, there have been 13 school shootings in the U.S. in 2023. That is an average of 4.3 shootings each month this year. If this rate continues, by the end of 2023, the number of school shootings will be 52. 

In my hometown of Nashville, a small private school located in a quiet older neighborhood of Nashville away from the hustle and bustle of downtown experienced the worst tragedy a school can experience. A former student entered the school with the intention to kill. The Head of the School confronted the armed intruder only to meet her death, along with the custodian and a substitute teacher who came to her aid. Three children lost their lives as well. 

A month has passed, and the journals are now being released containing the innermost thoughts of the person who committed this travesty. And the bottom line is she was a troubled soul. 

School Shootings Continue to Rise 

This event adds Nashville to the growing list of cities experiencing school shootings. The Center for Homeland Defense and Security has mapped out school shootings since 1970. 

It is a tragedy looking at these numbers and realizing that we’ve lost more than 368 children and teenagers in our public schools due to school shootings, and over 1,000 have been injured. The very place where students should feel the safest, they are murdered in cold blood. 

No state is immune from these events, and the historical data suggest the situations of the shootings vary tremendously. Regardless of which state you review, what doesn't change is the use of a gun. Many argue that gun control can solve this problem in our country, while others point to the rising mental health challenges. 

Each side has valid points. Although the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution calls for the right to bear arms, it doesn’t say -- nor was the intent of our forefathers -- to bear military-grade assault weapons. The term ‘bear arms’ describes the right to carry weapons for non-military purposes. States such as Michigan, California, Colorado, Wyoming, and Washington have strengthened their gun laws in the past two years. Yet only 10 states have laws restricting assault weapons. Giffords Law Center maintains a scorecard of state gun laws and allows users to compare state legislation.  

School Mental Health Support Stretched Thin 

Gun regulation isn’t the only solution. We really must try to support better mental health. The increase in substance abuse, depression, and anxiety prompted the World Health Organization to release a brief on mental health outlining the challenges and the resources available and required to address the crisis. Dr. Garrett Rossi offers commentary in the Psychiatric Times, sharing his opinion of barriers to resolution, including the increased challenges in treating patients with mental illness -- just last month, a patient shot other patients in a waiting room of a mental health provider in Atlanta. 

Schools haven’t prioritized counseling programs or services over the years, which has increased the student-to-counselor ratio and impacted mental health supports. The American School Counselor Association data suggests that more than 50% of schools are over ratio, meaning counselors serve more than 250 students per counselor. Indeed, the average ratio today is 408 students to one counselor. 

Our poor efforts and progress in gun control and mental health support create an opportunity for more shootings and other criminal acts in our schools. Now is the time to assess regulation on gun control, especially assault weapons, and to acknowledge that we are not serving our students well in support of their mental health needs. The sooner we pay attention to these issues nationwide, the sooner we can reduce the risk to our student’s safety at school. 

• How One District’s Mental Health Program is Saving Millions & Helping Students
• Building A Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) Framework for Mental Health

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Waterford Institute, the nonprofit provider of the Waterford UPSTART online kindergarten readiness program, today announced that it has been awarded an Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Expansion Grant from the United States Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement.

The EIR program supports entities that design, generate, and validate solutions to persistent educational challenges and supports the expansion of effective solutions to serve substantially larger numbers of students.

Totaling $14.2 million, the five-year grant will enable the Waterford Institute to launch Waterford UPSTART pilot programs in Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho, and Montana, affording children in each of these states complimentary access to its kindergarten readiness program.

[Digital Equity: It’s More Than Just Student Access]

Designed to help 4- and 5-year-old children prepare for kindergarten, Waterford UPSTART offers an online curriculum including more than 2,500 free online reading, science, and math lessons, along with 360 digital books, 330 animated songs, and more than 450 instructional hours.

Longitudinal studies have shown that graduates of Waterford UPSTART outperform nonparticipants, regardless of demographics, and the greatest gains were seen in at-risk populations. Additionally, these sustained gains continue through the 4 grade.

Waterford UPSTART will be available to parents and students in all of the new pilot states by fall of 2019.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) announced today a partnership with education nonprofit City Year to launch HMH Classroom Corps, a program that provides employees with opportunities to connect with teachers and students in schools across the United States. Part of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility program, HMH Classroom Corps will connect employees with local City Year chapters to host Learning Forums—interactive events focused on helping students build literary and math skills through hands-on activities.

[No Child Left Unloved: 5 Shifts We Need to Serve At-Risk Youth]

In March, HMH employees across three offices participated in the inaugural Learning Forums at P.S. 75 School of Research and Discovery in New York City, the Lake View YMCA in Chicago, and the Curtis Guild Elementary School in Boston. Volunteers guided elementary school students through literacy and STEM activities, including assembling geometric shapes using marshmallows and toothpicks, conducting volcano experiments, and performing short plays from HMH’s Readers’ Theater collection. Each student was able to select from hundreds of donated HMH books to take home.

HMH and City Year will continue to host customized programs throughout the year, including a second round of Learning Forums in the fall. Additionally, remote employees and those in offices not located near City Year locations will receive resources and customized support to volunteer in their local schools.

Editor's note: This is part of a series entitled "Innovative Approaches to Support At-Risk Youth."

Lisa Nielsen writes for and speaks to audiences across the globe about learning innovatively and is frequently covered by local and national media for her views on “Passion (not data) Driven Learning,” "Thinking Outside the Ban" to harness the power of technology for learning, and using the power of social media to provide a voice to educators and students. Ms. Nielsen has worked for more than a decade in various capacities to support learning in real and innovative ways that will prepare students for success. In addition to her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator, Ms. Nielsen’s writing is featured in places such as Huffington Post, Tech & Learning, ISTE Connects, ASCD Wholechild, MindShift, Leading & Learning, The Unplugged Mom, and is the author the book Teaching Generation Text.

Disclaimer: The information shared here is strictly that of the author and does not reflect the opinions or endorsement of her employer.

Editor's note: This is part of a series entitled "Innovative Approaches to Support At-Risk Youth."

Innovative educators work hard to find the best ways possible for students to learn by tapping into their talents, passions, interests, and abilities. However, before the learning can happen, there is one crucial element that is necessary, but often overlooked for learning to occur. One that is especially important when serving at-risk youth.

If there is not love, there is not learning

This is not addressed in schools of education. This is not addressed by those critiquing schools or teachers. In fact, it is ignored. As a result, an educator who might be a master in his or her craft will fail in reaching these students if they are not loved.

Students raised by “guardians”

If, like many teachers and politicians you were loved by a parent who cared for you, it is possible this has never crossed your mind. However, those of us who teach at-risk youth know many of our students have not had such luck. In fact one of the first things you learn as a teacher in such places is to STOP using the word PARENT. That’s because a large number of our children have parents who were not prepared to raise them. Instead they have “guardians.” It is almost without giving it much thought that we transition to speaking and writing not about parents, but about our student’s parent or guardian.

Teachers in inner city schools will also notice a lot of students of ALL ages, intentionally or accidentally refer to them as mom. They are looking for love and care.

If we unpack the term, we can start to think about what are we saying to these kids without parents. The ones who aren’t lucky enough to have parents, but have guardians instead. It is a constant reminder that someone doesn’t love and parent, them, but rather guards them. The same language used by those who ensure there is order in a prison. As a result, we have children being guarded and protected but not parented and loved.

Unfortunately, teachers are trained to teach all kids the same way whether or not they have parents.

No child left unloved

If we care about ensuring today’s youth grow up to be productive citizens, we need to rethink the role of teachers and schools. Chris Lehmann explains if we want children to learn, then we need to build caring institutions. To do this, we must stop thinking of our jobs as teaching subjects and start realizing we are teaching kids. The relationship between teacher and student is more important than the relationship between teacher and subject.

Maslow’s Hierarchy

To understand this from a scientific approach, let’s review Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Schools are often positioned to help provide for a child’s basic needs and self-fulfillment, but the psychological needs are often completely overlooked.

No child left behind

Rather than address the psychological needs of children, we’ve put into effect programs that ignore this. Instead, they think leaving no child behind means ensuring they all score well on standardized tests. Long after this failed experiment was launched by George W and supported by the electeds that have followed him, we see this doesn’t work.

Interestingly, President Barack Obama, realized the importance of this and even lauded the model that best embraces relationships: Big Picture Learning. Here’s what they believe:

Relationships under gird all learning at The Met. Keeping adults and other students at bay is not an option. Met students must build close relationships with an advisor, community mentors, and other Met faculty, if they are to fulfill their personal learning plans.

The Met, as it likes to say, enrolls families, not just students. For students, this conviction poses a formidable adolescent challenge: accepting parents and guardians as valued partners in their learning.

His words were ones that evoked promise and excitement for a shift and enlightened experience for students. Sadly, despite his words, Obama embraced the common curriculum and standardized tests that valued none of this and obliterated models such as Big Picture.

If we really want to help students to learn, we must address this forgotten piece of Maslow’s Hierarchy with these five shifts.

5 shifts we need

When we move love to center of learning, these are natural shifts that should result.

1) Parents, not guardians: We must consider how we can ensure a child is surrounded by family, not guardians. Do they have a permanent home? Permanent parents? If not, attend to that.

2) Loving before learning: Jeff Bliss taught us that we must touch a student’s freakin heart before we can reach their mind. He was right.

3) Realistic class loads: You can not build a relationship with students if you can’t get to know a student. That means we have to look at the science which says there is NO WAY to know more than 150 students. Do the research. Get to know Dunbar’s number. If you’re administrator who values students you won’t allow unrealistic class loads. If you are a teacher you will do your best to ensure admins know you value children and you will encourage them to set you and your students up for success.

4) Change the role of the teacher: When tech teaches, teachers can do much more work when it comes to building relationships and ensuring students experience deeper learning.

5) Update schools of education and teacher training: The kids are right (see what they wanted the nation to know about education). Teacher training programs need to include training on guidance, counseling, social work, and other support.

Good teachers know that love and relationships are at the center of learning. They know they are set up for failure and they are frustrated. But change is possible. The innovation we need to realize it is nothing new. Instead, it requires that we make these important shifts that put children at the center of learning.

Lisa Nielsen writes for and speaks to audiences across the globe about learning innovatively and is frequently covered by local and national media for her views on “Passion (not data) Driven Learning,” "Thinking Outside the Ban" to harness the power of technology for learning, and using the power of social media to provide a voice to educators and students. Ms. Nielsen has worked for more than a decade in various capacities to support learning in real and innovative ways that will prepare students for success. In addition to her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator, Ms. Nielsen’s writing is featured in places such as Huffington Post, Tech & Learning, ISTE Connects, ASCD Wholechild, MindShift, Leading & Learning, The Unplugged Mom, and is the author the book Teaching Generation Text.

Disclaimer: The information shared here is strictly that of the author and does not reflect the opinions or endorsement of her employer.