Excellent schools strive to develop a comprehensive and integrative improvement process for students and their families that integrate best practices of positive school culture, climate, and social and emotional learning; character development skills, enhanced academic achievement strategies, and positive parent engagement. Character.org's…

Objectives: Schools can provide an optimal environment for promoting children's health behaviours. The Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model addresses 10 aspects of the school environment that can be used to promote student health behaviours and academic outcomes: namely, Health Education; Nutrition Environment and Services;…

Traditional definitions of school readiness have focused primarily on the skills, knowledge and abilities children need for educational success. However, these definitions have evolved in recent years to encompass a multidimensional view, adding physical and mental health, social and emotional skills, executive functioning and self-regulation, and…

To support proactive leadership, the Aspen Institute Education & Society Program proposes five potential strategies system leaders can use to implement the ideas proposed in the "Call to Action" and, ultimately, to pursue social, emotional, and academic development (SEAD) through a racial equity lens. The strategies discussed in this…

Around the world, dedicated professionals are implementing innovative programs to improve access to quality education for children living in poverty and otherwise marginalized communities. This article provides an overview of the work being conducted by BRAC, an international development organization based in Bangladesh that is working to…

Both equity and social, emotional, and academic development (SEAD) are currently receiving much-needed attention, but neither can fully succeed without recognizing strengths and addressing gaps in these complementary priorities. Rather than being pursued as two separate bodies of work, the field needs to identify ways in which equity and social,…

Social and emotional learning (SEL) provides a foundation for healthy development. It is the process children, youth, and adults go through to develop the skills to engage with others, manage their emotions, show empathy, handle stress, resolve stress, set goals, and make responsible decisions to succeed in work and life. School climate is a…

It is the position of the National Association of School Nurses (NASN) that the registered professional school nurse (hereinafter referred to as school nurse) be knowledgeable about and participate in the implementation of Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) approach in the educational setting (ASCD & Centers for Disease Control…

Six years ago the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) took the unprecedented step of launching an effort to study and scale high-quality, evidence-based academic, social, and emotional learning in eight of the largest and most complex school systems in the country: Anchorage, Austin, Chicago, Cleveland, Nashville,…

After decades of research, policy discussions, and legislation promoting finance reform, in 2013, California adopted a major change in how schools are funded and held accountable: the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). This new funding model is the most comprehensive education finance reform implemented in California in nearly 40 years, and…

With a little ingenuity and a lot of dedication, the author created a self-funded construction program that is weathering the ups and downs of school funding; it enjoys great support from the community, is accomplishing more with less, and collaborative efforts between teachers are paying off. Creating such a program takes time, vision,…

School discipline has been a subject of national attention both inside and outside the field of education for years. Efforts to improve how schools and communities work together to address student discipline have shown the potential for creative and effective solutions that provide better outcomes for all--students, families, educators, and…

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is more than a school system, it is a community. It's a community of people working together to provide Montgomery County students with an education that prepares them for success today, tomorrow, and in the years to come. That is MCPS' core purpose: to prepare students to thrive in their future. The Annual…

Society and the life experiences of children and youth changed considerably during the last century. Schools today are expected to do more than they have ever done in the past to implement effective educational approaches that promote academic success, enhance health, and prevent problem behaviors have grown significantly. Broad-based, school-wide…

Although public acceptance of Head Start is high, public understanding of what the program does remains limited. Studies of Head Start to date have been insufficient in quantity and scope. In November 1994, the Roundtable on Head Start Research began a series of discussions of new directions for Head Start research. The roundtable looked at…