A Whole-School Approach to Student Well-Being

Presented by Mary Terese Lopata, Director of Guidance, Mercy Career & Technical High School (PA); Emma Mac, Principal, LEAD Southeast Middle School (TN); and Christina Theokas, Chief Applied Science Officer, Turnaround for Children

Sponsored by Educator Impact

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Closed captioning will be added to the recording within 2 weeks of the live presentation. Get a CE Certificate for this edWebinar Learn more.

With student well-being top of mind for educators and administrators (particularly in light of the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic), many are looking for solutions to address increasing mental health challenges—the so-called “second pandemic”—in our classrooms. But addressing these challenges requires more than a single solution; it takes the whole school to support the whole learner.

This edWebinar explores the challenges schools face in supporting student well-being along with strategies and tools for supporting student social-emotional development through whole-school well-being efforts:

• Creating a culture based on a common language around well-being
• Using regular, frequent data to inform real-time interventions and support
• Amplifying student and staff voice
• Monitoring the progress of SEL curricula, training, and initiatives

Learn what it takes to transform your school through a focus on student well-being from experts at Turnaround for Children and from schools across the country.

This recorded edWebinar is of interest to teachers and administrators in K-12 settings.

About the Presenters

Mary Terese Lopata, LCSW is in her 29th year as the school social worker at Mercy Career & Technical High School in Philadelphia, PA. “M.T.,” as she likes to be called, is a graduate of West Chester University and Temple University. She received her clinical social work license in September 2006. At Mercy, M.T. provides information and referral to students and their families, performs home visits as needed, coordinates the Student Assistance Program, teaches a freshmen course on “handling life in a healthy manner” and recently became the director of guidance. She attends many professional trainings addressing trauma that may affect students’ school performance. M.T. is an associate in Mercy. She completed Penn State’s Master Gardener’s program in the fall of 2017 and is exploring horticultural therapy with students experiencing anxiety.

Emma Mac is currently in her fifth year as Principal of LEAD Southeast Middle School in Nashville, TN. Emma joined LEAD Southeast in 2013 as the founding fifth-grade science teacher before transitioning into the dean of culture role for three years. Prior to moving to Nashville, she taught seventh-grade science in Greenville, MS. Emma is originally from Falls Church, Virginia and holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree from Lipscomb University. When not supporting her students and staff, she loves spending time with her husband and one-year-old son.

Christina Theokas oversees the teams that translate the science, design and develop new resources and tools, and partner with educators in the field to design schools that are organized to support healthy whole-child development and learning. Christina formerly was at the National Center for Urban School Transformation, where she studied the teaching practices, systems and structures, and leadership of high-performing, urban schools and worked with educators to implement those strategies in their schools. She has studied and written about opportunity gaps for students of color and the low-income student experience.

Closed captioning will be added to the recording within 2 weeks of the live presentation.

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Educator Impact is an Australian EdTech revolutionizing the way schools support student Wellbeing and Social-Emotional Learning. Hundreds of schools globally are using ei Pulse check-ins to help students find easier ways to ask for help, give teachers real-time insights on those students, and give school leaders the ability to identify trends in school wellbeing and culture.