Improving Workforce Readiness Through Social-Emotional Skills and School Climate

Oct. 21-22, 2019, Santa Fe, NM

The National Governors Association (NGA) Solutions: The Center for Best Practices Education Division (NGA Education) hosted a cross-state Learning Collaborative on the topic of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) on October 21 and 22 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Learning Collaborative convened 15 governors offices and 40 state officials. The event featured speakers and discussion related to the relationship between SEL and workforce readiness, school climate and safety, measuring SEL student outcomes, promoting an SEL-ready teacher workforce, advancing equity through SEL, applying SEL lessons from early childhood education to K-12, and communicating SEL with various stakeholders.

Agenda | Resources 

Day 1: Monday, October 21, 2019

Welcome and Overview

•  Speaker: Seth Gerson, Program Director, NGA Education

Opening Framing Remarks

• Speaker: Dr. Zoë Stemm-Calderon, Director, Education, Raikes Foundation

Opening Activity: SEL In Action

• Session Description: This session will provide an opportunity for governors’ advisors to participate in an interactive activity showcasing what skills we are talking about when we use the term “social-emotional learning.”
• Speaker: David Adams, Director of Social Emotional Learning, Urban Assembly

Educator and Student Voice

• Session Description: To ground our policy conversations over the next day and a half and ensure that we keep focused on the teachers and students at the center of our work, this session will provide participants with an opportunity to hear from the voices of a teacher and student from New Mexico.
• Speakers:

• • Antasia Lopez, Junior, Mark Armijo Academy, Albuquerque, New Mexico
  • Joe Dan M. Lovato, STEAM Teacher, Mark Armijo Academy, Teach Plus New Mexico Policy Fellow, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Session I: Connecting SEL and Workforce Readiness

• Session Description: This session will provide governors’ advisors with research on the employability impact of SEL skills and how SEL skills relate to workforce success.  It will also provide templates for how governors can connect SEL and workforce readiness, including tangible frameworks and exemplars for moving this work forward at the state level.
• Facilitator: Seth Gerson, Program Director, NGA Education
• Speakers:

• • Camille Farrington, Managing Director and Senior Research Associate, University of Chicago Consortium on School Research
  • Karen Garza, President and CEO, Battelle for Kids
  • Stephanie Krauss, Senior Director, Jobs for the Future

Session II: Teacher Preparation and Development

• Session Description: This session will explore best practices on ways to embed SEL into educator preparation and professional learning, including levers that governors can use to strengthen educator practice in this area.
• Facilitator: Dr. David Casalaspi, Senior K-12 Education Policy Analyst, NGA Education
• Panelists:

• • Sarah Butcher, Co-Founder and Director, Roots of Inclusion; Co-Founder, SEL for Washington
  • Deborah Donahue-Keegan, Faculty of Civic Studies and Lecturer in the Department of Education, Tufts University; Associate Director, Tufts University Tisch College Initiative on Social-Emotional Learning and Civic Engagement
  • Jennifer Kitil, PhD Candidate, University of British Columbia Social & Emotional Learning Lab
  • Nancy Lourie Markowitz, Executive Director, Center for Reaching & Teaching the Whole Child, Professor Emeritus, San Jose State University Department of Teacher Education

Session III: School Safety and School Climate

• Session Description: This session will provide an opportunity for governors’ advisors to hear from three students of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence Student Voice Team who are working to improve school climate and student safety in Kentucky.  National and state experts will also share tools and resources for taking a comprehensive approach to addressing school safety, including mental health supports, SEL and a positive school climate.

Part 1:

• Speakers:
  • Rachel Belin, Student Voice Team Director, Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence
  • Prichard Committee Student Voice Team
    • Gabriella Staykova
    • Don Trowell

Part 2:

• Facilitator: Seth Gerson, Program Director, NGA Education
• Panelists:
  • Perry Plummer, Assistant Commissioner, New Hampshire Department of Safety, Governor Chris Sununu
  • Dr. Whitney Allgood, CEO, National School Climate Center
  • Jaime Koppel, Deputy Director for Strategic Partnerships, Communities for Just Schools Fund
  • Dr. Christina Pate, Deputy Director, Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety, Senior Research Associate, WestEd

Session IV: Data-Informed Instruction

• Session Description: This session will provide an overview of the current opportunities and limitations for using SEL and school climate data to inform instruction and support continuous improvement.
• Speaker: Dr. Clark McKown, President and Founder, xSEL Labs, Associate Professor, Rush University Medical Center

Session V: Advancing SEL Through An Equity Lens

• Session Description: This session will provide an opportunity for governors’ advisors to hear from national experts on tools and resources for advancing SEL through an equity lens and creating the school conditions, culture and climate for addressing the needs of the whole child.
• Facilitator: Joaquin Tamayo, Senior Policy Advisor, EducationCounsel LLC
• Speakers:
  • Jessica Cardichon, Director of Federal Policy and Director of Washington, DC Office, Learning Policy Institute
  • Dr. Nancy Duchesneau, P-12 Policy and Research Analyst, Education Trust
  • Danielle Gonzales, Managing Director, Aspen Institute Education and Society Program

Day 2: Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Timothy P. Shriver, Chairman, Special Olympics International; Co-Founder and Chair of Board of Directors, Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)

Session VI: Lessons from Early Childhood on SEL

• Session Description: The field of Early Childhood Education (ECE) has long integrated caring for the whole child into classroom practices. As the K-12 world focuses on the whole child and social-emotional learning, lessons learned from the ECE field can be shared in order to leverage the knowledge of the ECE field.
• Speaker: Dr. Stephanie Jones, Gerald S. Lesser Professor in Early Childhood Development, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Session VII: Whole Child Supports and Cross-Agency Coordination

• Session Description: This session will provide an opportunity to hear governor levers and state models for coordinating education, health, and human service agencies in support of addressing the holistic needs of children and families.  It will also showcase how New Mexico is using a community schools model to promote parent, family and community engagement and increase access to wraparound services.

Part 1:

Speaker: Elizabeth Gaines, Founder and Director, Children’s Funding Project

Part 2:

• Facilitator: Dr. Jeannie Oakes, Senior Fellow, Learning Policy Institute
• Speakers:
• • Deanna Creighton Cook, Special Projects Coordinator, ABC Community School Partnership
  • David Greenberg, Coordinator, Community Schools, Las Cruces Public Schools
  • Dr. Timothy Hand, Deputy Secretary, New Mexico Public Education Department
  • Danette Townsend, Executive Director, ABC Community School Partnership

Session VIII: Messaging, Communications and Engagement of Key Partners

• Session Description: This session will provide an opportunity for governors’ advisors to hear ways that governors can engage and communicate with critical stakeholders like parents, families, business leaders, educators, and state and district leaders in moving SEL and whole child initiatives forward in their states.

• Facilitator: Dr. Timothy P. Shriver, Chairman, Special Olympics International; Co-Founder and Chair of Board of Directors, Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)

• Speakers:
  • Windy Lopez-Aflitto, Vice President of Content and Partnerships, Learning Heroes
  • Nicol Russell, Director of Head Start Research & Support, Teaching Strategies
  • Dan Tsin, Chief Impact Officer, Urban Alliance
  • Dr. Nick Yoder, Director of Policy and Practice, Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)