Reform School Discipline Policies
Reform policies and practices that disproportionately impact youth of color and students with disabilities and further compromise their ability to thrive and succeed:Reform rules pertaining to school disproportionality of behavior referrals, suspensions, expulsions, special education, advanced courses, etc. and ensure that multi- tiered levels of support are in place to prevent disproportionality and systems…
Ensure College Counseling for All High School Students
Ensure all high school students have quality college counseling. Not every high school in Missouri has a dedicated college counselor; many times caseload size prohibits meaningful guidance; guidance counseling certification should be reviewed.
Ensure Equitable Access to Rigorous High School Courses
Ensure all high school students have access to rigorous courses with quality instruction. Students need to be exposed to high-level courses in high school to garner the academic skills necessary to enter and succeed in college.
Early Childhood Education
Ensure sufficient early childhood development and education programs to meet the demand and align all efforts around a high-quality model that produces measurable child outcomes:Birth to 3 years of age:Scale-up and integrate, for the region’s most needy children and families, evidence-based early childhood programs for a continuum of care, including but not limited…
Develop School Leader and Teacher Support Infrastructure
Create a school leader and teacher cohort model that promotes well-being by building connectivity and support among peers, facilitates lifelong learning and idea exchange and a ensures a personal experience within an environment of trust, respect and confidentiality Model:Young Presidents Organization (YPO)
Ensure Employer-Educator Collaborations Build a Love of Learning
Ensure all efforts and models designed to align K-12, higher education and workforce development support the social and emotional development of children, youth and young adults and broadly build life-long skills and a love of learning.
Negotiate Reasonable and Equitable Transfer Rates
Negotiate a reasonable and equitable transfer rate between local school districts. Without an established tuition cap, unaccredited school districts are at great risk of going bankrupt and further compromising their remaining students’ hope for a quality education.
Create Annual Reporting Process
Create a data driven and annual reporting process capable of accounting for how regional services are provided and how dollars are spent to meet the needs of children and youth. Model:Children’s Agenda, Rochester, New York
Measuring Child Well-Being
Advance science around measuring child well-being; adopt new coordinated, scalable models for collecting data, in particular subjective well-being.
Create School-Based Early Warning Systems
Invest, at the school level, in a quarterly, early warning and coordinated community response system capable of tracking and responding to all students’ successes and challenges.
Increase Health Insurance Coverage and Access
Increase insurance coverage and access for everyone:Enroll more people in the Affordable Care Act marketplace Expand Medicaid Ensure the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is reauthorized so school-based health centers can use this as one source of funding care. To ease enrollment into CHIP, implement “presumptive eligibility” into the school-based health center settings for all children…
Establish School-Based Health Centers & Trauma-Informed Schools
Improve childhood physical and mental health:Establish School Based Health Centers:The creation of comprehensive school based health centers in the region should include access to mental health, case management and reproductive health. These centers keep kids in school (both by preventing illness and addressing behavioral health issues that lead to suspension and expulsion), in…
Build Safe Neighborhoods
Support sustained, citizen-led efforts to develop safe neighborhoods, particularly the efforts of parents and families impacted by violence, and clergy working to build community and keep watch. Support should include, but not be limited to, planning, coaching, funding and service- provider coordination
Create an Innovative Education Hub
Create an “innovative education center/hub” capable of building an inclusive, collaborative, and multi-disciplined education environment focused on leading our region into the 21st Century from early childhood to post-secondary. All efforts should be coordinated and represented by a broad and diverse constituency including but not limited to school district leaders representing low income districts, engaged…
Identify Job Training Best Practices
A designated task force appointed by the Department of Economic Development’s Workforce Development Division shall identify critical attributes of job training programs that shall be used:As criteria for guiding current job training organizations; As standards to evaluate the success of those programs; and As criteria for awarding priority grant funding from local foundations and…
Enhance Collaboration Between Educational Institutions and Employers
Enhance and expand collaboration between educational institutions and employers statewide by:Establishing a regional intermediary to ensure greater public-private collaboration in assessing workforce needs and communicating those needs with K-12 institutions, job training programs, and post-secondary education institutions; Developing a regional strategy for aligning educational programs to workforce needs that has clearly established indicators to…
Raise Awareness of Development Accounts
Develop a rigorous plan, drawing on best practices, that leverages schools, social services systems, and other well-positioned partners in order to encourage the multigenerational impact of development accounts.
Foster Positive, Proactive Police Interactions with Youth
Communities shall affirm and recognize the voices of youth in community decision making, facilitate youth-led research and problem solving, and develop and fund youth leadership training and life skills through positive youth / police collaboration and interactions. (Adapted from Recommendation 4.7 from the Presidential Task Force on 21st Century Policing final report)
Build Trust Among Youth
Communities and law enforcement agencies shall work to build trust between youth and police by creating programs and projects for positive, consistent, and sustained interaction between youth and police. (Adapted from Action Item 4.7.1 from the Presidential Task Force on 21st Century Policing final report)
Adopt Alternative Strategies for Juvenile Discipline
Law enforcement agencies shall work with schools to encourage the use of alternative strategies that involve youth in decision making, such as restorative justice, youth courts, and peer interventions. School Resource Officers and other school-based law enforcement shall receive periodic training and certification every two years in antibias actions and cultural responsiveness for school aged youth. (Adapted from Action Item 4.6.3 from…
Reform Juvenile Disciplinary Procedures and Practices
Communities shall adopt policies and programs that address the needs of children and youth most at risk for crime or violence and eliminate aggressive law enforcement tactics that stigmatize youth and marginalize their participation in schools and communities. (Adapted from Recommendation 4.6 from the Presidential Task Force on 21st Century Policing final report)
Foster Police-Community Interactions in Schools
Law enforcement agencies statewide shall create opportunities in schools and communities for positive non-enforcement interactions with police.
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