Jesse Robinson

“We are building staff capacity and culture around incorporating SEL practices into curriculum, instructional strategies, discipline practices, and general culture in our schools. One formal element of this will be to launch Facing History & Ourselves curriculum units in grades 6-11 across all of our secondary schools. Over the last two years, PPS staff have created instructional and subject area vision documents intended to improve teaching and learning. Our social studies team, in partnership with our clinical and behavior support staff, have collaboratively identified one unit per grade level that combines social studies content and SEL content and strategies. We are seeking funding for targeted professional development for our staff to help them understand the purpose of this curriculum and build context and pedagogical skills to ensure that it can be well implemented. Facing History and Ourselves content is designed to foster deeper awareness of identity, including how students see themselves, how others see them, and the factors that affect one's identity, ultimately strengthening student voice. Facing History students actively engage with complex issues that elicit different perspectives and opinions. Facing History teachers emphasize respectful communication and deliberation, and students report decreased conduct problems in school. Further, it is a CASEL SELect program, which means that there is empirical evidence of its utility.”