Conference Day 1 – May 22, 2019
Registration & Continental Breakfast
8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.
Campus Center Event Room
Opening & Welcome
9:00 a.m. to 9:15 a.m.
9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
Concurrent Session I
Workshop I
Workshop Title: What to do with a handful of ACEs: Strategies for Helping Kids with Adverse Childhood Experiences & Trauma
Presenters: Dr. Barry Mascari & Dr. Jane Webber
Workshop Location: Campus Center Event Room
Many kids come to school from conditions that raise their ACE scores and affect their ability to concentrate and succeed. School professionals can help students learn to regulate their emotions using simple strategies that require no clinical training, just empathy. Join us and take home practical tools for helping kids.
Workshop II
Workshop Title: A Heart Approach to Supporting Marginalized Students
Presenter: Phyllis Alongi, MS, NCC, LPC, ACS
Workshop Location: Campus Center Theater
Attendees will participate in an interactive discussion that focuses on an alternative perspective to supporting marginalized students. This presentation will be both informative and didactic. Attendees will engage in several activities throughout the presentation. Key components will include identifying risk factors, awareness of obstacles from the perspectives of students, ways teachers and counselors can avoid further marginalization and protective factors. Participants will be invited to share in a discussion highlighting an alternative approach to supporting students that strives to meet the challenge of creating an educational space that accommodates the variety of worldviews that exist in the classroom and/or therapeutic setting. Derived from the current research literature, this perspective aims to meet students’ needs with sensitivity and inspiration. A heart approach to supporting our marginalized youth realizes the learning or counseling environment is a co-created environment that fosters the educational needs of the student individually, collectively, and collaboratively. Attendees will be provided with appropriate, viable resources.
Workshop III
Workshop Title: High School Athletics: The New Frontier in Character Education
Presenter: Randy Nathan, MSW
Workshop Location: Campus Center Meeting Room 5
This workshop identifies the importance of life lessons, how to confront HIB, and the ability to disseminate those learning opportunities through athletics. High School coaches are educators first and must be held accountable for that role in a student athlete’s life. Coach Randy’s presentation identifies the role of an effective character-educating coach, the balance between winning and life lessons, and encourages coaches to empower players to become “Upstanders” and leaders in their school community.
10:45 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.
Concurrent Session II
Workshop I
Workshop Title: Silencing the Inner Critic
Presenter: Dr. LaShauna Dean
Workshop Location: Campus Center Event Room
This presentation will address the barriers to positive self-esteem including an exploration of our inner critic. Participants will define and examine sources of self-esteem, and learn strategies for controlling their inner critic and negative self-talk
Workshop II
Workshop Title: Training Schools in Trauma to Improve Students’ Future
Presenter: Bill Cole
Workshop Location: Campus Center Theater
This workshop will provide an overview of the social, emotional and neurological impact exposure to trauma can have on students. The many steps and strategies schools can adopt to increase their responsiveness to trauma-affected students will also be covered.
Workshop III
Workshop Title: Cyberbullying in our Schools…An Ever Moving Target
Presenter: Tara Chalakani, LPC, NCC, ACS, RN
Workshop Location: Campus Center Room 5
Attendees of this workshop will be provided with current and meaningful data as it pertains to cyberbullying, social media, and excessive screen time in youths. Current statistics regarding the influence of social and emotional development will be explored. The topic of the impact on mental health and physical health will also be discussed. Additionally, some benefits of screen time will be reviewed.
At the end of this session, attendees will be able to:
- Analyze current data and statistics pertaining to cyberbullying, screen time, and social media use in children and teens.
- Recognize and identify signs and symptoms of mental health issues related to overuse of screen time.
- Explore screen time and relationship to cyberbullying and other violent behaviors.
- Articulate how to set boundaries and identify resources
12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Campus Center Event Room
Lunch
1:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.
Best Practices Panel
Location: Campus Center Event Room
This year, for the very first time, we are including a workshop featuring a panel of New Jersey educators. We invited applications from NJ school districts to participate on the panel if they have implemented a program that has effectively and demonstrably reduced bullying or bias at their school, improved their school climate, enhanced student resilience, and/or helped marginalized students.
Panelist: Joseph Diskin
Position: Principal, Bridgewater Raritan Regional School District
Project: Developed, implemented, and lead school and district Mindfulness Initiative in a large school district including seven Elementary, two Intermediate, one Middle and one High School with over 8,500 students.
Panelist: Necole Jadick
Position: Principal, Wayne Township Public Schools
Project: School challenged heteronormativity at the elementary level via candid discussions, training, and inclusion of gender non-conforming books in our Media Center.
Panelist: Dr. Christopher S. Meyrick
Position: Principal, Penns Grove-Carneys Point Regional School District
Project: What happens when your district does not have the financial means to adopt a recognized character education program? You create a home-grown character education program!
Panelist: Sophia Domeville
Position: School Operations Manager. Newark Board of Education
Project: Implemented the Positive Action School Wide Curriculum for the past 2 years to help regenerate Climate & Culture within our Community School. Through the implementation of Positive Action, we were able to teach students a positive way to manage and understand their behaviors through the daily curriculum, weekly assemblies and incentives. By investing within the program, our school staff were able to help recreate a positive learning environment for all students and helped engage parents as well as the community in student learning.
2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Concurrent Session III
Workshop I
Workshop Title: Bullying: Who is Targeted and How to Help
Presenters: Dr. Rita Johnson & Jose L. Posos, M.Ed., Ceceilyn Miller Institute for Leadership & Diversity
Workshop Location: Campus Center Event Room
We know that far too many students are impacted by peer mistreatment. Some of these students are more vulnerable than others to the impact of these negative behaviors. In this workshop participants will learn which students may be most vulnerable, including special education students and sexual minority students. Most importantly, this workshop presents concrete strategies to help (1) reduce bullying behavior through school climate change, and (2) reduce the damaging impact of this negative behavior when it does occur.
Upon completion of this workshop participants shall be able to:
- Understand and define bullying and describe its effects on targets, bystanders, and students who bully.
- Identify students that may be most vulnerable to the effects of bullying
- Understand the ways in which involvement in bullying may be a risk factor for depression and suicidal behavior.
- Describe the most helpful actions by adults to help prevent bullying and, if it does occur, to alleviate the impact on students who are impacted.
Workshop II
Workshop Title: History of HIB incidents in NJ schools
Presenter: James A. Budzilek, Ed.D.
Workshop Location: Campus Center Theater
Description: Since the inception of the ABBR, many NJ schools have used the HIBster software to manage and record their HIB incidents. This presentation takes a look at the data gathered and shares the results over an 11 year period. Examples of how to use this data is also shared.
Workshop III
Workshop Title: Addressing Incidents of Bias in our Schools
Presenters: Drs. Judith Springer and Christopher C. Irving, Ceceilyn Miller Institute for Leadership & Diversity
Location: Campus Center Meeting Room 5
At least half of bullying episodes involve some form of bias- involving race, religion, ethnicity, gender, disabilities, age, socio-economic status or perceived sexual orientation. Bullying prevention cannot be effectively addressed without specifically addressing issues of bias.
In this experiential, interactive workshop, participants will:
- Learn about the relationship between bullying and bias
- Experience activities that raise awareness of our own biases (everybody has them; it’s what we do them and how we treat each other that counts
- Take part in activities that can be used with students to promote multicultural acceptance, appreciation of differences, recognition of underlying commonalities and the building of a positive community.
Conference Day 2 – May 23, 2019
8:15 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.
Campus Center Event Room
Continental Breakfast/Registration
9:15 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
Concurrent Session IV
Workshop I
Workshop Title: Bullying: To be or not to be? That is the question.
Presenters: Farrah Irving-Wilkins, Esq.
Workshop Location: Campus Center Event Room
In the wake of investigative tools such as blogs and search engines, school districts are faced with the rise of parents and guardians who understand the New Jersey Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights. These parents are increasingly rejecting a district’s determination of bullying and filing complaints in New Jersey Administrative courts. Participants in this section will review the New Jersey Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, determine a parent’s recourse should they disagree with the district’s determination, and explore the functions of administrative courts and the Commission of Education in these types of cases.
Workshop II
Workshop Title: ACEs: Changing the paradigm from “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?”
Presenter: Maria McColgan, M.D.
Workshop Location: Campus Center Theater
In this session, Dr. McColgan, a Board Certified Child Abuse Pediatrician, will explain key concepts from the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, including impacts on health and behavior, and how a child’s environment and experiences shape early brain development, She will also discuss how bullying is not only an adverse childhood experience, but in turn, adverse childhood experiences can be a risk factor for both bullying others and being bullied. Dr. McColgan will share case studies, and will also discuss when a school professional should be concerned that a child’s behavior in the classroom may be a red flag for abuse, neglect or exposure to violence and when to intervene.
Workshop III
Workshop Title: What Educators Can Do to Support Our Immigrant and Undocumented Students
Presenter: Dr. Judith Springer and Jose Posos, M. Ed., LAC, NCC
Workshop Location: Campus Center Meeting Room 5
Educators are uniquely positioned to offer support to immigrant and undocumented students and their families—support that is needed now more than ever in communities in New Jersey and across the country. However, there is often confusion about schools’ responsibilities to immigrant children and parents, particularly if they are undocumented. Teachers and principals may feel at a loss for how to respond to potential ICE raids or recently arrived students who have experienced incredible trauma. This workshop is designed to address and clarify these and other questions that educators currently face.
10:45 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Concurrent Session V
Workshop I
Workshop Title: Implicit Bias in Schools: What Educators Need to Know
Presenters: Drs. Judith Springer & Rita Johnson
Workshop Location: Campus Center Event Room
This session will provide participants with the necessary awareness and content knowledge to understand the processes by which implicit biases develop and to recognize the harmful impact of implicit or unconscious bias in our schools and classrooms. Specifically, this workshop will help participants examine how the unconscious biases of well-intentioned educators at all levels can influence their judgment towards particular students (e.g., by race, ethnicity, gender), their instructional practices, the expectations they convey, and their recommendations for relevant outcomes like course placement, special education, and discipline. Participants will engage in activities and discussions that will enhance their understanding of implicit bias in general and in schools, as well as cultivate awareness of their own implicit biases. Skills and strategies for recognizing, and reducing the impact of, our own implicit biases will be offered and approaches for addressing implicit bias in schools will be discussed.
Workshop II
Workshop Title: Self-Care: How to Make Your Personal Garden Flourish
Presenters: Dr. LaShauna Dean
Workshop Location: Campus Center Theater
This presentation will address the importance of taking care of our mental, emotional, and physical needs. Participants will identify sources of stress and personal barriers that lead to chronic stress. Participants will explore strategies to improve self-care through discussion and interactive activities.
Workshop III
Workshop Title: Teen Dating: Recognizing and Avoiding Dangerous Relationships
Presenter: Randy Nathan, MSW
Workshop Location: Campus Center Meeting Room 5
This powerful workshop identifies the elements that create a toxic relationship, addresses the stages in of Teen Dating Violence, and explains how common peer pressure contributes to harmful behavior.
12:00 p.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Conference Closing/Evaluation/PD Certificates