Positive Greetings at the Door (PGD) is a three-step intentional practice to increase student academic engagement and prevent student misbehavior. 1.  Teacher greets each student individually with a positive verbal or nonverbal greeting as they enter the learning environment to create a sense of connection and belonging. 2.  Teacher makes…

At West Wind, we are examining a relatively new concept: the “school to prison nexus.” Mass incarceration has been widely researched, with well-known analysts (Alexander, 2010) and documentarians (Duvernay, 2016) identifying ways that both formal and informal structures have contributed to an explosion of prisons and prisoners in the US. …

Written by Ellen Daye Owens Implicit Bias is more than just a hot topic that surfaced during the 2016 presidential campaign. Implicit bias is real and it negatively impacts the lives of marginalized individuals every day across our country. The Kirwan Institute at The Ohio State University defines implicit bias…

One of the things I love about being at West Wind is that we support each other to be healthy. We do our best work and feel our best when we eat well and exercise, so I am happy to share some tips with you. With all of the rich…

This summer the International Association for Online Learning (iNACOL) and CompetencyWorks invited me to the 2017 National Summit on K-12 Competency-based Education to explore personalized learning and CBE. The Summit brought together experts and leaders from across the country to focus on 4 key areas: 1) quality, 2) equity, 3)…