Cultivating mindful schools to promote an equitable climate of learning

Despite decades of school reform, racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disproportionality in student academic opportunities and discipline continues to be a significant concern throughout the education system. The University of Southern California (USC), the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD), and Mindful Schools (MS) are collaborating on bringing mindfulness training to K-5 teachers/staff to foster an academic and emotional climate that promotes equitable learning opportunities for all students. We propose to conduct a longitudinal, non-randomized controlled trial of a mindfulness-based professional development program with 160 SMMUSD K-5 teachers/staff. We hypothesize that the MS intervention will allow participants to learn and internalize mindfulness concepts and integrate mindfulness practices into their classrooms to promote a positive academic and emotional climate. After completing the 12-week MS professional development training curricula, monthly supervision/consultation support groups will be provided for 10 months. Acceptability and effectiveness data will be examined including changes in mindfulness, compassion, and perceived stress at 4 times: baseline (T1), 6 months (T2), 12 months (T3), and 18 months (T4). De-identified classroom-level grade data and office referral data will be analyzed for the two academic years preceding the study, the 2 academic years of the study.