In This Issue

F E A T U R E D A R T I C L E 13th Annual NAREN

Conference MARCH 16-18, 2016

TranZed Alliance Conference Center,

Baltimore, MD 21234

“Creating the Contemplative School:

Strategies to Build Resilience, Focus and

Well-Being in All Students”

4 Exceptional Keynotes, a Dynamic Plenary Session, 4 Featured

Presenters, 55+ Breakout Sessions,

authentic youth performances, and an amazing, one-of-a kind learning environment!

SPECIAL NAREN Conference Issue MARCH 2016

Inside this edition:

3 New Offerings from The Upside Down Organization (UDO)

The Upside Down Organization (UDO) continues to expand its professional development experiences to “Help Adults Help Kids.” I wanted to make sure our NAREN guests were aware of these exciting opportunities. Our workshops remain outstanding but many organizations are looking to go beyond a single presentation and more deeply explore practical, proven approaches to common challenges. The following three offerings offer exciting opportunities for deeper learning and practical implementation.

Beyond Poverty Implementation Consulting

Catalysts of Culture 2-Day Professional Development Immersion

The Brain Path Student Field Trips & Staff Professional Development Workshop

2017 NAREN Conference Dates Set —

APRIL 5-7, 2017 Baltimore, MD

Welcome to the 2016 NAREN Conference! Welcome to the 13th Annual Conference of the National At-Risk Education

Network. Our Founder and Director Emeritus, Dr. Anthony Dallmann-Jones,

was committed to providing a forum where educators, counselors, social

workers and other professionals serving “at-risk” students could connect,

share what works, support and inspire one another in this rewarding but very

challenging work. Dr. Dallmann-Jones’ vision remains alive as we gather for

three days of professional and personal development directed toward im-

proving our service to children and youth. I believe genuine growth comes

from exposing ourselves to new people, new ideas and new experiences and

you will find all of these in abundance at NAREN. We are delighted you are

here.

Frank J. Kros, MSW, JD Director, National At-Risk Education Network (NAREN) President, The Upside Down Organization Executive Vice President, The Children’s Guild

ARE YOU ON OUR

E-NEWSLETTER DISTRIBUTION

LIST?

School climate and culture is frequently talked about, universally desired and often mandated by school boards, districts and authorizing agencies. But seldom does anyone provide the specific

“how to” guidance that educators and leaders can use to design and implement a genuinely transformational culture.

Monarch Academy Public Charter School built a trans-formative school culture through strategic choices, thoughtful reflection and the use of specific leadership tools. This powerful culture has produced an exemplary learning environment that cultivates success for all students and staff. This unique immersion experience provides two full days of active learning and engaging with the leaders and students of this amazing school.

Participants in this experience will be empowered to make strategic shifts in their own practice and equipped to design, implement and maintain a transformative school culture. You can “kick-the-tires” by seeing these practices at work in real time in a real school day. You can ask questions, interview staff, students and parents and watch “philosophy” become reality right before your eyes. At Monarch Academy, culture is a real, observable and practical catalyst for powerful, enduring and positive change. Don’t miss this special opportunity to learn how to build a transformational culture in your school!

J U S T A N N O U N C E D — A 2-Day Professional Development Immersion Experience

C A T A L Y S T S of C U L T U R E

“Monarch Academy has

implemented a culture so

positive, so pervasive and so

integrated you can literally

feel it the moment you enter

the building. The school

climate is so effective in

communicating welcome,

engagement and curiosity

that nearly a thousand

students and their families

are waiting for an opportunity

to enroll.”

— Frank Kros, President, The Upside

Down Organization

Interested in learning more about this opportunity at NAREN 2016? Offered as a Breakout Session:

T H U R S D A Y - March 17, 2016 10:15-11:45am “Transforming Staff Culture in

10 Minutes a Day” presented by

Monarch Academy’s Principal, Maurine

Larkin and Instructional Leader, Rob Noble

This workshop introduces one of

the tools from the Catalysts of

Culture Immersion. It provides a

great opportunity to evaluate this

unique offering.

Monarch Academy Public

Charter School is flagship

charter school for the

Children’s Guild, a member

of the TranZed Alliance. It

enjoys a diverse population

of students K-8. For more

information about Monarch

Academy Public Charter

School go to

www.monarchacademy.org

L O G I S T I C S When: May 17th & 18th, 2016

Time: 7:30 am - 4:00 pm

Where: Monarch Academy Public Charter School – Glen Burnie | 6730 Baymeadow Drive, Glen Burnie, MD

21061

Cost: $750 per person. Note: This fee includes all learning experiences, materials, lunch and snacks. Transportation is provided to and from the preferred hotel (Hampton Inn, see below) and the school each day. Transportation to BWI airport is also provided on the final day for out-of-town guests (4:45pm arrival at the airport).

Accommodations: Hampton Inn, 6617 Ritchie Highway, Glen Burnie, MD 21061 Note: A room block is available for this immersion at the rate of $114 per night. http://www.hotel.info/en/hampton-inn-baltimore-glen-burnie/hotel-14432/. Transportation to and from the Hampton Inn is provided and is included in the per person cost. Local participants and those choosing to stay at other hotels are responsible for their own trans-portation. Reservation and payment lodging, and transpor-tation on arrival day is the responsibility of each participant.

C A T A L Y S T S of C U L T U R E

Limited seats available. Registration closes on

Wednesday, May 4, 2016. To register for this event, use the button below or visit The Upside Down Organization website at: www.upsidedownorganization.org

O N L Y $750 per person

Yes, I want to REGISTER!

Payment due prior to immersion. Credit Card (MasterCard, Visa and

Discover) and Checks accepted.

Q U E S T I O N S or

for additional information, contact Robert Noble at

nobler@monarchcharter.org

This unique immersion

experience provides two

full days of active learning

and engaging with the

leaders and students of

this amazing school.

UDO’s “Beyond Poverty” model has been embraced by numerous schools and several districts over the last three years. UDO has developed a consultation program that

delivers the professional development training to educators while also providing implementation consultation to leaders. Designed in both half-year and full-year formats, this powerful parallel approach educates and equips educators with the information and interventions in the Beyond Poverty model while simultaneously building the capacity of building and district leaders to deploy the systems and practices needed to support school-wide implementation and fidelity.

J U S T A N N O U N C E D — Implementation Consulting

B E Y O N D P O V E R T Y

Why Should Every School Look Like This?

By exposing children to enriched experiences and environments, schools can stimulate the growth of new neurons in a child’s brain to repair and expand learning capacity! This process, called “Neurogenesis,” is known to positively regulate and impact learning, mood, memory and overall health.

Schools often ignore the power of the physical environment to stimulate Neurogenesis. A focus on creating enriching physical environments builds bigger and better brains!

NEUROGENESIS is the goal.

Because Every Child Deserves an Environment of Value.

Do It DIFFERENT.

Do It BETTER.

Do It FOR LESS.

At this Year’s NAREN Conference — Our keynote speaker on Thursday, Dr. Peter Stiepleman, has utilized this consultation model with his district, The Columbia, Missouri Public Schools, over the course of the past school year. If interested, you can connect with Dr. Stiepleman and inquire about his district’s experience! In addition, Principals Lisa Lowe and Jennifer Hammer of the Cecil County, Maryland Public schools will be presenting about the implementation of the Beyond Poverty Model at Northeast and Bay View Elementary Schools over the past two years. You’ll find the session: “Transformation Education: Putting a Plan into Practice” offered on Wednesday morning from 10:15 to 11:45 in Room 108. Check-out the experience of building leaders with the model and consider if it will work for you!

The Brain Path installation in each of our TranZed Schools is intended to provide a complex, multi-sensory experience that inspires curiosity and exploration about the workings of the human brain — particularly the rapidly developing brains of children and adolescents. The Brain Path exists as an invitation to engage, investi-gate and explore the wonders of the human mind and sends a constant cultural message that understanding how one’s brain works is important, necessary and beneficial. Now, UDO is inviting field trips by students and offering professional development workshops for staff centered on the Brain Path Experience.

Student Field Trip Our brains are lean, mean, pattern-seeking machines. Learning is the extraction of meaningful patterns from confusion. We never really cognitively understand some-thing until we can create a model or metaphor that is derived from our unique personal world. As children, cognitive understanding is often limited only by the lack of personal models for the information. The Brain Path is intended to provide an initial model through which our students can begin to learn deeply about the greatest part of themselves and be inspired to further study, better care and increased respect for their incredible minds.

Staff Professional Development Workshop The concept for having a Brain Path in each of our schools is also to provide teachers with a experiential resource from which to develop curriculum and learning experiences across grade levels. Effective use of the Brain Path relies on what all successful schools rely upon: the creativity, ingenuity and imagination of its faculty. This Brain Path transcript is a foundational resource from which the faculty can build a broad array of learning experiences about our students’ most valuable asset.

J U S T A N N O U N C E D — Building Brain Literacy in Students and Staff

T H E B R A I N P A T H

Brain Path Tours are offered

at the end of the confer-

ence sessions on both

Wednesday and Thursday

from 5:00

out how the Brain Path ex-

perience works and you’ll

be motivated to get your

students and staff involved

in this opportunity!

OFFERED at the 2016 NAREN Conference — “Mini” Brain Path Tours

Wednesday, 3/16 - 5-5:30pm Thursday, 3/17 - 5-5:30pm

Pre-Registration Required | 25 maximum participants

No cost for conference attendees

Two (2) 30-minute sessions

Tours conducted by UDO President, Frank Kros

Shuttle service available immediately after tours for those guests staying at the Sheraton Baltimore North Hotel

Visit www.narentranzed.org to register

Many of the sessions at the 2016 NAREN Conference are being presented by Certified Presenters from The Upside Down Organization and staff from TranZed Alliance (the parent organization of UDO and NAREN) schools and programs. We

hope you have the opportunity to attend some of these sessions and learn more about what makes our schools and programs so special and transformational.

The 14th annual conference of the National At-Risk Education Network will be held on April 5-7, 2017 at The TranZed Conference Center in

Baltimore, Maryland. Please save-the-date and make plans to join us! See you next year!

J U S T A N N O U N C E D —

The Upside Down Organization (UDO) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the education and advocacy of Transformation Education, an organizational philosophy and operating system for child-serving organizations. UDO offers professional development experiences, mentoring services, learning tools and organizational branding that help improve the skills of people who educate, parent, guide and care for young people. Visit UDO online, contact 410-444-5415 or e-mail info@upsidedownorganization.org

WEDNESDAY, 3/16 10:15-11:45am “Change Your Language, Change Their

Lives: What Adults Can Say Differently Today to Transform the Tomorrows of Our Youth” Presented by Alisha Wolf

“Transformation Education: Putting a Plan into Practice” Presented by Jenni Hammer & Lisa Lowe

“Mindfulness and the Middle School Brain” Presented by Karen Pfarr

“The Power of Yet: PBL Meets Growth Mindset” Presented by Beth Matthews, Rosalind Akpaidem & Christine Amiss

2:15-3:45pm

“Integrating Yoga and Mindfulness into the Classroom and School Culture”

Presented by Sierra Carlson & Sara Sheikh

“Jack’s Brain, Jill’s Brain: Gender Differences and Why They Matter”

Presented by Heather Higgins

THURSDAY, 3/17 10:15-11:45am “Conquering Boredom, Apathy, and

Indifference in the Classroom: Strate-gies to Engage, Excite and Motivate Your Students” Presented by FEATURED SPEAKER, Shauna King

“Transforming Staff Culture In 10 Minutes a Day” Presented by Maurine Larkin & Rob Noble

12:30-2:00pm

“Adapting Trauma Treatment Frame-works in Schools” Presented by Rob Basler & Jillian Szczepaniak-Gillece

“Moving Our Students Forward Through the Arts and Mindfulness” Presented by Karen Pfarr

“All Children Flourishing: The Nurtured Heart Approach” Presented by Gloria Sherman

2:15-3:45pm “Teamwork Makes the Dream Work,

But What is the Dream? The Process of Establishing a Focused and Unified Vision” Presented by Lorie Barnes & Luke Hill

Full Steam Ahead: Encouraging Mind-fulness Through Staff and Student Cul-ture” Presented by Victoria Brandon & Erika Weiss

Change Your Language, Change Their Lives: What Adults Can Say Differently Today to Transform the Tomorrows of Our Youth” Presented by Dan Reimers

FRIDAY, 3/18 10:15-11:45am

“Walk the Talk: Assess your Personal and Professional Habits for Resilience and Alignment” Presented by Megan DeRitter

“Trauma Sensitive Schools” Presented by Elizabeth Garcia & Joy Zollinger

“Change Your Language, Change Their Lives: What Adults Can Say Differently Today to Transform the Tomorrows of Our Youth” Presented by Stephen Miller

Need a brain energizer? Visit the AMAZING MAZE in room 111 on the second floor (at the end of the Brain Path). This self-guided maze will truly amaze you with the many “tricks” our minds play around perception and experience. Fun—not frightening—the maze is a perfect way to energize, and fascinate, your mind!