Time: 6-7 p.m. ET / 3-4 p.m. PT / 12-1 p.m. HT / 9-10 a.m. ChT
Join The Teaching Well as we bring together diverse school site roles to share ways they have collaborated to create healthy and sustainable school climate for students, teachers and staff. Learning directly from teachers, school site personnel, and school leaders, together we’ll consider the possibilities of integrating wellness into whole school staff development, leadership approaches, collaborative conversations, and support spaces for both teachers and students. Participants will hear firsthand accounts of the personal and professional benefits when school staff make wellness a central focus in their work plans, relational strategies, and overall school culture. This webinar uplifts the concept that whole school wellness is best achieved as a multi-year collaborative and iterative process between all members of a campus community.
Participants will:
This webinar will be most helpful for new and veteran teachers, administrators who seek to lead sustainably, and school site wellness staff such as social workers, counselors and paraeducators or teachers on special assignment.
This is the third session in the Mental Health Literacy & Student Learning Outcomes webinar series.
About the Presenters
Candice Valenzuela, Lead Mindful Mentor and Executive Coach at The Teaching Well, is a proud Afro-Latina native of Watts, CA who has worked in the Bay Area education community for 13 years. Starting out as a teen health educator, she went on to teach Special Education, high school English, creative writing, and women's studies. She ran after-school enrichment programs before becoming a teacher coach and wellness consultant. Ms. Valenzuela has coached, trained, and mentored hundreds of educators in Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Indianapolis schools.
Ms. Valenzuela has a B.A. in Humanities from Loyola Marymount University, and an MA in East-West Psychology from the California Institute for Integral Studies. Candice is also certified as a mindful yoga teacher through the Niroga Institute. In addition to coaching and facilitating in schools, Ms. Valenzuela teaches as an adjunct at the University of San Francisco School of Education and the San Francisco State Department of Health Education. Ms. Valenzuela believes that the keys to social transformation lie at the intersections of education, healing, and justice.
Kelly Knoche, Executive Director of The Teaching Well, taught math, science and socio-emotional learning (SEL) for six years in public schools in Oakland. She holds a B.A. in psychology from UC Berkeley and also spent time studying at Harvard University. As a Teach for America corps member, she demonstrated great skill in bringing resources to her students by raising $15,000 for a multi-night field trip and building a joint tutoring program with the UC Berkeley field hockey team. As an innovative curriculum designer, she designed a nationally-recognized middle school project-based SEL program that has continued to be implemented by OUSD middle schools. She is a certified doula, 400-hour yoga teacher and has been trained in both the Mindful Schools and Niroga Institute's Mindfulness programs.
