Summer Learning Institute 2025

This session takes a deeper dive into engaging All Students: Lessons Learned from Incarcerated Students and explores the complex and interconnected issues of school disengagement, dropout, and juvenile delinquency through a developmental lens. Drawing on longitudinal research and current data, we will examine how warning signs of school detachment appear as early as first grade and how these signs, if left unaddressed, can accumulate into a trajectory that leads to school dropout and involvement with the juvenile justice system. Participants will engage with evidence-based frameworks, including the frustration–self-esteem and participation-identification models. Emphasis will be placed on early detection, the power of teacher-student relationships, and school-based strategies to enhance engagement and foster lasting school connectedness. This session is ideal for educators, administrators, counselors, social workers, school psychologists, and others seeking a deeper understanding of student disengagement. Additional theoretical models that will be discussed:

Critical Theory: Explore Social Justice and Democracy 
Ecological Systems Theory: Impact of Environment
Multiple Marginality Theory: Eco,Economic, Sociocultural
Critical Race Theory: Cultural Competence
Youth Control Complex: Punitive Social Control
Tolerance Theory: Teacher Limitation/Student Need

Dr. David Diehl is the Director of Student and Community Services for the Selma Unified School District. Prior to entering education, he spent 24 years in law enforcement, retiring as a police sergeant. His Doctoral research was inspired by the 21 students he lost to gang-related homicides while a teacher in a detention facility in Central California. He has worked extensively with system-involved youth in court, community day schools, and other alternative educational settings. He is a proponent of data-informed interventions before the 6th grade and provides educators with increased awareness of the lives of street-socialized students from marginalized communities. He believes this approach can improve student engagement, increase resilience, and impede future incarceration.