Ohio Registry of Effective Practices
Care Team Collaborative Example
Michele Timmons describes the professional development training that occurred with the teaching staff at Maysville High School in December of 2006. This training is viewed as a “turning point” for this school. School staff participated in a full-day training focused on understanding the 40 Developmental Assets, the importance of teacher-student relationships in achieving school success, and teacher-student relationship building skills. In the culminating activity of the day, the names of all students in 6th through 12th grade were posted around the room. Each teacher was given 10 round stickers and was told to place their stickers on the names of 10 students with whom the teacher already has a close relationship (i.e., “meaning that the student knows they can count on you”). At the end of this activity, it became visibly obvious that approximately 30% of the student body had less than 3 adults who they could count on. Further, there were a surprising number of students who did not have one adult. The charge following this training was for staff to work on becoming mentors to students and to ensure that every child was connected to at least three adults in the building. Becoming a mentor means that the adult “adopts” a youth and focus on building a relationship with that youth. This mentoring occurs informally and requires no funding, just a caring adult. Reportedly, staff members were very responsive to this learning experience and had acknowledged that the school could benefit from improvements in relationship and asset building with their youth. Thus, Care Team Collaborative attributes the drop in out of school suspensions, in part to the overall change in school climate that resulted from this professional development training. Reportedly, staff members are more open to meeting the needs of youth, youth are feeling more successful, and thus behaving better. Interestingly, during this time period, Maysville High School moved from “continuous improvement” status to “excellent” on the school report card. It is possible that the change in student-teacher relationships and school climate were significant factors in this improvement.