On the opening superintendent conference days for the 2022-23 school year, our teachers participated in two days of training with consultants from the BARR organization.
What is BARR?
BARR, which stands for Building Assets, Reducing Risks, is an evidence-based model that provides our schools with a strength-based comprehensive approach to meeting the academic, social, and emotional needs of each and every student. We know that coming out of the pandemic, it is more important than ever that we are able to support our students fully in the ways that they need to be successful. Through BARR, we will continue to work to harness the power of relationships to get to know each of our student’s strengths and interests so that we can support, challenge, and inspire our students to identify their passions and reach their fullest potential.
At our elementary and middle schools, teachers are grouped into grade level and multi-grade level teams. These teacher teams will be meeting regularly to monitor student progress, identify strengths and consider ways to support and challenge all students. Additionally, our administrators, counselors, and intervention specialists will regularly meet with teacher teams to offer additional support for students and provide recognition for students’ unique strengths and talents.
What are these U-Time lessons my student talks about?
Once a week, teachers will facilitate a U-Time lesson. The goal of U-Time is to strengthen student-to-student and staff-to-student relationships and build classroom community. Important topics they will explore together include: building classroom community, stress management, bullying prevention, and positive communication skills.
The BARR model has a 20-year track record of student success and has been proven to drive significant improvements in school climate measures, course credits earned, grade point averages, and standardized test scores. We are excited to add the BARR framework into our school systems to build on and coordinate our efforts on behalf of your children.