Episode Details

When schools talk about improving engagement, student wellness, or school climate, it often turns into assemblies, themed weeks, or standalone initiatives. 

When schools talk about community engagement, student wellness, or school climate, they often turn into assemblies, themed weeks, or standalone initiatives. 

In this episode, I invited Lauren Porosoff from The Teacher Nerd to unpack why a focus on engagement and wellness must be woven into the daily fabric of the school experience to have lasting impact.

Lauren is an educational consultant who helps schools design learning environments where community values like equity, empathy, and creativity emerge from the instruction itself. She was a teacher for 18 years, most recently at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York. She’s taught the 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 7th grades, mostly in English and history, and has also served as a diversity coordinator, a grade dean, and a leader of curricular initiatives. Lauren develops tools and protocols that transform the psychological experience of school for teachers and students. She’s developed applications in instructional design, social-emotional learning, professional development, and anti-bias action.

In this conversation, we discuss:

✅ What “compensatory programs” mean in the context of wellness, belonging, and community engagement.

✅ Why one-off events and initiatives aren’t sufficient for supporting student mental health and well-being. 

✅ How to embed protective factors like connection into instruction and routines.

✅ The impact of technology on engagement and agency (plus a writing example)

If you’re a school leader, instructional coach, or support professional who wants to strengthen student engagement and well-being in a sustainable way, this episode will help you shift from programming for students to designing systems with them across the entire day.

You can learn more about Lauren’s products and services on her website at: https://www.theteachernerd.com/

You can read her article on the trouble with compensatory programming here: 
https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/the-trouble-with-compensatory-programs

Get her book, Teaching for Authentic Engagement here: https://www.ascd.org/books/teach-for-authentic-engagement

Connect with her on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-porosoff-2b728b75/

In this episode, I mentioned Language Therapy Advance Foundations, my program that gives speech pathologists a scalable framework for building language skills needed to thrive in school, social situations, and daily life. You can learn more about the program here: https://drkarenspeech.com/languagetherapy

I also mentioned the School of Clinical Leadership, my program that helps related service providers design an executive functioning implementation plan for their school teams. You can learn more about the program here: https://drkarendudekbrannan.com/clinicalleadership

Learn more about today's sponsors, Playworks and IXL:

We’re proud to be sponsored by Playworks, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with evidence-based practices that help schools improve the health and well-being of children by increasing opportunities for physical activity and safe, meaningful play.

If you’re a school or district leader struggling with the challenge of chronic absenteeism, as so many are across the U.S., you may not realize that structured recess is a research-backed approach to keep kids in school. In fact, a UC Berkeley study of Title I schools found that those partnering with Playworks had significantly lower chronic absenteeism rates. Further, Mathematica research demonstrated that Playworks schools spent 27% less time transitioning from recess back to learning, saving teachers valuable instructional time. 

These results are possible for your students, too. Learn how Pl