Reducing Stress in Schools: Restoring Connection and Community

Essential, accessible guidance for using trauma-informed practices to relieve student and educator stress in schools

In Reducing Stress in Schools, Mathew Portell, Ingrid L. Cockhren, Tyisha J. Noise, Julie Kurtz, and Julie Nicholson provide a toolkit of actionable, evidence-based practices for PreK-12 teachers, administrators, and staff to support students’ and adults’ nervous system regulation. Rooted in the tenets of trauma-responsive education and current neuroscience, these strategies address stress-related behavioral challenges present in schools, including fight, flight, freeze, and fawn behaviors. Unique in its approach, this book raises awareness of the collective trauma caused by the pandemic, highlights the effects of racial and historical trauma, draws attention to educators’ stress and burnout, and proposes strategies for stress reduction drawn from a diverse range of practitioner experience.

The authors show that, in the post-COVID-19 era, as students and educators contend with unprecedented exposure to mental health stressors, research supports classroom management via relationship-building interventions. They demonstrate how alternatives to exclusionary discipline practices can promote social-emotional learning, counter learning loss, and improve student skills such as sensory literacy, resilience, and frustration tolerance.

This work delivers clear guidance throughout chapters that feature real-world case studies, sample conversations, and questions for reflection and discussion. It also includes recommendations for countering resistance to the implementation of trauma-responsive practices for classroom management. Ultimately, it gives educators the tools to build schools that reduce stress and strengthen racial justice, equity, healing, and safety.

Mathew Portell is an elementary school principal in the Metro Nashville Public School system, podcaster, writer, international speaker, and leader of the international Trauma-Informed Educators Network. An innovator and pioneer of trauma-informed education, he utilized neuroscience to transform his school into a global model school for trauma-informed practices. Ingrid L. Cockhren is an internationally known leader in trauma-informed care and systems transformation with twenty years of experience in childhood development, mental healthcare, PreK-12, higher education, consulting, and nonprofit leadership. Cockhren is an adjunct psychology professor, owner of Cockhren Consulting, and former CEO of PACEs Connection. Tyisha J. Noise is a practitioner scholar with twenty-four years of experience working with underserved students in nonprofit and educational settings. She has taught and led in K-12 through early college with extensive expertise in intervention and special education, and administration in middle and high schools. She is also a professional development expert, presenter, and coach. Julie Kurtz is an international speaker, trainer, coach, and consultant who has collaborated with thousands of educators and administrators to integrate trauma-responsive practices and social-emotional strategies into classrooms, schools, and educational systems. Kurtz is CEO of the Center for Optimal Brain Integration(R) and coauthor of several books for children and adults. Julie Nicholson is an early childhood expert, keynote speaker, nonprofit leader, coauthor of thirteen books and coeditor of another. As a professor of practice at Mills College in Oakland for seventeen years, she directed the Leadership Program in Early Childhood, an MBA/MA program and the Center for Global Play Research. She consults nationally on bridging ECE with public education.