NEWS

'Critically important'

Schools spotlight social, emotional learning amid complex times for youth

Hadley Barndollar hbarndollar@seacoastonline.com
Peyton S., Gigi R. and Makenzie H, students at New Franklin School Elementary School in Portsmouth, participate in "Open Circle" on a Thursday morning, as part of a social and emotional learning curriculum.
[Deb Cram/Seacoastonline]

PORTSMOUTH — In a second-grade classroom at New Franklin Elementary School, a warm flurry of compliments.

Seated in a circle, girls praise each other's dresses and sweatshirts. A boy gives his friend kudos for helping him clean up after an activity the previous week. They all murmur the teacher-advised response — "thank you" — through toothy smiles. It's a lesson on compliments.

Down the hallway, in a first-grade circle, students talk about inclusion and cooperation. Teacher Erin Lane asks, "What does cooperation mean?"

Student responses, following eager hand raises, range from "working together" to "getting along with other people." Lane selects two lucky students, Estie and Daniella, to demonstrate cooperation by drawing together.

"Things are different than they were five, 10 years ago," said New Franklin Principal Joanne Simons, "and we need to respond to the needs of our students and build community. For some of our students, school is the safest and most consistent place for them."

In a heightened 21st century world, young people are rife with issues arguably of epidemic proportions — bullying, depression, anxiety, isolation, school violence, academic pressure. A destructive combination of social media, adverse childhood experiences and immersion in violence and negative world events is often pointed to as a main culprit.

Some first-graders now have iPhones, and an unending access to the Internet. Others have severed families as a result of the opioid crisis.

These issues — and their root causes — converge Monday through Friday in the classroom, where a narrative shift over the last few years has led to a spotlight on social and emotional learning, often referred to in the education world as SEL.

School leaders and educators now view the buzz phrase of sorts not only as an crucial primer for academic learning, but as fundamental for creating healthy, empathetic human beings who have the tools to make good decisions throughout their lifetimes.

Last year, when New Hampshire's Republican Gov. Chris Sununu assembled a school safety preparedness task force, the report generated by the effort pinged social and emotional learning as a No. 1 priority for the Granite State. Studies indicate students exposed to SEL in school continue to outperform peers up to 18 years later on a variety of indicators, including positive social behaviors, empathy and teamwork skills, academics, less emotional distress, and fewer drug use problems, the report stated.

The academic performance of students exposed to SEL programs is an average 13 percentile points higher than their non-SEL peers, according to a 2017 analysis that examined 82 different interventions involving more than 97,000 students from kindergarten to high school.

Sununu has endorsed the "Choose Love" curriculum, started by Connecticut mother Scarlett Lewis, whose 6-year-old son Jesse was killed in Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, along with 19 other children and six adults. Earlier this month, Lewis brought her message to Dover High School, where she framed social and emotional learning as a proven and preventative measure for violence and unhealthy decision-making.

Sununu hired a state program coordinator for Choose Love, who has visited 120 schools in 13 months. According to the governor's office, to date, 368 New Hampshire schools have downloaded the Choose Love curriculum. Spokesman Ben Vihstadt said this summer, the governor's office randomly called 130 of the schools, and only 26 had elected not to move forward with implementing it, citing a lack of time, resources or staff.

Some concerns have been raised that SEL is a "softer" approach to education, moving away from academic content, and because SEL is woven into curriculum, there is no option for a parent to have their child opt-out. In June, similar concerns were expressed ahead of the Nashua Board of Education's approval of the Choose Love curriculum. In an interview, Sununu said he has received push back from some of his Republican colleagues for endorsing the SEL model, which in return he called "a home run" program that creates a fully-integrated narrative, and cultural change, all throughout a child's schooling.

New Franklin Elementary, and all Portsmouth elementary schools, use the "Open Circle" curriculum designed by Wellesley College. Circles are held bi-weekly in classrooms, where students form a circle of chairs, including an empty seat to symbolize "there is always room for another person, voice or opinion." The lessons are highly-interactive and address strengthening relationships, sorting and solving problems, and appreciating difference.

"There are so many stressors that happen outside of school," Simons said, pointing to the impacts of social media and addiction on children and families as two examples. "We need to provide children with the language to share their feelings and emotions, and then handle them in an appropriate way."

Simons said the "true test" with any SEL curriculum is seeing how students carry those lessons outside of the classroom. New Franklin staff have been trained to use "Open Circle" language, so messaging is consistent across the entire school.

The circles, Simons said, are "an opportunity for us to pause and notice each other. It’s all about connections to one another. Our goal is that our students don’t feel isolated, that they feel valued, and that they feel they're part of a larger community."

In Rochester, a city with an 11% poverty rate, social and emotional learning also includes trauma-informed instruction.

Chamberlain Street Elementary School Principal Mark Campbell said all of the city's elementary schools average around 50% of students on free or reduced lunch.

"With that, we have families that have their challenges and even extended families where students are living with grandparents, aunts, uncles, foster parents," he said. "We work diligently at not only supporting the students and the staff, but the parents, too. We’re very cognizant of it."

Campbell said Rochester schools work towards a "complete wraparound" effect, and partner with community entities like the YMCA, Rochester Child Care Center, United Way and Head Start to actively be in conversation with agencies dealing with children and families.

Rochester's Bud Carlson Academy, a non-traditional, alternative high school program, is on track to become one of the first schools in the region to be certified as a trauma-skilled school program through the National Dropout Prevention Center. Twenty percent of the school's students are or have been homeless over the last 18 months, 90% have high Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) scores, and many have deceased parents, said Director Bryan Kelliher.

"We can’t be a school just full of cognitive behavioral therapists," he said. "We need some sort of model and design, because we can assume everyone here has been touched by trauma. The model really works, and helps you put initiatives into a framework."

In 2015, SAU 16 — including Exeter, Stratham, Brentwood, Newfields, East Kingston and Kensington — established a social and emotional learning committee comprised of administrators, staff and community members. Since, said Assistant Superintendent Esther Asbell, the school has conducted an inventory of its SEL resources, and begun to address gaps.

"We started getting feedback from our student support services there was an increase in anxiety in students and feeling overwhelmed," she said. "Our kids were coming in not needing the same old routine, so we needed to meet their needs, step up and take a fresh approach."

Asbell said the district has increased its SEL "manpower" over the last several years, through a memorandum of understanding with Seacoast Youth Services and the Seacoast Community Diversion Program, a "BEST" program focusing on transitions from middle to high school staffed with a full-time social worker, a trained behavioral intervention team, and an on-site space for Seacoast Mental Health at Exeter High School, to eliminate transportation barriers.

SAU 16 conducts the Devereux Students Strengths Assessment (DESSA) screening at all elementary schools, which identifies students who may require additional intervention — from school counseling, to psychologists, to social workers. Asbell said next year, they'll be piloting DESSA at the Cooperative Middle School and Exeter High School.

At Stratham Memorial School, staff utilize the Choose Love curriculum, which is also being piloted through advisories at CMS and EHS.

In Kittery, Maine, this year's district-wide staff kick-off focused on SEL, and featured educational consultant Mike Anderson. Anderson will continue to contract with the district throughout the school year, while staff are already using a "responsive classroom" model.

"We have come to a realization that we can push academics as hard as we can, but if students aren’t ready to learn, being socially or emotionally ready, we’re not going to get anywhere with that academic side," said Allison Gamache, principal at Horace Mitchell Primary School. "These are skills we need to teach explicitly."

Mitchell School is disproportionately impacted by the town’s military affiliation with Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, as it sees many young students coming and going each year. The SEL model is important to assist in those transitions, for example, school staff say.

Kittery Superintendent Eric Waddell said from an academic perspective, for a long time, schools did not teach students to understand how they learn as individuals, or to know themselves well. He said the "meta-cognition part of learning" was not addressed, and now, academics and SEL can't be siloed.

"These are tough times, and we certainly do recognize we have a student population that is wrestling with heightened anxiety and pressures," Waddell said. "The political climate, violence, I think kids have a lot on them now. And I do believe it's more than when I was a student. We need to support our kids in any way we can, and have a heightened awareness of who they are as learners and also as children, citizens and human beings. Then we need to help them by providing resources and teach them to be self-aware and to know where to go for help. That’s critically important."