This Month in SEL [June, 2019]

This month in SEL: RAND Corporation explores how America’s educators are adopting SEL in schools, a new non-profit rewards public schools for completing acts of kindness, Transforming Education releases a new resource to help educators foster SEL in their classrooms, the impact of teachers on students’ psychological experiences of schooling, and more!

[Plus, SEL is mentioned in a presidential debate for the first time ever! Watch the clip here.]

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How Districts Are Adding Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Health Supports

This fascinating new report from the Rennie Center explores how 70 schools in Boston are implementing a new model to transform school culture and improve the overall academic experience for students with a wide range of needs. The approach utilizes a version of MTSS that has social-emotional learning embedded at its core.

Transforming Education Releases New Tool for SEL Classroom Integration

In response to the Aspen SEAD Commission’s call for educators to integrate social, emotional, and cognitive development into academic curricula and throughout the day,” Transforming Education has developed an SEL Integration Approach for Classroom Educators. This resource supports educators in thinking about ways to foster social-emotional development in their day-to-day activities through six key components: conducive environments, strong relationships, explicit instruction, thoughtful modeling, practice opportunities, and teachable moments.

RAND Explores How America’s Educators Are Adopting SEL in Schools

The RAND Corporation surveyed nationally representative samples of over 15,000 K-12 teachers and 3,500 in an attempt to better understand how America’s educators are actually approaching social and emotional learning. This new report — “Support for Social and Emotional Learning is Widespread — found that large majorities of principals describe SEL as a “top priority,” and that most educators believe that SEL programs can improve student outcomes and school climate.

New Non-Profit Rewards Public Schools That Complete ‘Kindness’ Competition

Founded by a Massachusetts principal, Do Kind challenges schools to complete 50 acts of kindness in 24 hours in exchange for funding to use for curriculum or school-based endeavors. Throughout the 2018/2019 school year, the organization partnered with five schools, documented 250 acts of kindness and dolled out $2500 to partner institutions.

Learn More >

How Educators’ Perspectives Shape Student Success

A new report from FutureED explores how teachers influence students’ psychological experiences of schooling, their motivation to learn, and their achievement levels. The report by FutureEd Senior Fellows Craig Wacker and Lynn Olson profiles schools that are shifting teachers’ perceptions and practices to strengthen student engagement.

Our team spoke with Wacker and Olson to unpack the report’s findings. You can access the full transcript here.

Read the report >

House of Representatives Approves Budget for DoE

The US House of Representatives approved a $75.9 billion budget for the Department of Education for fiscal year 2020 — a total that represents record high funding for the department. Under the bill, additional funding is directed toward special education, social and emotional learning and the Title I program.

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