A total meltdown on a school bus is not unheard of. Temperature, noise, the feeling of being too close to too many people—all of it can boil over, especially if you are a person with sensory sensitivities and a history of trauma. That was the case on a warm day in central Kentucky. The bus was packed. The transportation schedule was tight. There was no time or space for a kid to melt down. 

But someone did. 

Instead of shouting commands in a big, scary voice—the bus driver quietly contacted the school. Then he doubled back to the parking lot, where the counselor was already waiting. She stepped on board and whispered to the student, “You are not in trouble. Walk with me.” Within minutes, the student was lying in cool grass—his own calming strategy—and the bus was on its way.

“That day, nobody got hurt. Everybody got home safely. And that child’s dignity was preserved,” says Amy Riley, M.Ed., the counselor who stepped onto the school bus to help the upset student. “I wish I could tell that story to every bus driver out there.”

The driver’s humane and effective response was owing to the trauma sensitivity training he had received as part of his job. Riley and her school’s leaders had facilitated trauma training for all staff at their grade 3-5 school. 

The strategies that Riley and her team use are holistic: They involve the whole school, not just the classroom. Here are five steps to make safer and calmer learning environments for kids with trauma histories.  

Step One: Recognizing the Need 

The need for specialized training became clear when the school experienced an unprecedented number of suicide threat assessments—52 in a single school year.  

“We’ve always dealt with suicide threats, but they were rare,” Riley says. “After COVID, our team noticed that the number of students who expressed suicidal ideation or a desire to self-harm was through the roof.  We screened every child who said those words and found that the majority had actual intent and planning behind them. And most of those positive screenings were kids who had experienced significant trauma.” 

Step Two: Forming a Trauma Team  

The state of Kentucky requires all schools to have a trauma team. At Riley’s school, that team is comprised of an administrator, school mental health professionals, a nurse, and select teachers. The team meets regularly to discuss student needs and training opportunities. Some of the steps they’ve taken to lower the impacts of trauma include: 

• Organizing wrap-around services for identified students 
• Tracking student progress monthly 
• Pairing students with teachers who can act as a support (The team is especially attentive to “outlier” students who don’t seem to have a connection with any adult in the school building)
• Providing a “handle with care” notice to everyone who has contact with a child with trauma history
• Creating community connections, such as a program with firefighters and first responders who can inform the school when a student may have been affected by an adverse event
• Writing 504 or IEP plans to accommodate students with trauma based on emotional disturbance, which is one of the 13 categories of disability under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) 

Step Three: Putting Tier 1 Interventions in Place 

Tier 1 interventions apply to everyone, and they’re meant to be protective and preventative.  

For example, the state of Kentucky requires all staff to have training in trauma-informed educational practices; however, not all schools include cafeteria staff, custodians, and bus drivers. Riley’s does. 

During training, staff learned what happens in the brain during and after a traumatic event. They learned how trauma can change behavior and learning abilities. As part of training, Riley read aloud a list of the specific adverse events students at the school were experiencing.

“You could have heard a pin drop,” she said. “Once our staff understood the trauma our students were going through, they were eager to implement these practices.”

What do some of those practices look like? In classrooms, teachers 

• use children’s names every day; 
• maintain predictable routines; 
• dim the glare of overhead lights; and 
• speak softly—no raised voices, ever. 

Because professionals in every department received training, trauma sensitivity and education has expanded throughout the school. 

• Information on emotion regulation is displayed in bathroom stalls, where children can see it. 
• In the pick-up/drop-off line, staff greet children by name each day. 
• Calming music plays in the cafeteria serving line and in hallways—places where noisy transitions can add stress.
• In the gym, coaches teach progressive muscle relaxation.
• When it’s time for an assembly, seating choice, headphones, and alternate locations are available for students who need them.
• Restorative circles, natural consequences, and positive reinforcement are replacing punitive discipline policies.
• Administrators and educators remind students and families of available services and support when the anniversary of a natural disaster or school violence episode approaches.

Riley is particularly moved when she considers the changes in the cafeteria—a place many students feel overwhelmed. 

“A few years ago, we had a real issue with our cafeteria monitors raising their voices,” she recalls. “They didn’t understand another way to discipline children, and it caused friction between parents and staff. Students just didn’t want to go into there.” After training, that changed.

“It was a mindset shift,” she says. Voices softened. And because they’d been included in professional development, the cafeteria staff's value and importance were reinforced.

“We had an autistic student who had experienced trauma and high poverty. For whatever reason, she was terrified of a specific food the cafeteria often served,” Riley says. “The cafeteria staff went beyond the extra mile in accommodating her. Not only did they offer her an alternative, they knew when her class was coming in. Someone would watch for her so they could be sure there was none of that specific food anywhere in view. And we did not have a problem all year because of those ladies.” 

It can look like coddling or weakness, Riley says, unless you understand what’s really going on.  

Step Four: Including Families in Your Planning 

Awareness of trauma extends to families. Special care is taken when communicating with parents and caregivers, many of whom have had traumatic experiences themselves—some of which were related to school.

“Some of our parents live in poverty and feel very marginalized by the system and by government,” Riley explains. “When we would call them, they’d be very on-edge. Part of what we did was to make sure that parents had positive communication from us. We tried to bring them into school for events, and at times when things were not bad.

“We start conversations by saying, ‘Your child is not in trouble. We’re here to help, not to judge.’ That’s especially true of calls about self-harm. It’s important for me to follow up with families later, so they know I’m not just going on about my life while they’re sitting in an emergency room somewhere.” 

Taking a more sensitive approach with parents can’t make up for harmful experiences in the past. But it can help. “I saw walls come down,” Riley says. “It wasn’t with every family. But I saw more involvement and had more communication. And that did trickle into the classroom.” 

Step Five: Helping Escalated Kids

Preventative measures are important, but they don’t guarantee a crisis-free environment. To help students cope when emotional dysregulation happens, Riley’s team first educated students in the language they could use to describe what they were thinking and feeling. Students learned how to ask for help. They thought about and wrote down things they could do to calm themselves in upsetting moments.

The school also made these resources available to all students: 

• Classrooms are equipped with calming boxes—small plastic bins with squeeze balls, fidget toys, and prompts for deep-breathing and cognitive restructuring exercises. The bins also contained a timer. A student feeling stressed can go to the calming zone in the classroom, sign out the calming box, set the timer for five minutes, and use the tools in the box. The child can self-regulate and stay in the classroom without missing instructional time.  
• The school has created a sensory room, equipped with a small tent, white noise machine, low lighting, and other calming tools. A teacher can escort any emotionally escalated child to this space. 
• For children who become over-stimulated and are in danger of hurting themselves or someone else, the school has made available an empty room with white walls and nothing on the floor. For some children, the absence of sensory stimulation is a good way to calm down. In both the sensory room and the empty space, students are supervised, often by a special education teacher. They’re also taught calming strategies. 
• Outside and throughout the building, there are growing things, open spaces, and animals for students to access. (Riley’s advice regarding animals is simple but imperative: “You need a plan for your service dogs,” she says.) 

Key Messages 

Trauma-informed practices are increasingly common in classrooms, but they can be broadened so that every part of the school day is easier for all students, especially those who have experienced adverse events. For that to happen, everyone who interacts with students should be trained in trauma-informed educational practices.

The results are worth the time and effort: After this school prioritized schoolwide trauma training, suicide threat assessments dropped from 52 to 14.

Getting “buy-in” for these systemic changes need not be difficult, Riley notes, even among initiative-weary faculty. That’s because most are already aware of student distress. “They are the ones seeing students getting carried off to hospitals. They are the ones seeing the plans written in their notebooks. They know. They know it is a big deal,” she says. 

Research and Resources: 

Riley, Amy D. (personal interview, August 24, 2023)  

Riley, Amy D. (2023, July 15). Trauma-informed practices in unconventional spaces. Dream Big: American School Counselors Association Annual Conference. https://ascaconferences.org/2023/schedule-at-a-glance