NPR

To help these school kids deal with trauma, mindfulness lessons over the loudspeaker

An elementary school in Florida, credits daily mindfulness lessons with helping students cope with stress — and turning the school around academically. The lessons are delivered through an app.
A student named Royce closes his eyes during a mindfulness session in class at Patricia J. Sullivan Partnership School in Tampa, Fla. Students say the daily lessons help them cope with their feelings.

TAMPA, Fla. — At 8:30 a.m. on a sunny winter day, the cafeteria tables at the Patricia J. Sullivan Partnership Elementary School are packed. Dozens of students – from kindergarten through the fifth grade – are hanging out, catching up and eating today's breakfast of apple strudel, fruit juice, banana and milk.

School principal Dave McMeen is in constant motion. He's greeting students, picking wrappers and banana peels off the floor and lining up the kids to send them off to class.

The first lesson of the day, as they leave the cafeteria, is self control: "Show me that right now me by facing forward. Show me your toes, show me your hands, now show me your body," he says, to a row of kindergartners assembling in the hallway, "When your body is still, your mind is still and we can focus."

Sullivan Elementary School is the smallest public school in the that supports families at risk of homelessness in Tampa Bay.

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