District Administration Magazine (DA Magazine) Podcast hosted by Michelle Dawn Mooney featured Conscious Discipline Director of Development, Jill Molli and Liberty Public School District’s Director of Special Programs, Jessica Meisenheimer in a conversation centered around the unprecedented levels of stress and strain education administrators are currently facing.
In DA Magazine’s newest podcast episode, Chaos to Calm: Improving School Culture Through an Adults-First Approach, Jill explains what Conscious Discipline is and how its practices can help reduce turnover and improve overall wellness for teachers and administrators by shifting mindsets surrounding adult-first self-regulation, wellness, and school culture.
“We know there’s a problem. Administrators are leaving. Conscious Discipline is an approach to ultimately help children self-regulate, but the focus has always been on the adult first,” Jill said.
Jessica supports this message by sharing how the implementation of Conscious Discipline has dramatically transformed Liberty Public Schools, including fostering healthy conflict resolution, decreasing disruptive behavior, improving academics, boosting staff morale, and increasing job satisfaction and retention.
An Adult-First Response to Administration and Teacher Retention
Conscious Discipline is not a set curriculum, but a trauma-responsive, evidence-based practice that infuses skills like self-regulation, assertiveness, and empathy into the adults in the building. Adults who can access these skills positively impact the student body, ultimately leading to a healthy and thriving school culture called the School Family. “When a School Family is built, we shift from external rewards that act as a form of bribery to internal practices that allow student behavior to be perceived in a different way.” The mindset shifts from perceiving behavior as something to manage to viewing it as a form of communication alone leads the way for better teacher and administrative retention.
Implementation Success in Liberty Public Schools
As Director of Special Programs in the Liberty Public School district, Jessica has had a front row seat to the positive impact Conscious Discipline has had on staff morale, school culture and climate. When the Conscious Discipline approach was first presented to the district, only four schools were willing to participate. There are now 12+ schools in the district who are at various stages of implementation due to the enthusiasm created by the radical improvement of test scores and the dramatic decrease in teacher and administrator turnover and stress.
Award-Winning Resources for Administrators
Conscious Discipline offers a variety of resources, events, and materials to support educational administrators’ and teachers’ well-being, thus increasing job satisfaction and retention.
Stress to Success for Elementary Leadership delves into self-regulation from an adult-first perspective with a direct focus on elementary education administrators. This eCourse shifts mindsets and transforms lives as Jill Molli and Principal Jordan Williamson engage in a powerful conversation about the current state of education administrators. Establish a Conscious Discipline practice that empowers the skillset and mindset for growth.
The Conscious Discipline for Administrators live event empowers administrators with the skillset and mindset necessary to be confident in your ability to meet the needs of your staff, your students and yourself. Join us for two days of Conscious Discipline instruction that demonstrates how to create an emotionally safe school environment that fosters mental health and academic success from the top down, even during the most difficult of situations; April 9-10 in Myrtle Beach, SC.
Resources:
Listen to the Podcast:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5k5ebGwlaiGpu2wzKIeKwb?si=BUvQiiH6RG-6mEMDR4bl9g
DA Magazine: https://districtadministration.com/podcast-chaos-to-calm-improving-school-culture-through-an-adults-first-approach/
Products:
Handling Upset: The Adult-First Mindset Shift
Pages:
Articles:
District Administration Magazine
Podcasts:
Videos:
Managing Anxiety: Name, Claim and Tame Your Way Through Anxiety Without Medication
2018 Breakout Session: Creating a Safe Place to Practice Self-Regulation
Elevate Keynote: More Than an Intervention: How to Build Sustainability and Create Fidelity
Webinars: Creating Emotionally Intelligent Schools with Jill Molli
Jenny Shannon
Jenny Shannon has a B.A. in English, an M.A. in Educational Leadership, and an abiding commitment to believing that what you focus on, you get more of. With a strong background in education and communications and the love of a good story, she is thrilled to work on Conscious Discipline’s Marketing Team as copywriter. She lives in a 200-year-old home in northern New Jersey where she moonlights as chauffeur for her two daughters, can be caught singing showtunes in the kitchen and has strong opinions on the best place to grab a cup of coffee.
