Principals and school leadership teams play an important role in fostering the culture and climate of their schools. Intentionally or not, school leaders indicate their values and priorities through their interactions with staff, students, and families. Modeling by school leaders is, therefore, a critical part of creating a positive school environment and supporting staff in building SEL skills and mindsets. Principals can “lead from the center” by embodying SEL in their daily interactions.
Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL)
Arizona SEL Competencies
The Arizona Social Emotional Learning Competencies use CASEL's five core competencies that describe social and emotional learning in practice. By using the integrated framework, the five core competencies can be taught in many ways across many settings.
Visit our SEL Competencies page to learn more about the five core competencies and integrated framework.
CASEL Guide to Schoolwide Social and Emotional Learning
As school leaders, your role is critical to a schoolwide integration of SEL that promotes social, emotional, and academic growth and fosters equitable, caring, and motivating learning environments. CASEL has created an interactive guide to schoolwide social and emotional learning.
CASEL recommends starting here to get an understanding of the big picture.
Is your school, district, or charter interested in integrating social-emotional learning across classrooms and campuses?
You can fund and integrate evidence-based SEL programs and activities in your classrooms with federal grant programming. Specialists at ADE developed an easy-to-use funding guide to help you incorporate the SEL competencies and framework into your classrooms and school communities.
ADE is proud to sponsor and partner with trusted organizations to provide high-quality, evidence-based training that can be completed by individual educators, teams, or trainers.
Please visit our SEL training page to learn about upcoming professional development opportunities. Thanks to federal COVID-19 recovery funding, many options are available at no cost.
School leaders can find all the most recent Arizona legislation impacting public schools on our School Year 2021-2022 page under Guidance on New Legislation.
As of Fall 2021, Arizona schools must include mental health instruction in physical education courses. Experts at ADE have developed recommendations and identified resources that will help you implement this requirement. Learn more:
The District Student Wellbeing Services Reflection tool was created to help school systems assess and strengthen services and partnerships that support students' mental, physical and emotional health. Districts and charters can customize the tool to suit their needs. The District Student Wellbeing Services Reflection Tool is grounded in the 10-point framework developed by the Coalition to Advance Future Student Success.
This policy by the American Institutes for Research brief outlines the lessons learned from a multi-year evaluation of districtwide SEL implementation from the Collaborating Districts Initiative in Austin, TX.
This guide from Harvard’s EASEL Lab provides detailed and transparent information about commonly used, evidence-based SEL programs. By breaking down each program in detail, this report enables schools, preschool, and early childhood education (ECE) providers and out-of-school time (OST) organizations to see whether and how well individual programs might:
address their intended SEL goals or needs (e.g., bullying prevention, character education, behavior management, school readiness, etc.)
align with a specific mission (e.g., promoting physical fitness, community service, the arts, etc.)
meet the specific social, emotional, and behavioral needs of their students (e.g., behavior regulation, conflict resolution, academic motivation, executive function and early learning skills, etc.)
fit within their schedule or programmatic structure
integrate into existing school climate and culture initiatives, positive behavioral supports, and/or trauma-informed systems
complement other educational or programmatic goals outside of SEL (e.g., a school looking to boost student literacy scores or make up for the absence of a regular art or music class might consider selecting a program that frequently incorporates reading and writing activities, drawing and arts & crafts, or music and songs)
ensure that SEL programming is equitable (i.e., relevant, beneficial, and culturally appropriate for all students)
The Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model approach to learning is critical to the success of students, educators, and communities. Many federal funding streams are already available to support the implementation of the WSCC model for both the students and adults on a school campus. The WSCC Federal Funding Guide intends to expand awareness of the potential opportunities to fund the implementation of WSCC activities and to open the door for further exploration using federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) funds and Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds.
A recap of CASEL's SELebration Conference, information on signing up for the free PAX Good Behavior Game training, and how to combat misinformation about social-emotional learning
New instructional resources for the AZ Arts Standards, including student-friendly "I am learning" statements and SEL tools, plus free upcoming training
