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High Quality SECOND STEP Implementation in 40 LA Schools
The SECOND STEP program has improved the culture of many schools, as LAUSD’s SECOND STEP Model Schools program demonstrates.
Over the past four years, Karen Sorensen has spearheaded the program, which has fostered quality SECOND STEP implementation and, in most cases, significant drops in office referrals and violent incidents. About 40 elementary schools participate in the program on an ongoing basis, and the majority of their students reside in communities with high levels of crime and poverty.
A Happy Accident
Sorensen says the Model Schools program began “somewhat accidentally” in 2000, while she was working as a school psychologist at LAUSD’s Robert F. Kennedy Elementary. As the SECOND STEP program manager there, Sorensen established co-teaching of the lessons and initial six-hour staff training, while the principal, Dr. Chris Lund, focused on data collection. “We got such great results that that became the model for the program,” a model that was later supported by national research.*
A Commitment to Excellence
Sorensen has discovered that good implementation begins with the principal’s commitment. Teachers were telling her they really understood the program’s importance and wanted to teach it, but they needed the principal to designate specific time to schedule the lessons, so that they could teach it alongside academic subjects. Sorensen knew that if she and the teachers collaborated with principals and other staff, the program would be much more effective.
This led to the creation of the Model School Commitment Form, a combination contract/checklist that a school’s principal signs in order to be part of the program. In exchange for a SECOND STEP kit for every teacher in the school and training and implementation support from Sorensen and her staff, the principal commits to scheduled teaching of the lessons, lesson observation, designating a program manager, consistent co-teaching support, and data collection, among other details. “My priority is quality, not quantity,” Sorensen explains. And the multitude of requirements to participate isn’t a deterrent: “I have a long waiting list.”
Everyone Is on the Same Page
The next key ingredient of a Model School is an out-of-classroom program manager, usually a school’s psychologist, social worker, or counselor. The program manager co-teaches the lessons with the classroom teacher every other week for the first year. “What that does,” says Sorensen, “is show the students and the teachers that everyone is on the same page, speaking the same language, and is serious about these skills and this program being taught.”
The Numbers Talk
Lastly, it’s essential to know whether a school’s SECOND STEP implementation is making an impact on its culture. That’s why Sorensen insists on ongoing data collection. “We know what to expect if the program is being taught consistently and we know that the effects increase over time,” she says. “So, if a school is not obtaining either a reduction in referrals or physically aggressive incidents in the first year, then we know most likely the program is not being implemented consistently.”
After the first year of implementation is over, the numbers really start to look good. In the second year of implementation, most of LA’s SECOND STEP Model Schools see an average decrease of 45 percent for office referrals, 43 percent for physical aggression, and 64 percent for disruptive behavior. In addition, 58 percent of the model schools increased 30 points or more on LAUSD’s Academic Performance Index, more than double the district average. But Sorensen sees it in terms of the bigger picture: “If all schools would implement similar SECOND STEP schoolwide strategies that enable students to master the empathy, impulse-control, and anger-management skills taught in this program, not only would our schools be safe and our students achieving academically, but we would authentically begin the process of halting the cycle of violence in our communities.”
Allison Wedell Schumacher
Editor
Related Information
After Florence Griffith-Joyner Elementary's Principal John Sayers and Assistant Principal Nieves Rascón joined LAUSD’s SECOND STEP Model Schools program, their discipline referrals dropped 46 percent during the first two full years of implementation.
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*Burgoyne, K. (2005, July). The Interface between science and schools: What to look for in prevention programs. Presented at the 2005 National Prevention Symposium sponsored by Comprehensive Health Education Foundation, Marina Del Rey, California.