Being contacted by a Department of Justice is not an every day occurrence. When I got the email that there was a local event being put on that would host educators from all over the Central Valley I had to accept the invitation and be apart of it. I truly believe there is a huge need for educators to be apart of these types of events because teachers need to understand all of the latest findings involving mental health. I think teachers often think I need to get these bad behaving kids who just want to disrupt class far away from me. While I agree teachers shouldn’t enjoy a disruptive student, I also believe that understanding why a student may be disruptive gives us a better chance at making a connection with the student and possibly changing the course of their life in a positive way.
I personally went to a school district who ignores mental health, substance use disorders and pretends they don’t exist by expelling students who fall into these categories. By removing these types of students the district can claim they have no issues and are “perfect” but in reality they lack initiative and do not take the responsibility and appropriate care for those who are struggling with things at home that may cause them to take behavior shifts. I would say that if a city had homeless people and the leaders of that community rounded up all the homeless people put them on a bus and shipped them to another town all while filing reports that the city has no homeless people, this is exactly what Clovis Unified does.
The event went really well and I tried to hammer down on early childhood trauma and mental illness as it pertains to substance use and homelessness. Everyone was super engaged, it was definitely one of those days where the crowd was in the palm of my hands. I want to say thank you to the Fresno Department of Justice for hosting me as a keynote speaker this year. I’m forever grateful.