To introduce this four-part series, the Center’s Chris Brandt and guest author Katie Buckley from Transforming Education make the argument for integrating and prioritizing social and emotional learning in schools. This post focuses on how social and emotional learning helps students develop key skills such as self-directed learning and healthy coping abilities, teeing up the question addressed in the next three posts: how can states, districts, and schools support SEL in responsible and useful ways through assessment?
We know social and emotional learning has proven valuable in school curriculums, but how can states support districts and schools in their efforts to promote SEL through assessment, and – just as importantly – find the bandwidth to do so as we grapple with COVID-19 challenges?
Districts have a considerable responsibility to ensure that schools are administering and using social and emotional learning assessment in ways that can result in more equitable outcomes for all students – something that is very top of mind as we continue to address the dangers of systemic racism in this country. In this post, we present four ways districts can establish equitable assessment systems that can support all students.
Part four of this series addresses the emotional toll COVID-19 has taken on staff and students after months of disrupted learning from Zoom classrooms, hybrid learning, and the general anxieties surrounding daily life. The pandemic has also heightened the consequences of racial and economic inequities on education. This post makes recommendations for how school leaders can apply social and emotional learning data to help students and staff thrive.