A Program to Gauge Mental Health in Middle Schools Concerns over growing teen suicides nationwide and youth mental health issues have prompted officials at Crystal Lake Elementary District 47 to start talking about it in class and assess whether students are at risk. This month the district rolled out a suicide prevention and depression awareness program, known as Signs of Suicide or SOS, for seventh- and eighth-graders. It’s the latest effort to address students’ social and emotional needs.Read More Read More at Daily Herald
How to do SEL in K-12 Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is a real thing and if teachers in your school, district or state are not already explicitly teaching SEL skills, it is likely that they soon will be. Several states have adopted SEL standards for K-12 curriculum.Read More Read More at Question Tank
Looking for SEL programs? New RAND report has answers A new report from the RAND Corporation identifies 60 elementary, middle and high school-level SEL programs that can meet ESSA’s expectations for using an evidence-based intervention. The report also lists which positive outcomes the program or practice might produce, such as reducing aggression, improving motivation or addressing test anxiety.Read More Read More at Education Dive
Inspiring Women: Meet the Founder of Mind Yeti*, An Important Mindfulness App for Kids We got the scoop on Mind Yeti from Mia Doces, who led development of the app as the director of New Mission Ventures. Here’s what she had to say about why Mind Yeti is so important for families, future goals for the app, and why mindfulness is such a vital skill for kids. * Mind Yeti is not accepting new users at this time.Read More Read More at Livingly
Education Emotions 101: Why Hawaii Schools Are Focusing On Feelings Hawaii schools have joined a growing educational movement that emphasizes “whole child” development, not just academics.Read More Read More at Honolulu Civil Beat
New Social-Emotional Learning Curriculum Helps Students Find Lifelong Success St. Mary of Gostyn School is introducing a new program called “Second Step”, which helps students learn to express themselves appropriately, accept others’ differences, and detect social cues. “While we do a great job with academics and incorporating faith into our curriculum, we feel we need to cover the social and emotional needs of our students,” said Chris Kalal, Assistant Principal at SMG.Read More Read More at mysuburbanlife.com
What’s a Day in a Typical Minnesota Preschool Like? Follow Along with Us. …This is part of the district’s “Second Step” curriculum, which helps students improve their social-emotional skills. Heather Sanders, the district’s early learning coordinator, says this helps students understand and talk about their feelings with staff and other students.Read More Read More at TwinCities.com
How Waddell Elementary dramatically improved its academic performance Last school year, 77 percent of Waddell’s 462 students logged in to Achieve3000 after school, on weekends or during holidays, totaling 3,491 log-ins. On one of the walls in the school, Waddell displays for each grade level each month the average reading level attained and the number of articles the students read and correctly answered at least 75 percent of the comprehension questions.Read More Read More at Ledger-Enquirer
Greenbrier Elementary Piloting Social-Emotional Learning Program Joan Cole Duffell, executive director of Committee for Children, in August issued a statement in response to the Unite the Right rally. She said fostering the social-emotional development of children could help extinguish hatred, violence, and intolerance in future generations. “It is of paramount importance to build children’s social-emotional competencies — so that they might grow up to be adults who start from a place of empathy and kindness, not fear and hate,” Duffell wrote.Read More Read More at Charlottesville Tomorrow
October is Bullying Prevention Month: Stop Bullying on the Spot We use this bulletin board every other October because all our students know the story of Spookley the square pumpkin who was bullied by the round pumpkins. It helps reinforce the Second Step Bullying Unit lessons I teach and the literature based lessons led by our classroom teachers, administrators, and librarian. Read More Read More at Elementary Counseling