• Image description: Photograph of boy with white skin and brown hair smiling with his eyes closed. "Breathe" is in text at top of image and Ollibean Logo is at the bottom.

The Quiet Key to This School’s Success

What do you do when you become the principal of a school with the lowest academic performance and  the highest rate of suspension, absenteeism, and teacher turn over? Nothing. Nothing for 15 minutes twice a day to be exact. In 2003, James Dierkean, the innovative principal of Visitacion Valley Middle School in San Francisco, decided to try something unconventional to mitigate the negative impacts that stress was causing for his students and staff. He launched a meditation program. Specifically, a Transcendental Meditation (TM) program called Quiet Time. Principal Dierke and his staff, with the help

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