By Brynne O’Hare, Student Advisory Council Member 2024

LSP, 504, accommodations, extended time, alternate setting, preferential seating… these are all words that I’ve been hearing thrown around since the third grade, when it was identified by my parents and teachers that I struggled with OCD and anxiety. But what do they mean? Do they mean different things for different people? And how do they apply to me? This is a crash course on student classroom advocacy, from someone who genuinely gets the struggle of trying to acquire the correct accommodations to perform at the highest level. I’ll use my own example as a guide.

I was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder in third grade. This was by no means a straightforward diagnosis. Anyone with OCD can tell you that simply defining the problem is not a solution. I was constantly in and out of class, missing hours of school for intensive therapy and found myself overwhelmed with everything going on around me. I was fortunate enough to have a mom with a background in psychology and was familiar with student accommodations. 

She identified that it would be a good idea for me to get a 504 plan. A 504 plan defined by the University of Washington is, “a plan developed to ensure that a child who has a disability identified under the law and is attending an elementary or secondary educational institution receives accommodations that will ensure their academic success and access to the learning environment.” 

There is also a support plan called a Learning Support Plan, or LSP. However, there are some small differences between a 504 and an LSP. An LSP, as defined by the University of Washington is “a plan or program developed to ensure that a child who has a disability identified under the law and is attending an elementary or secondary educational institution receives specialized instruction and related services.” 

An LSP is more about services and instruction, while a 504 deals more with the learning environment itself. Knowing the difference between these two plans is crucial to identifying which plan may serve you best. 

After I knew that I needed a 504, it was more difficult to figure out exactly what I hoped to get out of my 504 and what accommodations would be necessary. I personally knew that I could benefit from more time on tests, because my anxiety often made test-taking difficult. Some options that students can request include: alternate setting, preferential seating, extended time, and breaks. 

• Alternate setting is the ability for a student to take a test outside of the traditional classroom setting. This often means in a different room, or with a smaller group of students. This can be beneficial for students who are easily distracted by large classroom settings and like a quieter space to work or take tests. 
• Preferential seating is the ability for a student to choose where they sit in the classroom or speak ahead of time with a teacher about where in the classroom (front, back, etc.) they would like to sit. This is helpful for students who like to sit closer to the front of the room so they can see the board better and hear the instructions more clearly. 
• Extended time is the allowance of more time on assignments or tests. There are variations of extended time, with a common one being time and a half. This means that a student has the original allotted amount of time to take a test, and then half of that time added on as well. Longer periods of time for assignments helps alleviate some of the stress of performance assessments (speaking from personal experience!). 
• Brain/movement breaks are another accommodation. These allow a student to move or leave the classroom as a reset, most commonly during standardized tests. 

There are plenty more accommodations and every plan is unique to every student. 

Sometimes, the best place to start is having a conversation. If you feel that you may need either an LSP or 504, talk to a teacher or a counselor. They can advise you on next steps to get the help that you need. If you ever have questions or concerns, be sure to voice them, as plans can be tailored to meet a student’s changing needs. And most importantly, don’t be afraid to speak up for what you think will help you perform at your best!

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Originally from the suburbs of Chicago, Brynne is a high school sophomore at the Culver Academies in Culver, Indiana, where she is a Batten Scholar. She is a member of her school’s rowing and swimming teams, as well as a member of the Campus Activities Board and Model UN. Brynne is a board member for Writer’s Without Margins, a nonprofit that aims to bring poetry skills to individuals experiencing hardship and incarceration. A lover of writing, she blogs for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s You Matter Blog, and has recently participated in the University of Iowa’s Between the Lines writing intensive. Her pieces have been published in the Boston Globe and Ms. Magazine. In her free time, Brynne enjoys traveling, cooking, hanging out with friends, and watching a good movie.

The post A Student’s Guide to Classroom Accommodations appeared first on Challenge Success.

In its recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary and Trends Report, the CDC recognized that improving youth mental health requires an understanding of young people’s environments and how these environments affect their behaviors and experiences. As a result, their latest survey includes a question about “school connectedness,” which is the feeling among students that people at their school care about them, their well-being, and success.

While the research shows that school connectedness has long-lasting protective effects for adolescents, only 61% of students in the CDC survey feel close to people at school. In the Challenge Success Student Survey, we look at belonging and connection in school through a variety of dimensions. We have found that: 

• only 69% have an adult at school they can go to with a personal problem
  
• only 38% feel they can really be themselves at their schools most or all of the time
  
• only 36% feel like a part of the school community most or all of the time

Understanding the Link Between Learning and Belonging

We have known for years that social, emotional, and cognitive processing are all neurologically intertwined. When students of all ages and stages feel they belong to a community, they are more likely to thrive — and students don’t learn as much when they feel uncertain about their belonging.

When we combine our findings from our survey questions around engagement with the belonging questions, we find that students who are fully engaged are also more likely to feel a strong sense of belonging in school. This association between belonging and engagement is bidirectional, meaning that students’ sense of belonging in school is also significantly positively correlated with feeling engaged in their schoolwork. 

These kinds of findings are a powerful tool in helping you to understand how students in your school are actually doing, but once you gather the data, how you choose to use it is what really makes a difference.    

Below, we have included three of our top strategies to improve connection in schools. And, if you are interested in learning how students in your school are doing, we can help. Together we will go beyond merely collecting the data. Our expert research team offers deep analysis of your results and works with you to co-develop a customized plan to focus your efforts on the students who are struggling the most to improve their well-being, engagement, and belonging right away.

LEARN MORE ABOUT
OUR SURVEYS

Three Ways to Nurture Connection in Your School & Improve Youth Mental Health

1. Solicit Student Voice: Empower students to build advocacy skills so that they learn how to ask for what they need. Provide communications channels for students to share their ideas with adults at school, such as a comment box, student advisory group, or focus group. Do you want to find out how students in your school are doing? Work with us to gather real data about students in your school and partner with our expert research and program teams to analyze your results and take steps to improve well-being, engagement, and belonging. Learn more here. 
   
   
2. Leverage Your Schedule: How time is allocated during the school day reflects what is important to the community, intentionally or unintentionally. The organization of time in the school schedule can facilitate or impede connections between and among the school staff and students. Learn more about our take on school schedules and well-being here, or contact us to be part of a select group of schools working on schedule change in our 2023-2024 School Program.
   
   
3. Make Learning Meaningful: The adolescent years are the peak of our identity development as human beings. Since teens are inherently curious about who they are, we can leverage this focus by creating ways for them to explore their identity through the curriculum. When teachers intentionally design lessons that are meaningful to their students, build an authentic climate of respect into their classrooms, and listen closely to students and incorporate their input, students’ sense of belonging and academic engagement are more likely to be high. Read more about the connection between belonging and engagement here and check out some strategies for peer-to-peer connection building here.
   

Upcoming Events to Support Youth Mental Health

• The Institute for Social Emotional Learning (IFSEL) is hosting a free TeachMeet on April 4th all about School Belonging as a Protective Factor. Their TeachMeets offer a simple structure to share resources and connect with people around the world who “get it”.
  
  
• Join us on May 10th for our flagship workshop, The Well-Balanced Student, which offers schools and families research and strategies that encourage a more balanced student experience, including topics like homework, sleep, cheating, and more. If you have or work with children younger than third grade, join us May 24th for The Well-Balanced Child instead, where we share strategies for healthy PK-2nd grade child development.

If the cost of attending an event is a barrier for you or students you work with, please reach out about our financial assistance.

A: After seeing the data, I felt it was even more important to have well-being, engagement, and belonging…Frosh year I was really scared coming in, because I went to public MS and was not the minority race, coming into HS where I was minority race, that was really scary for me. That’s why I cofounded Asian Cultural Alliance – so students like me could find people going through the same experience.

Q: How has the Challenge Success survey data expanded your awareness around well-being, engagement, and belonging?

-Emma, Student Advisory Committee Member

The post How to Mitigate the Youth Mental Health Crisis in Schools: Connection + Belonging appeared first on Challenge Success.

CONTEXT
Morris County School of Technology joined the School Program primarily because of student stress and perfectionism. A focus on achievement and getting into the “right” college were pervasive. Their goal was to change the school atmosphere from competitive to collaborative to benefit student well-being.

Surveyed students, caregivers/parents, and faculty
revealing some disconnects in student vs. adult perceptions of stress and homework. 

Hosted Well-Balanced Student workshops
as a result of their survey work. They hosted one for caregivers and one for students to share their data from the surveys and open important discussions about homework, stress, sleep, engagement, and more.

Asked students for input
at the close of the workshop. Student responses inspired and informed their Challenge Success team’s next steps.

Attended Challenge Success Conferences
for inspiration and planning

Planned a pilot after the conference
The team was excited about an idea they heard from another school, called W.E.D. Day – a Wellness and Enrichment Day every other Wednesday – that included academic supports, advisory, and agency/choice time for catching up on classroom and homework. They planned a pilot to test out their idea and then make adjustments based on student and faculty feedback.

Shared survey data with faculty
during back to school week, released the W.E.D. Day idea and sought input

Gathered faculty input
for what school changes faculty would like to see

Launched W.E.D. Day Pilot
did more stakeholder data gathering and made two rounds of adjustments as part of the School Program. Thus far, they’ve been impressed with the widespread support from students, faculty, and parents!

Hosted the College Workshop in December
to begin to reframe views around college admissions

WHAT’S NEXT?
They are planning to continue adjusting W.E.D. Day to ensure it serves their needs and have already scheduled a student fishbowl in April to inform their next moves. Placing student voices at the center of the change process and using data to make informed decisions has driven their efforts. We are so excited to see their progress!

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