The document discusses factors that promote success for students from low-income backgrounds. It recommends supporting the whole child by addressing their emotional, physical and academic needs. Key factors include building relationships through personalized interactions, using data to inform instruction, and providing an enrichment-focused environment rather than one based on pity. The document also challenges assumptions about student behavior and outlines classroom strategies like explicitly teaching cognitive skills, building hope, and incorporating engaging instruction.

2. Desired Outcomes
By the end of the session, participants will be able to
•Detail the impact that poverty has on the brain
and learning.
•Utilize the SHARE factors to promote successful
school experiences for students of poverty.

3. “There is reason to believe that what poor
and affluent kids need from school is not
quite the same thing.”
~ Michael Petrilli, Educational Leadership, May 2013
“Educators today are actually the frontline
civil rights workers in a long-term struggle to
increase equity.”
~Moses, R., & Cobb, C. E. (2002). Radical equations: Math literacy and civil
rights.

4. Why Focus on Income?

5. Schoolwide Success Factors
Factors that high-achieving schools supporting
students of poverty have in place:
• Support of the whole child
• Hard data
• Accountability
• Relationship building
• Enrichment mind-set

6. Students are In School for 1000 Hours and Out of School for 5000
How good is your 1000?

7. Support the Whole Child

8. Hard Data and Accountability

9. Relationship Building

10. Difference: Relationships
• Greet students by name
• Ask about their family, hobbies, and what’s
important to them
• Stop telling students what to do and start teaching
them how to do it
• Responding to inappropriate student behavior:
Never embarrass in front of peers; meet after class;
reaffirm your relationship; demonstrate the behavior
you wanted; say why it’s important as the student
moves through school; end by affirming common
goals and interests

11. More about Relationships
• “No matter how difficult Elena’s class seems, I
needed to love them. During the first months,
they weren’t easy to love; by the end of the year,
they were my best-behaved class and paid
attention even to the lessons that weren’t so
exciting. One-on-one conferences helped me get
close to each student. I found unconditional love
was the best tool in my teacher’s tool kit. First, I
gave them love; in return, they conducted
themselves like individuals worthy of that love”
~Kathy King-Dickman

12. Challenging Assumptions(Beth Lindsay Templeton, Educational Leadership, May 2013
• Why is that child so
rude?
– Student may live in an
overcrowded household
where speaking loudly
even if someone else is
talking is necessary to
be heard
• Teach student to write
comments on sticky
note; speak in a soft
voice; use small groups;
commend appropriate
behavior
• Why does that mother
let her son dress like
that?
– Family may need to
wash clothes at a
Laundromat
• Keep a lost and found
and provide clothes; give
child clothes that another
outgrew

13. Challenging Assumptions continued
• Why doesn’t he do his
homework?
– Chaotic and noisy
home; parents working
multiple jobs and/or
swing shifts; taking care
of younger siblings or
ailing grandparents
• Provide help to students
who arrive early or left
late; build homework
time into schedule;
• That child is so lazy.
He sleeps in class
every day!
– Stays awake to see
parent who works until
midnight; home or
neighborhood is noisy;
has family
responsibilities
• Allow student to stand;
direct entire class to
stand and stretch;
provide earplugs; offer
time for sleep (extreme
case)

14. Enrichment, Not Pity

15. Difference: Health and Nutrition
• Focus on oxygen and glucose
• Have students engage in slow stretching while
taking slow deep breath to increase oxygenation
• Ensure students engage in available physical
activities (e.g. do not withhold recess from
students for a disciplinary issue)
• Use games, movement, and drama

16. Classroom Success Factors
Factors that high-achieving classrooms supporting
students of poverty have in place:
• Standards-based curriculum and instruction
• Hope building
• Arts, athletics, and advanced placement
• Retooling of the operating system
• Engaging instruction
• (Yellow Handout – Note-taking Guide)

17. Standards-based curriculum and instruction
Danielson:

19. Hope building
Danielson:

20. Difference: Hope and the
Growth Mind-Set
• Teach students that their brains can
change
• Avoid telling students they have a limited
amount of focusing power
• Provide quality feedback

21. Difference: Effort
• Use buy-in strategies
• Make connections to the student’s world
• Affirm effort every day in the classroom
• Set high goals

22. Arts, athletics, and advanced placement
Danielson:

23. Retooling of the operating system
Danielson:

24. Difference: Cognition
• Focus on core academic skills that students
need most
– How to organize, study, take notes, prioritize, and
remember
– Teach problem-solving, processing, working memory
skills, and self-created mnemonic devices
• Start small (e.g. recall of words, then phrases,
then whole sentences)
• Use this foundation to build higher-level skills

25. Engaging instruction
Danielson:

26. Difference: Vocabulary
• Be relentless about introducing and using new
vocabulary words
• Use engaging activities such as trading cards,
verbal gestures, and movements
• Incorporate vocabulary practice into daily rituals
and provide incentives for use

27. Beyond Vocabulary –
Leveraging Teacher and Student Talk
(Kathy King-Dickman, Educational Leadership, May 2013)
• Realize the way you
talk to students might
affect their
achievement
• Provide positive
feedback
• Utilize strong
vocabulary
• Increase time
students spend in
purposeful talk
• Increase opportunities
for every student to
participate and
decrease instances of
calling on one or two
students

28. Difference: Distress
• Give students more control over their own daily
lives at school; provide choice
• Teach students coping skills (e.g. If this, then
that); share own examples and have students
help you; model how you handle stressors and
challenges
• Encourage and provide opportunities for
responsibility and leadership
• Embed more fun into classroom activities

29. What, there is a quiz?
Tally marks in Section A, B, or C.
(Adapted from Ruby Payne, A Framework for Understanding Poverty, 2005)
Section A - I know how to…
•use a credit card, checking and/or savings account.
•get children into Little League, piano lessons, and soccer
•repair items in my house almost immediately after they
break, or I know a repair service and call it.
•talk to children about going to college.
•get the best interest rate on my car loan.
A B C
II

30. Section B – I…
1. have favorite restaurants in different countries
around the world.
2. have at least two homes with full time staff.
3. fly in my own plane, the company plane, or
private jet rental.
4. know the hidden rules of the Junior League.
5. know how to read a corporate balance sheet
and analyze your own financial statements.

31. Section C – I know how to…
1. live without a bank account.
2. physically fight and defend myself.
3. move in half a day.
4. bail someone out of jail.
5. keep my clothes from being stolen at the
laundromat.

32. Where is your comfort?

33. How Good is Your 1000?

34. Beyond the Workshop
School Wide – (Salmon)
Characteristics of High-
Poverty, High-Achieving
Schools
Classroom – (Lavender)
Characteristics of High-
Poverty, High-Achieving
Schools

36. Another voice
http://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_

37. Big picture measures
• Un-level the playing field: provide additional resources and supports
• Strengthen parental involvement: offer sustained, intensive training
programs
• Make home visits – step through the child’s door
• Create a safe, ordered environment with consistent routines
• Identify and use disciplinary practices that match the student
population
• Incorporate school family rituals
• Volunteer and mentoring programs
• Developing key partnerships
• Move mindsets from my students to our students; take ownership for
student learning; focus resources on helping struggling students
• Participate in Professional Learning Communities; use data and
progress monitoring

38. So, in review, what can be done to
counter each?
Four primary risk factors for students of poverty:
• Emotional and social challenges
• Acute and chronic stressors
• Cognitive lags
• Health and safety issues