Implementing Social-Emotional Learning

Implementing Social-Emotional Learning: Insights from Districts’ Successes and Setbacks provides essential insights into the strategies that have enabled districts to effectively provide the benefits of social-emotional learning to their students. Building on case studies of six school districts that vary in size, geographic region, demographic diversity, per-pupil spending, staff capacity, and leadership style, this book offers indispensable observations about the factors that facilitate the deep integration of SEL into daily instruction and school culture. While the approaches these districts have taken vary in type and degree, clear-cut themes emerge that are common to the most successful strategies. Building upon these case studies, Implementing Social-Emotional Learning: Insights from Districts’ Successes and Setbacks offers clear guidance so districts can avoid the errors that compromise implementation and can, instead, support district leaders in building successful and sustainable approaches that reach all students, including those at the challenging middle and high school levels.

Sheldon H. Berman, EdD, is AASA’s Lead Superintendent for Social-Emotional Learning, having implemented highly successful and systemic SEL programs in each of the four districts he served as superintendent spanning 28 years. The author of numerous articles and books on SEL topics—including Children’s Social Consciousness and the Development of Social Responsibility and Promising Practices in Teaching Social Responsibility—he was a member of the Council of Distinguished Educators of the National Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic Development and was the primary author of the Commission’s SEL practice report.