Evolution Labs

[00:01] SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

[00:06] Announcer:

Here's your host, director of the Principal Center and champion of high-performance instructional leadership, Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.

[00:15] SPEAKER_02:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by my guest, Peter Kraft. Peter is the CEO and co-founder of Evolution Labs, and he's here on the show today to talk with me about social and emotional learning.

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And now, our feature presentation.

[00:33] SPEAKER_02:

Peter, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:35] SPEAKER_00:

Thanks, Justin. Happy to be here.

[00:36] SPEAKER_02:

Now I understand you have a considerable background at the higher ed level, working with colleges and universities. And in recent years, you've gotten into working with K-12 schools in the area of social and emotional learning and supporting teachers through curriculum, supporting students through a variety of technologies. But I wonder if we could start with a little bit of the origin story, so to speak, for this particular line of work. In your work with colleges and universities, what did you see as a need or what did you hear from your partners at the university level that was a need among their students that you saw an opportunity to serve?

[01:14] SPEAKER_00:

Well, it's really interesting. It was actually an organization that we've worked with for many years, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It's the Gates Millennium Scholars. And they did a survey about 10 years ago. And we've been working with them for a long time. But about 10 years ago, they did a survey of their students.

[01:32]

that we thought was fascinating. They asked their students why they leave, why they transfer colleges, and only one in 10 students said that academics was the reason they leave or transfer. So we were amazed to learn at the time that the main reason that students leave revolve around social and emotional issues and character development. And that research, that survey, those findings really shaped the products that we develop today, not just for college students, but then most of our college clients would tell us, look, by the time students are arriving on campus, there's not much we can do if some of these issues are already ingrained. And I mean, in the negative sense, not the positive sense. So it would be great to take the programming further back in the educational life cycle and deliver this content to high school and middle school and even elementary school students.

[02:26]

So about four years ago, we developed what we call Sweet360. Our product in higher ed is called S360. And Sweet360 really revolves around social and emotional learning and character development. Really, what we're trying to do is meet students in their world, in their preferred learning environment, which is web and mobile.

[02:45] SPEAKER_02:

And what were some of the key reasons or some of the kind of leading concerns that were causing students who had received these scholarships? You know, it wasn't financial. It wasn't necessarily academic. What were some of the particular issues that they were dealing with that led to them leaving college before graduation?

[03:03] SPEAKER_00:

A lot of it revolves around mental health, anxiety. Test taking anxiety, academic pressures, balancing social life and academic life. You know what I really mean by that, I'm sure. You know, drug and alcohol awareness. All of these issues that even in the K-12 environment, kids are dealing with. And what's really interesting is that, you know, social media obviously has a lot to do with a lot of the pressures that kids are dealing with today.

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And there was a time when parents would say to their kids, hey, sticks and stones can break your bones. Names can't harm you. Now, in many cases, it's often this verbal abuse that's the catalyst for a lot of the issues and troubles that kids are dealing with today. And social media just exacerbates that issue.

[03:55] SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. I saw an article recently by Jean Twenge, one of the leading researchers of our time in the Atlantic. She had an article called, Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? And she tracks all of these mental health indicators that are just spiking, all these huge problems that students are developing, and she can pinpoint it exactly with the adoption of smartphones, where Kids are able to take pictures of themselves, send those pictures to other people, see what their friends are doing, or at least what their friends say they're doing. So all of these kind of life experiences, the process of growing up, the process of going through school, the social life of young people is increasingly being mediated through smartphones. And I'm looking at a graph.

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about how much less often teens are hanging out with their friends and how much less they're engaging with each other in person and much more likely to be on their phone, to be lonely, to be isolated and not building that kind of resilient social network that they need so i think it's especially interesting you know there is absolutely no hope in my mind of kind of walking that back and saying well let's just not let young adults have smartphones anymore you know that that ship has sailed so i'm pretty interested in uh your approach because you've actually kind of embraced that trend and said okay if smartphones are here to stay And we know there are mental health issues. We know there are social emotional issues that kind of accompany that. And of course, social emotional issues that have always affected students as they transition into adolescence and then into young adulthood. You have actually embraced that platform as a medium for providing support.

[05:32]

Is that right?

[05:33] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, pretty ironic, isn't it? I guess the approach is, you know, if you can't beat them, join them. But the irony, of course, is that many of the issues and problems that kids are dealing with today, the root causality of those problems revolve around technology and social media in particular. So the irony is, of course, well, then why are you using technology to address these issues? And the answer is simply because that's where they live. That's their preferred environment.

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That is where they do their research. That's where they consume and engage in content. And really, the interesting thing is, as it relates to social and emotional learning and character development, the bottom line is, the more sensitive the topic, the less comfortable a student is in engaging in that content face-to-face or in front of their peers. So we always hear students tell us, hey, you know, I want to ask for help. I just don't want anyone seeing me walking through the office or knocking on the principal's door, you know, or the counselor's door. Or they'll say, I'm not going to raise my hand in front of my peers and ask a question, especially if it's on a sensitive topic like anxiety or depression or bullying or whatever that issue is.

[06:45]

So the reality is with generation Z, this audience, you know, we often say that they're braver behind the device, which really gets back to your lead in that. In fact, they've grown up on these devices. And it's not our job to judge or to even ever expect that we could pull that back, as you described, because we all know that's not happening. So our approach has been to try to use technology to help them kind of wrap their heads around this content that we know is important for them to be thinking about.

[07:15] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And you've actually integrated that content into schools. Is that right? Tell us a little bit about how schools are kind of getting students to proactively engage with that content. Because, you know, obviously there are crisis resources. There are things that we can make available to kids when they are having a particular problem.

[07:31]

But let's talk about the kind of proactive angle that schools are taking to educate their students on these issues, to prepare them to build that resilience before there's a problem.

[07:41] SPEAKER_00:

Well, before I answer that question, I want to also mention that one of the benefits of a program like this is consistency of message, that the school or the district knows what that message is that's being delivered to students across their schools in the district. And what I mean by that essentially is that when we speak with teachers, they tell us, you know, look, I'm not an expert in social and emotional learning or character development. I'm an expert in social studies, and that's what I'm trying to teach. So they don't really know how to teach SEL and character development. So really, all we've tried to do is integrate these modules on social and emotional learning into the school's culture. And that generally happens in one of two ways.

[08:25]

The program, Suite 360, either gets integrated into or in some cases it will become the health or PE course where completing a required module counts as a grade or a quiz grade. or completing a required module gets aligned with a privilege. So for example, at some high schools, you can't buy prom or homecoming tickets unless you've completed your required topics up to that point. So what we try and do is build the program. So we've got the content library for Suite 360. We've got the curriculum that's been developed and recommended.

[08:58]

But ultimately, the school and the district are deciding which topics they want to deliver to their students. And all of the content is grade and

[09:07] SPEAKER_02:

school our job is to kind of weave the program into their culture how they feel it would work best for them but there's a lot of different ways it can work yeah well let's talk specifically about in-school suspension because i was visiting a school that had what seemed to be a very well-run in-school suspension program and a lot of middle school principals will say to me you know cut any other position but sometimes with middle school students or maybe high school students you know sometimes kids need another place to go but one thing that i've never really seen is much of a curriculum you know usually it's about catch up on your other work often the students who are in in-school suspension have some other work to do from other classes but they're not really taught anything while they're there so let's talk a little bit about how schools are using iss360 and thinking about intervention thinking about restorative justice so that we see those same students back in iss less often

[10:01] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and I think your opening was spot on because, frankly, Justin, not much has changed since you and I were in detention and suspension. I probably spent more time in there than you did, but oftentimes kids are still just sitting there doing busy work. It's almost a plus for them to get out of class and to go into detention or suspension. So our approach, and let me back up for a second, Suite 360, think of that program as preventative educational topics that we're delivering to students throughout the year to really try and get out ahead of the issue. ISS 360 is when we're assigning modules or lessons to students after the infraction has occurred. So the idea is that once a student commits an infraction, It could be drug or alcohol related.

[10:51]

It could be respect, gender discrimination, skipping class or absenteeism, bullying, cyberbullying, racial intolerance, whatever it is. Similar to the content library we've created for Suite 360, we have a content library for ISS 360, except this content is written specifically to a student that's committed an infraction. They can even write a reflection summary at the end describing what they've learned and how it may have affected a victim. That reflection summary, oftentimes schools and districts will ask parents to sign off on that before students are allowed back in. So the idea with ISS 360 is to give them content around the incident. And it's not meant to be a pleasant experience.

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You know, the idea is to reduce recidivism. by helping the student wrap their heads around what the incident was so that they can learn from the experience. And we use pre and post assessments to determine that as well. But also to make it enough of an unpleasant experience where no longer are they just sitting there doing nothing or listening to music. But now they have to go through a module on racial intolerance or respect or profanity use And they don't want to be back there doing that again. So you can actually see a reduction in recidivism simply because the process of going through the module in and of itself is a deterrent to doing it again.

[12:21] SPEAKER_02:

Definitely a unique pitch for a curriculum that I've never heard before on the podcast, but I think our listeners know exactly what you mean. That we want students to go through that process of thinking about what they did. We know as adults, we have a particular relationship with those students. We know that perhaps the ISS teacher or staff member has a particular relationship with those kids. And often, it's nice to have a third party kind of introduce some of those reflective questions some of that content but i understand you also have an angle for teachers and parents so let's talk a little bit about the the parent and teacher angle what are some things that we can do as adults to equip ourselves to better meet the needs of students who maybe are struggling in school maybe are struggling socially and how can we educate ourselves on how to to support them better so we have a program called p360 that delivers

[13:14] SPEAKER_00:

success and wellness content to parents, essentially equipping them to be the school or the district's ally, to have smart conversations with their sons and daughters. And the idea really is that much like their kids, parents want the convenience and privacy of being able to go through content on their own when and where they prefer. And so every week or every month, depending on the deployment timing we set up for each school or district, we send out a lesson, a module to parents. And generally we will mirror the theme of that topic around what students are going through that same period. So for example, if students this month are getting a module on bullying, parents will get a module on bullying, but it will be, you know, smart conversations to have with your son or daughter about bullying, or maybe five questions to ask yourself. Maybe you're raising a bully.

[14:05]

And it's really interesting when we meet with parents and schools and districts you know, rarely is there a lack of resources for parents at schools. They have assemblies, they bring in guest speakers, but parents tell us they've been working all day. They don't, you know, they don't have time to go to an assembly at six or seven o'clock at night, or they'll tell us that they don't want to be seen at those assemblies because often they're on very sensitive topics like bullying or depression or suicide or drug or alcohol awareness. And sometimes parents tell us, Look, I don't want my peers seeing me there. I don't want them thinking that issue is affecting my family or my kids.

[14:42] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, absolutely. So that confidentiality, the ability to kind of do your research from the privacy of your home, from the privacy of your phone, I think is really huge.

[14:49] SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. And parents tell us, look, I'm not going to go to the school's website and download the parent-student PDF handbook and use that as a reference throughout the year. And they just don't do it. So the only way to get content into parents' hands is to feed it to them, literally hand to mouth, every week, every two weeks, every month, and arm and equip them to have the conversations you want them to have with their kids.

[15:14] SPEAKER_02:

In educational circles, we talk about the idea of a guaranteed and viable curriculum for our students. You know, if we want kids to learn arithmetic, we have to teach it. We have to make sure that everyone teaches it in every classroom and that every student learns it. And I think we've got to take the same approach for these social and emotional issues, not just for students, but as you said, for parents. So I really appreciate your thoughts there.

[15:37] SPEAKER_00:

And then finally, what we call A360 is for teachers, staff, coaches... really anyone that has a contact point with students, custodians, bus drivers, security guards. And the idea, again, is to deliver content to them, to arm and equip them to have smart conversations with kids, to recognize and understand risk behavior and how to approach it and deal with it. So really it's PD and sensitivity training, but it's all web and mobile based.

[16:07]

So it's often viewed as kind of the digital tail beyond the in-person PD days that many administrators are going through.

[16:14] SPEAKER_02:

Well, Peter, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today about these issues, about what we can do at the school level to meet students' needs, to meet parents' needs in terms of social-emotional development, as well as to educate ourselves. So if people want to get in touch with you, find out more about the work you do at Evolution Labs, where's the best place for them to find you online?

[16:34] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, thanks, Justin. I appreciate that. So www.evpco.com. That's E-V like Victor, P like Peter, C-O.com.

[16:46]

Or they could follow me on Twitter at craftpeter. That's K-R-A-F-T-P-E-T-E-R.

[16:52] SPEAKER_02:

Perfect. We'll put that in the show notes and get those links in there for people to find. Well, Peter, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio.

[16:59] SPEAKER_00:

Thanks a lot, Justin. Thanks for the opportunity.

[17:02] SPEAKER_01:

And now, Justin Bader on high performance instructional leadership.

[17:07] SPEAKER_02:

So high performance instructional leaders, what did you take away from my conversation with Peter Kraft about social and emotional learning? One of the things that I think is tricky about some of these issues is the confidentiality side. That, as Peter said, no one really wants to show up to an assembly about suicide prevention or an assembly about your depressed child. Those are issues that need to be dealt with, but often that parents are very hesitant to deal with and that students are very hesitant to seek help with because of the embarrassment, because of the stigma. So I want to encourage you to take proactive steps to get parents thinking about these issues, to get teachers thinking about these issues as curricular issues. I think we're well beyond the era when the curriculum is just math and language arts.

[17:53]

We've got to address these issues because, as Peter said, the Gates Foundation research, the Millennium Scholar Program has found that the biggest factor that is causing students who are academically qualified to drop out of higher education is those social and emotional issues. Those issues dealing with peers, dealing with being away from home, dealing with depression and anxiety, and all of those issues that traditionally have not been part of our curriculum. I want to encourage you to see those as a core part of your curriculum. And I think one great opportunity, if you have an in-school suspension program, is to look at that program as a key opportunity kind of for RTI, right? Your students are kind of self-selecting into that setting. So you've got a list.

[18:39]

If you have an in-school suspension program, you have a list of the kids who need this kind of support. And if you want to check out Evolution Labs and their supports that you can access for your students, again, go to evpco.com and click on K-12. You can find a video there that will share more about those programs that we talked about in the podcast today.

[18:59] Announcer:

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