The Positive and Engaged Learning Community
We help busy administrators build community, support new or reassigned teachers, and keep kids in class, learning.
Reduce disruptions, build positive relationships, & increase time learning
The 'Positive and Engaged Learning Community' is a hybrid membership that includes:
An ODLE (On-Demand Learning Experience):
4 hours of modules plus templates and action steps for setting up the expectations, routines and procedures necessary to build a positive, engaged, learning community, all chunked into a step by step process to launch or reset your learning community.
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Live support:
Ongoing, remote Community of Practice sessions with educators from all over the country, facilitated by engaging, knowledge experts.
We serve all kinds of environments, with a specialty in K-8 settings: individual teachers, schools, after-school programs and camps and large organizations like districts, CMOs and COEs.
Let's get those classroom management plans written, implemented, and refined!
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The on-demand learning experience (ODLE) is four hours of video based modules and up to 11 hours of reflection, planning, and guided application (putting it into practice IRL!) The practical, effective, research-based framework goes beyond basic classroom management by empowering educators to create inclusive and supportive learning environments. You'll walk away with a Learning Community Blueprint (a classroom management plan, yes, but so much more!).
For new(er) teachers, those switching grades, or teams striving for alignment. School-day and out-of-school time; K-8.
This ODLE was designed to support busy induction coaches and administrators: teachers can consume the content and your time can focus on application and feedback! we strongly encourage providing 'on the clock't ime for staff to complete the ODLE
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The live Community of Practice offers guidance on putting the ODLE into practice from an instructional coach; peer support and feedback; and additional just-in-time resources. It's like a PLC, but with educators from many sites! We've seen that it's much easier and more rewarding to complete a self-guided course when it's punctuated by live interaction.
Instructional coaches support both planning (e.g. refining the Learning Community Blueprint) and feedback on classroom/school application (for example, developing a calm corner in the classroom or creating a family handbook). As coaches, we are not evaluators or supervisors-this means we can often shift practice more meaningfully and efficiently.
Want more frequent, targeted coaching? Want schoolwide alignment and fun, team building experiences? Bring us to your location for personalized professional development (PD) workshops, or site-based Professional Learning Communities (PLCs).
MODULE 1
Foundations of Positive Learning Environments
Get oriented to child-centered frameworks (PBIS, MTSS, restorative practices) and learn a high-impact, concrete strategy you can start immediately.
MODULE 4
Get Curious About Behavior
Reframe your understanding of behavior, unpack a specific challenging behavior that you are facing, and develop a new approach to individual and group support.
Content
MODULE 2
Classroom Management Plan
How to write a classroom management plan - your blueprint for success, full of strategies to prevent many harmful behaviors, and support positive behavior.
MODULE 5
Responding to Challenging Behavior
Effectively respond to challenging behavior in ways that maintain dignity, repair harm, and promote independence.
MODULE 3
Teaching New Behaviors
Proactively teach children effective skills, routines, and procedures to foster independence rather than compliance.
MODULE 6
Putting it All Together
Bring it all together so you can be ready to launch, notice and celebrate learning as it happens, make it stick long term, and keep your learning community on track!
BONUS MODULE
Schoolwide Leadership
For administrators and teacher leaders: How to cultivate a positive and engaged learning community at the school, district, or organization level.
We also provide leadership consultation and implementation support to align this work to your mission, vision, and values- you don't have to do this alone!
Transformative change doesn’t happen in one shot or with one person, but many sites don’t have capacity for ongoing cycles of inquiry or community for new teachers…
Which is why:
We facilitate ongoing Communities of Practice, plus instructional coaching, leadership consultation, and live professional development workshops.
Educators thrive when provided with knowledgeable and respectful support
Spend more time leading and teaching and less time on behavior management or crowd control
Outcomes
Feel more confident, more connected with your community, and less stressed
Identify and dismantle systemic barriers faced by historically and currently marginalized students
Specifically, participants will:
● Create a Learning Community Blueprint (includes a classroom management plan)
● Understand, prevent, and respond to challenging behaviors more effectively
● Reduce discipline referrals and the need for higher tier MTSS or RTI interventions
Over twenty years of supporting children with complex learning needs, we've seen that when adults are offered pro-active strategies to behavior management, the whole community benefits. We can't promise fewer suspensions, better teacher retention, or less administrator burnout, but ... that's what we see happening in settings that commit to the work.
For teachers and line staff:
Let us help you build (or refresh) your behavior and classroom management toolkit so your days are less stressful and more connected
For districts, organizations, or school leaders:
You don't have to do this alone! We're here to help you lead transformative change
How can this help at a system level?
Many schools and community organizations face cyclical challenges of turnover, overwhelm, and burnout—conditions that erode the stability needed to support complex learners, including neurodiverse students, children who have experienced trauma, and those with unfinished learning.
The Positive and Engaged Learning Community provides an accessible entry point into the evidence-based Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) framework for Schoolwide Positive Behavior Intervention Supports (SWPBIS).
Research is clear: discipline referrals decrease and academic achievement increases when school-wide PBIS is in place (e.g. meta-analysis by Lee & Gage, 2020). Yet, educators typically receive little training beyond basic classroom management (Flower et al., 2016). This gap in preparation contributes to persistent disparities in exclusionary discipline for children with disabilities (Cruz et al., 2021) and for children of color—particularly boys (Losen & Martinez, 2020).
Our approach bridges this divide by extending knowledge from the special education silo into general education and community-based programs, addressing individual, classwide, and schoolwide practices.
While many factors remain outside a teacher’s or leader’s immediate control, it is possible to foster belonging and connection in a single classroom or across a system that looks like this:
Children
Feel safe and secure, freeing up their cognitive resources to learn.
Spend more time engaging with content than avoiding or disrupting.
Develop independence, self determination, and confidence.
Work together with adults as an interdependent learning community.
Teachers
Feel in control, without being controlling.
Teach content they love and see children authentically engaged in learning.
Feel connected, confident, and less stressed.
Go beyond just stopping off-track behaviors to teaching new, adaptive behaviors - lifelong skills.
Leaders
Develop shared strategies for preventing and addressing challenging behavior.
See a decrease in referrals and suspensions.
Spend less time dealing with discipline issues and ‘putting out fires.’
Support new teachers effectively and maintain a strong, dedicated faculty.