Simsbury schools spotlight student-led "Encouraging Words" campaign to address casual slurs and school climate

The Simsbury Board of Education on Monday heard a weeks-long strategic-plan update centered on school climate, student engagement and equity, with district leaders highlighting a student-created "Encouraging Words" campaign and new practices intended to reduce casual use of racial slurs and strengthen supports for harmed students.

Dr. Tyresha Batchelor, the district’s director of equity and access, framed the presentation around the board’s Goal 2 — a "Compassionate and Connected" school culture — and said the campaign grew from student focus groups that identified harmful language and places where that language circulates. "Compassionate and Connected school culture is really about fostering something within our community," Batchelor said, summarizing the district’s approach to prevention, tiered responses and restorative practice training.

The update included examples from K–12 classrooms: elementary read-alouds tied to belonging, girls- and women's-empowerment groups, sixth-grade "lunch bunch" activities, expanded tutoring and mentoring and a series of restorative-circle trainings. At the high school level, staff previewed a TEDxKids talk called "Educate Before You Discriminate" and described small, demographically balanced viewing groups created to avoid isolating students of color. Presenters said that follow-up surveys of students produced more than 850 responses that informed next steps, including student-led "SimsTalks" monologues to be shown during a diversity, belonging and inclusion week in March.

Public commenter Darren Brunstead told the board he and his multiracial family had experienced "an undercurrent of casual racism" in schools and asked what the district would do differently. District staff responded by describing existing procedures, new programs and a plan of student focus groups and parent education nights to extend work beyond classrooms.

District presenters cited specific program elements and early outcomes. They said targeted tutoring and mentoring correlated with increased AP participation among cohorts and with reductions in suspensions for students engaged in after-school supports. Dr. Batchelor noted that the state’s new school-climate law (Public Act 23-167) reframes bullying as "challenging behaviors" and requires school-climate improvement plans; she told the board Simsbury’s existing climate leads, restorative practice rollout and curriculum updates position the district to meet the new requirements, though she said more data are needed to measure what is working over time.

Board members asked about parent outreach; staff said the district has run evening parent-education events, partnered with the PTO and outside experts, and worked with law-enforcement and public-health partners for topic-specific sessions (for example, vaping and social-media impacts). Presenters encouraged continued community involvement, noting that many interventions will be peer-led and that student voice is central to the district’s strategy.

What’s next: presenters said they will conduct targeted student focus groups this month, continue restorative-circle training and prepare student-produced SimsTalks for March. The board did not take formal action on the strategic-plan update at the meeting.

"This is not a one-and-done," Batchelor said. "Students have the answers — we have to give them the platform."