The Power of Community Circles Part 1 – Morning Meetings and Closing Circles: Purpose and Implementation (Presented by Trudi Wolfe)

Each year more and more of our students are experiencing chaos, trauma, and other significant adversity in their homes.  This situation is impacting our students’ ability to learn due to their inability to regulate their emotions and to make good choices about their behavior.  In order to create a learning environment that incorporates SEL within the regular school day, we developed a program to focus on relationship-building between teachers and students.  With the guidance of the school counselor and the support of the building principal, Central Elementary implemented daily community circles in every classroom in the morning during the 2017-2018 school year.  The following year Central Elementary implemented closing circles at the end of each school day.      The purpose of community circles is to help every member of the school community begin and end the day on a positive note and to build relationships.  During this presentation, we will share our journey by examining why we chose community circles, how we implemented this program, and what our results have been.  From counselor, principal, and teacher perspectives, we will also share some of the tools that you will need to implement a similar program in your school.