Social-emotional learning (SEL)

Social-emotional learning (SEL) is an integral part of education and human development. SEL is the process through which young people acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions, achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.

SEL advances educational equity and excellence through authentic school-family-community partnerships to establish learning environments and experiences that feature trusting and collaborative relationships, rigorous and meaningful curriculum and instruction, and ongoing evaluation. SEL can help address various forms of inequity and empower young people and adults to co-create thriving schools and contribute to safe, healthy, and just communities.

CCSD 89 aligns social-emotional learning within the Illinois Social/Emotional Learning Standards by using the Collaborative for Academic and Social-Emotional Learning (CASEL) framework. The CASEL framework fosters knowledge, skills, and attitudes across five areas of competence and multiple key settings to establish equitable learning environments that advance students’ learning and development. CCSD 89 is committed to leveraging SEL to promote educational equity and excellence.

Social-emotional learning is embedded within classroom teaching as well as direct teaching at all grade levels within CCSD 89.  

BESS: social-emotional screening tool

Community Consolidated School District 89 is committed to helping all students grow academically while also developing life skills that will help them be successful adults. In order to better measure students’ ability to manage emotions and make good decisions, CCSD 89 uses a universal social-emotional screening tool to assist in determining behavioral and emotional strengths and weaknesses of students in grades 3-8 using the BASC-3 Behavioral and Emotional Screening System (BESS). Students in third, fourth, and fifth grades participate in the BESS multiple times during the school year. 

The BESS screener takes students less than 10 minutes to complete. Students are asked to indicate whether they never, sometimes, often, or always agree with 28 different statements. Examples of the statements include “I’m happy with who I am” and “I’m good at making decisions”. Students took the BESS screener in the fall and this will allow us to track progress.

The self-assessment consists of items relating to four dimensions of behavioral and emotional functioning including: adaptive skills, externalizing problems, internalizing problems, and school problems. It takes about four minutes for students to complete the assessment. The outcomes of the screener will be used to individually problem-solve for each student in the school environment and to plan school-wide social-emotional interventions.

Families will have access to BESS results to assist in connecting social and emotional learning and support of student well-being from home to school to community.