Union Wants Program To Help Teachers Address Student Trauma

Indiana State Teacher’s Association president Teresa Meredith lays out the union’s legislative priorities. One of them includes a new program to help teachers deal with student trauma. (photo credit: Claire McInerny / IPBS)

The state’s largest teachers’ union laid out their legislative priorities Wednesday, and one of the group’s goals is to train teachers to deal with student trauma.

Indiana State Teachers Association President Teresa Meredith says one of its main legislative priorities is to train teachers to recognize and work with student trauma.

Meredith says one in four children in the United States deal with some sort of trauma at home, and ISTA wants to give teachers guidance.

“So what I say to a 5-year-old who’s from a different home or from a different set of circumstances might not mean the same thing to a child that has experiences such trauma,” Meredith says.

Meredith suggests the legislature create a grant program managed by the Department of Education to train teachers.

This idea is based on a program in Massachusetts that involves teacher training and increased counseling for students.

ISTA also wants the General Assembly to make school funding more equitable, expanded state-funded preschool and pull student test scores out of teacher evaluations.