How trauma shows up at school

If you tuned in to this week’s School Board budget work session, you may have heard me asking about funding for trauma-informed work in our schools next year.

“Trauma-informed” is a term that’s we’re hearing more and more connected to students, schools and teaching. This is because we’re understanding more and more about how childhood trauma affects students’ ability to learn and thrive, and because childhood trauma has escalated during the pandemic.

Trauma matters first and foremost because of our human compassion for those who have experienced it. It also matters because it can significantly disrupt a student’s learning and a school’s ability to operate.


In Virginia, 6 out of 10 students have experienced some form of childhood trauma. 3 in 10 have endured multiple traumatic events. And that was before the pandemic.*

What is “childhood trauma,” anyway?

Researchers in the 1990s originally identified ten types of childhood trauma, or what they termed “adverse childhood experiences” (ACEs). Five are personal: physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect and emotional neglect. The remaining five are related to other family members: a parent who has a substance abuse problem, a parent who’s a victim of domestic violence, a family member in jail, a family member diagnosed with a mental illness, and experiencing divorce of parents.  Based on how many types of trauma a child has experienced, they might have an ACE score anywhere from zero (has experienced none of these things) up to ten.

In the 2000s, the definition of childhood trauma was expanded to include other experiences like homelessness, involvement with foster care, involvement with the juvenile justice system, chronic poverty, recovering from a severe accident, bullying, racism and more.

Then came the pandemic. Dr. Shannon Thyne, director of pediatrics at the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, says “I think of the pandemic as an ‘ACE’ for every kid in America.” Dr. Thyne’s colleagues in the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Children’s Hospital Association echoed this when they jointly declared a national emergency in children’s mental health last October.


Trauma shows up at school in many ways—but often it’s what looks like “bad behavior.”
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We know that trauma causes actual biological changes in our brains and bodies. It disrupts the normal processes that help us with emotional self-regulation, organization, memory, focusing our attention, calming our bodies and more.
Children who have experienced trauma are often triggered by a perceived loss of control, anxiety around changes in routine, fear of disappointing or upsetting others, and unexpected events, sounds, sights and activities.

But sometimes the triggers are less obvious. Jamie Howard, a child psychologist in New York, remembers working with a student who refused to go to the front of the classroom to write on the whiteboard. “He seemed defiant, but actually it was scary to him to have his back exposed to the whole room,” she says, because of things he’d experienced at home.

Because many children are not routinely screened for trauma--including at their pediatric check-ups—it’s often difficult for school staff to know what’s going on for some of their students. However, Matthew Portell, principal at Fall-Hamilton Elementary School in Nashville, argues that we shouldn’t wait to have all the details; he writes, “It is not imperative to know a child’s ACE score or specific traumatic experience to provide effective interventions. Being trauma-informed is a mindset with which educators approach all children.”


There are things schools can do—for students and their teachers.

Fall-Hamilton Elementary is an internationally recognized trauma-informed school. The staff at FHES employ numerous practices to address and heal trauma at school and have even created a “Trauma-Informed Practitioner” position to provide extra support to staff and students. After implementing trauma-informed approaches, behavior referrals at the school decreased by 76%, English/Language Arts test scores improved, and 98% of students reported that there was an adult at school who cared about them. To see what this looks like in action at FHES, I encourage you to watch these brief videos and read this interview with the school’s principal.

In the interview Portell cautions, “Trauma-informed, this whole mindset, is truly a movement, and we have to be cautious in trying to find the answer because there’s a lot of people trying to build processes and protocols that are the answer, and ultimately, we are the answer. We have to be able to empower ourselves. There is no magical program that’s going to fix kids because we’re not fixing kids. We’re supporting kids in being successful.”

Providing that support can sometimes feel overwhelming to school staff members. Dr. Art McCoy, a school superintendent in Missouri, shares: “It was incumbent upon me as a leader to authorize the hiring of two therapists specifically for our staff only that were separate from human resources and separate from any type of health care plan. They’re solely dedicated to walking through the schools and being on call 24 hours a day for any staff member who is suffering from secondary trauma [incurred by working with traumatized youth] or trauma in their personal life, while trying to sustain a successful professional life.”

Educators in our own system are feeling the strain as well. One of our APS school social workers emailed this week: “I am tired… My students are struggling. Right now, so much of my time is spent working with students with significant mental health or behavioral needs who aren’t able to access outside support. DHS is working on restricted protocols, private providers have waiting lists miles long or don’t accept insurance, and out-of-pocket sessions are not something many families can afford.”

When students and families are struggling in this way, academics often drop to a lower spot on the priority list. When I asked a parent who’s a leader in the disability community about learning loss, she wrote: “It's not that it's not an issue, but so many students with disabilities are struggling with more fundamental concerns right now such as behavior, mental health/anxiety, health/COVID safety, bullying, and school refusal. These need to be addressed before students can be in a position to learn.”


The (admittedly longwinded :) point I am making here is that I don’t think of the time, energy and resources required to address childhood trauma and students’ mental health as somehow “taking away” from academic success in school, even though at points during my time in education I’ve heard them pitted against each other. Instead, I hope as a country we’ll acknowledge that it’s a scientifically sound, fundamentally necessary and compassionate investment.


*Source: Fairfax County Government, 2020