Louisville Magazine

NOV 2017

Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.

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LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 11.17 49 e school bus slows, grunts and exhales, making its morning delivery. Crums Lane Elementary principal Anna Byrd surveys each student exiting down the bus's four steps. She spots a hairdo to compliment, a high-five-wor- thy smile, a limp and reluctant descent by a lanky boy in loose khakis. Her arms open, bringing him in for a quick squeeze. Byrd could've been lifted from a children's book, with her neat gray bob, dancer's frame and brown eyes that hemorrhage her feelings and thoughts, no dialogue necessary. Byrd enjoys some sweet moments this morning: an older sister tying her tiny brother's tiny shoe before guiding him inside; a fifth-grader pulling a regional spelling bee trophy out of her backpack to show it off to Byrd. A girl with stringy brown hair dives into Byrd for a hug, a near tackle. Byrd will later lean toward me, crossing her third finger over her index finger, and say, "We're like this." Last fall the bus dropped the girl off at her home and she found her mother uncon- scious from an overdose. Police brought her back to school. Byrd stayed with her past midnight trying to locate the father. Facebook messages finally worked. Byrd, a 20-plus-year veteran of public education, has long digested the back- stories of her students. She understands the trauma backpacked from home to school: He was abandoned by his mom; his dad's in prison; that family with eight kids was evicted; a boy with intense anger was suspended from his previous school before arriving at Crums Lane, a school that draws many students from high-pov- erty areas including the Lake Dreamland neighborhood and parts of west and south Louisville. Like all large urban districts, Jefferson County Public Schools has a challenging population — nearly 97,000 students, many coming from low-income neigh- borhoods. (Sixty-five percent of JCPS students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch). Over the last 20 years, an emphasis on high-stakes testing and accountability placed immense pressure on principals and teachers to boost academic performance. If test scores slipped backward, schools and their leaders were, essentially, scolded and reshuffled. It seems a slow boomerang is underway. Because those who work with kids daily know (and have vocalized repeatedly) that if a child enters a school hurting, distract- ed, sad or simmering, he or she isn't in a place to, at best, learn or, at the least, just sit and listen. Educators across the country crave programs that will help kids handle volatile emotions so they can focus in the classroom. Decades ago, the attitude was that parents or the church would tend to social and emotional needs. But the kids of today are much different than even one genera- tion ago. Up to 20 percent of children in the United States experience at least one mental illness, including ADHD, anxiety and other mood disorders. Numbers have been steadily rising since 2000. Addressing the whole child has been the goal of several programs embedded into individual schools and district-wide. In 2015, a new approach. JCPS partnered with the University of Virginia to begin the Compassionate Schools Project, a seven-year undertaking that will mea- sure whether dedicating 100 minutes of class time per week to "mindful" lessons (abstract, yes, but in a nutshell: calming, in tune with one's self, thoughtful) will help students grow into kinder, more focused — maybe even smarter — kids. When Byrd heard about the project, she jumped at the opportunity. Crums Lane is one of 24 elementary schools out of 55 applicants that were randomly chosen to receive the Compassionate Schools Project (CSP) cur- riculum. Twenty-one schools that wanted to participate, but lost out in the lottery, Does teaching "mindfulness" lead to kinder, more focused kids? Nearly 20,000 JCPS students will help determine that. By Anne Marshall Photos by Mickie Winters Students in a Compassionate Schools Project class at Cane Run Elementary go through their "mindful movement" poses.

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