January 22, 2024 | By Emma Mills
Starting in 2021, 14 school districts—including 11 from the League of Innovative Schools and three from the Global Cities Education Network—joined the Digital Promise-led Working Group on Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and Learning Differences. Working in a peer cohort, these districts were in search of potential solutions to scale practices around social emotional learning (SEL) and learning differences.
In a report released in 2023, Digital Promise captured insights from this group, outlining findings and takeaways from their visits to school systems in Australia and Canada.
The participants recently reconnected via Zoom to share updates and continue to collaborate with one another around new ideas and approaches to support social and emotional well-being for students and adults in their districts.
Many participants noted that what they observed during their in-person visit to Australia continues to shape their approach to SEL and well-being in their own districts. “Something that really stood out to me in Australia is that academics [are held] to the same level of importance as social emotional well-being,” shared Amy Trojanowski, a principal in Mineola Public Schools (New York). “That really reinforced my belief and inspired me.”
Many additional common themes emerged from that conversation:
Many participants spoke to the importance of making sure that adults in the district —including educators, administrators, and support staff—are equipped to support students around topics of social emotional well-being and mental health. Some districts have taken a more formal approach to this by building and implementing adult SEL competencies for staff and faculty. Others are approaching things more informally by conducting faculty meetings in circles versus rows or starting with belonging activities.
Lynwood Unified School District (California) credits much of its SEL growth in the past year to “capacitating adults as well as our kids,” which it has accomplished in large part through external partnerships and by hiring additional staff. Lynwood now partners with 40 different agencies to provide holistic support to students, and it leveraged state funds from a California Community Schools grant to hire critical support roles, including a community school case manager, an SEL specialist in all elementary schools, a community liaison, licensed clinical social workers, substance abuse specialists, and foster youth case managers.
Some of the districts have found success through creating standardized SEL practices that educators and support staff across the district can leverage and replicate year after year. Richland School District Two (South Carolina) and Suffern Central School District (New York) are both centering SEL initiatives and monitoring student growth based on the CASEL Framework, a learning which they gathered from the group’s visit to Australia. Richland Two’s Social Emotional Wellness initiative for adults and students is centered around the CASEL Framework, and Suffern is administering a baseline assessment with Panorama based on CASEL as well.
One way that Surrey Schools (British Columbia) is engaging their secondary schools is by leveraging the signature playbook from the CASEL Framework. The playbook provides teachers new to these topics with a step-by-step process for beginning a class with SEL in mind, including: starting with an inclusive opening; moving into an engaging activity; and ending with an optimistic closing.
Fostering a collective understanding among families around the importance of student SEL and well-being has been central to making these initiatives successful for many districts. Suffern Central School District has prioritized a community-based approach to its SEL initiatives by working to build inclusion and belonging in an authentic way. The district has facilitated connections between students and teachers across school buildings through initiatives such as activities that the district’s student interns led for faculty and staff. The district is also connecting elementary students with high school students to encourage relationship-building across grade levels.
Both Suffern and Richland School District Two are intentionally engaging families and their surrounding community through parent and community events, collecting and sharing resources, gathering together, and celebrating their vibrant community.
Nearly all participants coalesced around a shared challenge and opportunity: SEL initiatives need to look a lot different at the high school level. San Ramon Valley Unified School District (California) shared that developing and following a specific SEL curriculum for high school students was challenging. Instead, they are taking an “individual student” versus a “one size fits all” approach by making sure that classrooms foster welcoming, inclusive spaces for all students; investing in equity-minded work to address microaggressions that students experience; and staffing wellness centers with social workers so that students can seek out individual support when they need it.
San Ramon, like many other districts in the group, acknowledged that there is room to grow when it comes to serving all students well, specifically naming an equity gap for SEL among LGBTQ+ students.
Want to learn more about these SEL strategies? Check out “Centering Well-being: Advancing Social Emotional Learning for All,” a report which summarizes lessons learned and action plans from districts that participated in the working group.
