Blake Manor Elementary and 7 Mindsets

Post-Covid, Blake Manor Elementary School struggled with parent, family and community engagement, low attendance, increase of students struggling with mental health and not having the resources to support all of these factors that posed a challenge and negatively impacted the campus culture (students and staff).

The campus principal and leadership team came to the consensus that mental health had to be the number one priority, including a focus on campus culture for all. Team members discovered 7 Mindsets and determined to make this a campus-wide implementation.

Blake Manor Elementary is a Title 1 school. BME’s student population consists of 84% Hispanic, 8% African American, 6% White, and 2% multi-race (TAPR report data-TEA). As a Title 1 school, the school serves a high percentage of scholars who are considered at-risk.

The results were undeniable that a campus-wide approach to change our direction helped with the challenges above. The results included:

Post-Covid, the Blake Manor Elementary campus struggled with parent, family, and community engagement, low attendance, increase of students struggling with mental health and not having the resources to support all of these factors posed a challenge and negatively impacted our campus culture (students and staff). Principal Krystle Austin knew the school needed a reset and that the missing piece was a well-being curriculum like 7 Mindsets.

“7 Mindsets was going to not only be something to implement on the campus, but it was going to give us the opportunity to bridge the home-to-school relationship and bring people back into our buildings, and work together on everyone’s mental health,” Austin said.

To be successful in the first year of implementation, Austin felt it was important to get the commitment across the campus and BME community. This meant that there had to be a well-planned implementation process in which the students, teachers, and staff would have to live and breathe the mindsets in everything the school did as a campus community. Making the 7 Mindsets curriculum visible, accessible, and celebrated became a part of the daily routine.

In the main hallway of the school, “every Mindset has a bulletin board,” said Austin. “They start off blank with posters and then we add as we go through the mindset.” Another bulletin board at the entrance is set up for families to see the student support team and parent newsletters.

A “Mindset Hall of Fame” shows photos of students holding “caught-ya” cards—colorful cards acknowledging students for efforts like “Dreaming Big” or “Embracing Creativity”—as well as Mindset Motivators, assembly photos, and celebrations for staff, teachers, and volunteers of the month. “Everyone is celebrated and appreciated along those hallways,” said Austin. Similar displays are in classrooms as well.

The 7 Mindsets and the celebrations were all printed and included in newsletters for parents. All the materials were collected into binders for every teacher and provided in both English and Spanish for the dual-language classrooms. In addition to accessible materials, the curriculum was incorporated into morning announcements.

The school explored each of the seven mindsets during a full month on the calendar to make the curriculum easy for teachers to adopt in “bite-sized” chunks. “Everything was pre-made for teachers,” Austin said. “They had their binders and then everything was put in their boxes and as the activities came around—from supplies to the documents needed—we did all that.”

With the 7 Mindsets curriculum built into the schedule from the start of the school day and with resources for teachers, the school removed barriers to a successful implementation.

“When we can take the work off of the teachers and prepare them for it, then they’re more likely to do it and enjoy it because they’re not having to stress about it,” said Austin.

With all the preparation and a consistent, daily focus, the school’s culture began to transform. During assemblies, students, staff, and teachers were eager to celebrate each other’s successes. “Shout out” cards, which were put in mailboxes, gave staff and teachers the opportunity to highlight their colleagues. The cards were given to the principal who read them during morning announcements or included them in grade-level chats.

“Everyone was patting each other on the back and giving us that push to get through the year,” said Austin.

Instead of contacting parents only when there was a discipline issue, the principal and teacher called home to share good news about students who were nominated for excelling in a particular mindset. Those students also had lunch with the principal, who would post their photo in the school’s office and in the Mindset Hall of Fame.

“You could just feel [the culture] shifting for the positive and what we so desperately needed a year after what seemed like a rut, so to speak, after COVID,” said Austin.

The successful implementation of the 7 Mindsets curriculum and shift in culture had tangible results: Blake Manor went from having more than 330 disciplinary incidents and referrals the year before to 152 the year after – a 54% reduction. Attendance held steady at 92% and was higher than the district average. Staff retention went from 62% to 88%. BME became the place that everyone wanted to be!

These outcomes improved without any change in the discipline policy or the referral process and without changing any campus processes. “The only thing [that was] different was we had a curriculum that was going to foster the mental health of everyone, but also the campus wide commitment to focus on culture,” said Austin.