Creating a Classroom Culture of Belonging for Students, Families, & Staff

Strengthening student connection, deepening partnerships with families, and prioritizing staff well-being are essential strategies in creating inclusive, supportive school communities in which all members feel seen, valued, and safe. Exclusionary behavior responses, including restraint and isolation, can create disconnection from the school community for students, families, and staff, negatively impacting mental health, wellness, and engagement at school. To reduce restraint and eliminate isolation, educators and school leaders can take a proactive and holistic approach to building a culture of belonging that reaches students, families, and school staff alike. 

Increasing Student Connection and Belonging

When students feel a strong sense of connection to their school and classroom community of adults and peers, they are more likely to maintain attendance and engage in learning, and less likely to engage in interfering and/or risky behaviors such as substance use.75 ,76   Exclusionary and/or punitive classroom disciplinary actions do not teach a student prosocial behavior, and can compromise a student’s feeling of connection to the school and classroom community. 

To foster students’ authentic feelings of belonging in the classroom, school staff can:77

  • Seek common ground and connection with each individual student
  • Establish and communicate high expectations for all students, and support students to reach them
  • Structure learning and group work to foster student cooperation and connection
  • Use culturally and linguistically responsive, inclusive, and anti-ableist practices to ensure marginalized students feel seen and valued in the classroom
  • Expect and signal to students that they will make mistakes as part of their learning
  • Support all students with classroom practices and instructional design that encourages students to put in effort, challenge themselves, and value each other's contributions

RREI Demonstration Site Finding: Start the Day with Regulation and Connection

Many demonstration site staff shared the benefits of starting the school day with routines that create space for students to self-regulate and connect with others. Examples include:

  • Greeting students at the door to the classroom or in the hallways during arrival, taking particular care to greet students who might feel more disconnected or overlooked. Note that staff should do this in a de-siloed way – students with disabilities should not be exclusively greeted by special education staff, and students without disabilities should not be exclusively greeted by general education staff.
  • Starting the day with a “soft landing” where students begin with low-demand activities that help them ease into the school day
  • Incorporating a “mindful minute” into the morning routine, including adult modeling and use of mindfulness strategies

When these routines are part of the school day, staff should ensure all students have access to them, including students with disabilities. 

Partnerships with Families for Inclusive, Welcoming Classrooms

To create safe classrooms for all students to learn and belong, school staff should prioritize partnerships with the families of all students. However, these partnerships can be complex and challenging for families of students who engage in interfering behavior and the school staff who serve them. Many families encounter barriers to participating in family engagement opportunities, are reluctant to participate due to experiences or expectation that they will be judged by school staff, and report that their input and opinions are not valued at school.78  Research suggests that teachers are more likely to hold negative perceptions of the parents of these students who engage in interfering behavior, which may hinder teacher-family partnerships and discourage collaborative efforts to support the student.79  It is important that this dynamic is disrupted, as student behavior improves when schools and classrooms provide family-centered engagement opportunities and a sense of community.80 

Educators may consider the following actions to build classroom spaces that engage all families and students in ways that are culturally relevant, affirm the belonging of each and every student, and lead to positive student outcomes:

  • Anticipate and welcome student families inclusive of a variety of configurations, including extended family members, blended families, LGBTQIA+ parents, foster parents, co-parents, disabled parents, and single parents
  • Establish two-way communication with family members using translation when needed, refraining from jargon and in consideration of cultural factors for communication etiquette
  • Provide and connect families with opportunities to participate in the classroom and school, including leadership opportunities, and proactively address possible barriers to participation 
  • In parent-teacher conferences and other collaborative discussions, ask family members about their students’ strengths, preferences, interests, and needs, and make efforts to incorporate that information into teaching and learning activities
  • Using reflective practice, notice which families participate in classroom events, volunteer opportunities, and two-way communication; when families do not participate, make adjustments to address barriers and ensure opportunities are designed equitably with student and family belonging in mind
  • Avoid waiting to communicate with families until there is a concern about a student’s behavior; instead, start the school year with a strong foundation for collaboration and mutual trust using the strategies above

Staff Well-Being for Student Well-Being

Teachers’ perceptions of their own effectiveness contribute to their sense of well-being in their classrooms and schools. Supporting a student who engages in interfering behavior – especially when those behaviors impact others’ safety and learning in the classroom – can put strain on a teacher’s belief that they are effective. This often contributes to significant stress for the teacher and can result in overreliance on ineffective responses to student interfering behavior (e.g., reprimands, frustration, punitive consequences, and unnecessary use of restraint and isolation). School and district leaders are strongly advised to view teacher and staff well-being, including supports needed for staff to feel capable and comfortable engaging in positive behavior support and SEBH skill development, as a necessary ingredient for student well-being in the classroom.

RREI Demonstration Site Finding: Leadership Support for Behavior Support and Teacher Well-Being

RREI demonstration sites have shared the importance of building leaders supporting classroom staff who serve students with interfering behavior. They recommend that administrators:

  • Demonstrate strong leadership during an emotional/behavioral crisis by actively supporting the student in crisis and their classroom team. This includes:
    • Being physically present, engaged, and familiar with the student’s individual needs during a crisis
    • Using trained de-escalation strategies and modeling those strategies for staff
    • If a restraint is needed, conducting it (with the training to do so)
    • Debriefing with staff
  • Become trained in psychological first aid to support staff after crisis situations
  • Check in with staff after behavioral incidents and crises to see what support they need, both practically and emotionally
  • Become familiar enough with a student’s behavioral supports to be able to implement them, allowing staff to step away for a few minutes if needed

There are many benefits when school leaders provide support to classroom staff, including increased well-being, greater professional skills and sense of mastery in trauma-informed behavior support, and a sense of support from their leadership and school community. RREI demonstration site staff who engage in this work report overwhelmingly positive effects, both in terms of teacher satisfaction and more effective support for interfering behavior. Compassion fatigue can be contagious, so leaders should build a climate of shared community for all staff (including special education staff) that provides a sense of belonging and connection to the joy and inherent meaning in teaching. 

Practical strategies for teachers who support students with behavioral needs include:81

  • Checking in to ground oneself and other adults on the team at the beginning of the school day, before going home, and during other natural transitions in the school day
  • Learning techniques for mindful breathing and/or muscle relaxation, and using those techniques during challenging moments with students
  • After an incident of interfering behavior, cultivating compassion for the student by reflecting on possible reasons for the student’s behavior and strategies to support their learning and belonging, rather than cultivating negative emotional reactions to the student
  • Engaging in problem-solving and reflective conversations with team members and school leaders 
  • Developing routines with a balance of compassion, satisfaction, relaxation, connection with others, and personal meaning

Selected Resources

75 OSPI (2023). Washington state social emotional learning implementation guide.

76 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC; 2009). School connectedness: Strategies for increasing protective factors among youth.

77 Regional Education Laboratory Northwest (2018). Shifting the current school climate: Sense of belonging and social and emotional learning.

78 Kelty, N. E., & Wakabayashi, T. (2020). Family engagement in schools: Parent, educator, and community perspectives. SAGE Open, 10(4).

79 Stormont, M., Herman, K., Reinke, W., David, K., & Goel, N. (2013). Latent profile analysis of teacher perceptions of parent contact and comfort. School Psychology Quarterly, 28(3), 195–209.

80 Wood, L. & Bauman, E. (2017). How family, school, and community engagement can improve student achievement. American Institutes for Research (AIR) and the Nellie Mae Education Foundation.

81 Paterson, B., Taylor, J., Young, J., & Walker, L. (2019). Compassion fatigue in teachers working with children whose distress may present as behaviour that challenges.