Educators from 50 school districts in southern Illinois took part in a training session to learn about strategies to help students suffering from Adverse Childhood Experiences - or ACES.
ACES are trauma or stress children must deal with, such as abuse, divorce, bullying and poverty.
Jackie Hodge with Massac County Unit 1 was one of the trainers. She says many of the strategies are tailored to the ages of the children.
"We help students sometimes through strategic games, logic puzzles. For older students, using planners, making sure we have classroom routines, so that students know what to expect, which helps to alleviate some of the stress."
Kelly Holland with Marion Unit 2 is a teacher who also conducted part of the training. She says her district uses a behavioral, emotional, social skills tracking system.
"The teachers do an online, basic benchmark assessment at the beginning of the year on each student. We complete those assessments three times through the year and the data that's generated is then usually reviewed at our Tier II behavior meeting."
Holland says the data allows the district to know how many students suffer from ACES and what kinds of services they need.
She says the problem is that tracking systems like the one in Marion require a financial investment that some districts can't afford.
The Illinois Education Association says roughly half of the students in southern Illinois deal with at least one adverse experience.
