By The BELE Network

The Communities for Just Schools Fund (CJSF) kicked off its #ReclaimSEL webinar series on February 3, 2021 with an installment titled “The Intersections Between Social-Emotional Learning and Education Justice.” The panel, moderated by Cierra Kaler-Jones and Jaime Koppel of CJSF, featured:

• Zakiyah Ansari of the Alliance for Quality Education
• Jesse Hagopian of Rethinking Schools
• Carlos Rojas of Youth On Board
• Gisele Shorter of the Raikes Foundation & BELE Network partner

Their conversation was insightful and wide-ranging, covering a variety of topics about social-emotional learning (SEL) and how it can be applied as a tactic to achieve…

By Dr. Sasha Rabkin of Equal Opportunity Schools & The BELE Network

In the past few months, Equal Opportunity Schools (EOS) has been recognized for its work to center racial and economic equity in education and received investments from a cross sector of philanthropy to continue their mission. EOS partners with schools and districts to operationalize their commitments to racial equity through creative, real time data analytics to ensure low-income and students of color have access to, and the opportunity to succeed. …

By The BELE Network

“Imagine a world where every child’s life is a succession of opportunities — opportunities where children come to know who they are and discover who they could become. Imagine learning settings of all kinds where those kinds of opportunities are not only possible, they are intentionally built and optimized, regardless of where a child lives or begins school. Imagine too that educators could identify each child’s abilities, interests, and aspirations and align them with the contexts that promote them. …

By The BELE Network

In December, Transcend Education and the American Association of School Superintendents (AASA) led their second webinar in the “Road to Reinvention” series. Edgecombe County Superintendent Dr. Valerie Bridges shared how her district has been reinventing itself using Transcend’s Designing for Learning resources, which dive into the science of how people learn and develop. Edgecombe has centered students and the community, launched microschools, and collaborated with state policy leaders to enable schools to design models that work best for their students including incorporating block schedules and HR shifts. …

By The BELE Network

At the intersection of multiple crises, how we show up to support our students matters. In order to fully embrace social and emotional learning as a practice, it’s important that we do our part to create opportunities and spaces for young people to process and understand the global pandemic, reckoning with racial injustice, and the tumultuous US election.

To this end, UMOJA Student Development Corporation released an Election 2020 toolkit of resources to support the SEL needs of students during these turbulent and often uncertain times. Even though the election has passed, this toolkit still contains…

By The BELE Network

As school has moved to a virtual setting, we’ve begun to see how school systems are adapting and evolving curriculum to fit new learning environments. As education practices change and school leaders work to implement learning models that address the needs of the moment, it’s just as important that we improve how we are engaging with students beyond Zoom attendance and build strong relationships with them in a way that motivates them to thrive and progress.

Research has shown that developmental relationships with teachers, parents, and friends directly and indirectly affect school outcomes. The BELE Network…

By The BELE Network

In the coming months, our schools will continue to make decisions that affect the trajectory of student learning and the student experience for countless young people across the country. Instead of reverting to a status quo that never worked for everyone, there are jobs that schools can tackle in order to meet the moment and move forward stronger.

On October 22nd, Transcend Education and the American Association of School Superintendents (AASA) held the first webinar in their “Road to Reinvention” bi-monthly webinar series on how schools can equitably respond, recover, and reinvent in response to COVID-19…

By The BELE Network

Turnaround For Children has released a comprehensive suite of tools to build a school crisis plan that supports school leaders and educators as remote learning continues. One of the most important things we can do as we continue educating our students remotely is to stay attuned to their experiences and needs — both academically and social-emotionally. Turnaround’s resource is designed to help educators keep our finger on the pulse of student needs and address the collective trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In their introductory series, Turnaround discusses how a tiered support system can be a helpful…