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Coordinating Social-Emotional and Character Development (SECD) Initiatives Improves School Climate and Student Learning

Many schools have character education programs, social-emotional learning programs, substance abuse prevention programs, anti-bullying programs, and the like. Some schools have several of these; some have all. Talk seriously to educators in these schools, especially off the record, and they will express some disappointment in these programs. This feeling is especially strong among urban educators and those in low-performing schools, where extra funding has often been available to purchase numerous individual, evidence-based programs. Educators in these settings often complain about the fragmentation and disunity among various positive development and problem prevention programs in their schools and the frustration that results for staff and students. Some of the frustration is because these educators may believe in the programs but perceive that they are just not strong enough to make a difference in students' lives. The inability of the programs to strengthen students' character and avert them from following a path of violence, drugs, and related problems means that students are still not able to focus their energies on academics. They continue to underperform relative to their potential. Most of the more than 600 school districts in New Jersey have experienced the situation described above, and the situation is no different nationally or internationally (Elias, 2003; Elias & Arnold, 2006). Social and emotional factors are competing with educators for students' academic attention and winning. Media messages, family turmoil, the press of economic needs (or wants), neighborhood dangers and institutional collapse, a pervasive climate of war and terror, and health issues of the students and their families and extended families combine to create emotional pressures on our students that they cannot put in the locker with their coats as they proceed through the school day. Students carry emotional burdens with them and are not willing or able to turn their attention to academic learning when the environment of the school is tense, demanding without being supportive, myopically focused on isolated academic tasks with rare looks at the big picture or personal relevance, and all too rarely appreciative of students' work or strengths. In these settings, students may not be able to fully retain and integrate what they have learned and put it to good use in the workplace, schoolyard, community settings, and elsewhere. This article describes one response to the challenges described above. Rutgers University initiated Developing Safe and Civil Schools (DSACS), a program designed to assist schools in promoting social-emotional and character development (SECD) in systematic, coordinated, continuous ways to have a genuine impact on students' behavior and academic success (Zins, Weissberg, Wang, & Walberg, 2004). After providing an overview of the DSACS model, the implementation of the program in one urban middle school is described. Developing Safe and Civil Schools DSACS's procedures and professional development services to schools are based on extensive research in the area of social-emotional and character development. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (www.casel.org) and the Character Education Partnership (www.character.org) have been leaders in investigating the components and procedures of effective school-based interventions designed to build social-emotional skills and promote positive character, and studying the impact of these interventions on academic performance and school safety, and these resources and others have provided the foundation for DSACS (see e.g., CASEL, 2003; Dunkelblau, 2009; Nucci & Narvaez, 2008; Rosenblatt & Elias, 2008). A key component of DSACS is direct work with schools. Several individuals representing different constituencies in a school are engaged initially in a half-day workshop that outlines the theory, research, and practice of social-emotional and character development. …