Resources for Educators and Schools

This resource collection provides available resources for school leaders and educators working remotely supporting social-emotional and behavioral needs during COVID-19.

• Responding to the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak through PBIS. The Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) TA Center encourages all schools to continue to focus on building prosocial skills, not simply attempting to eliminate challenging or problem behavior, as well as other key principles of PBIS, as they continue to address the COVID-19 pandemic. This resource compilation provides simple recommendations educators can embed across a continuum of supports.
• Teaching Social-Emotional Competencies within a PBIS Framework. Positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) provides an ideal framework for promoting social-emotional competencies to improve outcomes for the whole child. The purpose of this brief from the PBIS TA Center is to describe how school personnel can teach social-emotional competencies within a PBIS framework to support systematic, school-wide implementation through one system, rather than trying to improve student outcomes through separate, competing initiatives.
• Investing in Evidence-Based Social and Emotional Learning. This report from the Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety (SEL Center)provides guidance on how to assess local needs relative to SEL and how to identify appropriate evidence-based interventions that address those local needs.
• Navigating Social and Emotional Learning from the Inside Out. This report from the SEL Center provides an in-depth guide to 25 evidence-based programs — aimed at elementary schools and Out of School Time (OST) providers — offers information about curricular content and programmatic features that practitioners can use to make informed choices about their SEL programs.
• Creating Coherent Safe and Supportive Environments Through SEL, Trauma Informed Practices, and Restorative Practices Alignment. This video from the SEL Center aims to help education leaders communicate how social emotional learning, trauma-informed and restorative practices fit together as part of one aligned, coherent system for creating safe and supportive learning environments.
• Resources for Social-Emotional Learning. This resource repository for schools and districts from the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Northwest addresses Social and Emotional Learning.
• Community-Care Strategies for Schools During the Coronavirus Crisis: Practical Tips for School Staff and Administrators. This brief from the SEL Center offers practical guidance for educators and other school staff, and for administrators and other leaders, to help ensure that school communities are effective, cohesive, collaborative, healthy, and sustainable while coping with the stresses of social isolation, school closures, and changes to how services are provided.
• Mindfulness in Education: An Approach to Cultivating Self-Awareness That Can Bolster Kids’ Learning. This brief from the SEL Center introduces mindfulness as a strategy for facilitating social and emotional learning in school, explains the potential benefits for both students and educators, provides examples of mindfulness strategies, and lists resources for learning more about mindfulness.
• Returning to School During and After Crisis: A Guide to Supporting States, Districts, Schools, Educators, and Students through a Multi-Tiered Systems of Support Framework during the 2020-2021 School Year. This guide from the PBIS TA Center describes the use of a multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) framework to support students, families, and educators during the transitions back to school during and following the global pandemic in a manner that prioritizes their health and safety, social and emotional needs, and behavioral and academic growth.
• PBIS Cultural Responsiveness Field Guide: Resources for Trainers and Coaches. This field guide from the PBIS TA Center outlines an integrated framework to embed equity efforts into school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports (SWPBIS) by aligning culturally responsive practices to the core components of SWPBIS. The goal of using this guide is to make school systems more responsive to the cultures and communities that they serve. This guide is part of a 5-point intervention approach for enhancing equity in student outcomes within a SWPBIS approach.
• Supporting Students with Disabilities at School and Home: A Guide for Teachers to Support Families and Students. This guide from the PBIS TA Center highlights 5 key practices for teachers and families to support all students, including students with disabilities, at school and home. For each practice, the guide provides (a) tips for teachers to support students with disabilities during instruction; (b) tips for families that educators can share to support or enhance learning at home, especially during periods of remote instruction; and (c) free-access resources that include strategies shown to be effective by research (e.g., informational guides, downloadable materials, research-based programs).
• Creating a PBIS Behavior Teaching Matrix for Remote Instruction. This practice brief shares tips for maintaining continuity of learning through defining classroom expectations for remote (i.e., distance) instruction and online learning environments. With a few adaptations, teachers can use a PBIS framework to make remote learning safe, predictable, and positive.
• Guidance on Adapting Check-in Check-out (CICO) for Distance Learning. This brief from the PBIS TA Center provides considerations and suggestions for adapting Check-in Check-out (CICO), an evidence-based Tier 2 school intervention, for situations where students are learning from home.
• Continuity of Learning: Resources to Support Social Emotional Learning. This resource compilation curated by the National Comprehensive Center features resources to support SEAs, LEAs, and school leaders in the important work of supporting social emotional for learning as students learn from home.
• Informational Resources on Improving Social and Emotional Learning and Outcomes. This resource document by the Region 6 Comprehensive Center supports educational stakeholders with  improving students’ social and emotional learning (SEL) and outcomes by providing resources for understanding, prioritizing, and measuring SEL competencies and providing resources on evidence-based SEL programs and interventions. The document organizes resources and information about SEL into nine categories listed under two broad headings: What is SEL? and How is SEL being implemented?
• When Teachers and Students Are Separated: Strategies from Research on Social Presence for Teaching at a Distance. This infographic by Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast for teachers and school leaders provide a “social presence” framework for increasing student engagement and connects with strategies that can be applied in face-to-face classrooms or when teachers and students are physically separated in the context of online courses.
• Culturally Affirming Care for Rural Students During the Pandemic: A Karuk Perspective. This blog by Regional Educational Laboratory West for social workers, support providers, and teachers share Preston-Donahue’s approach to supporting student well-being, both before the pandemic and during the pandemic, has been firmly grounded in Karuk culture. Her practices are strength-based and culturally meaningful, building on the tribe’s beliefs, customs, and natural environment.
• School Social Work in the Time of COVID-19: When Human-Centered Work Moved Online. This blog by Regional Educational Laboratory West for social workers, support providers, and teachers share how some social workers are figuring out which services are needed and how they can be delivered online.
• Better Together: A Coordinated Response for Principals and District Leaders. This brief published by the National Comprehensive Center for school and district leadership presents strategies, research and a structured approach to manage and support the social-emotional well-being of adults in the school building as well as the families and students they serve post COVID-19 closures.
• SEL Integration Approach Companion Guides: Transforming Education. This set of five two-page guides from the Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety (CISELSS) for educators is designed to prioritize and integrate SEL into all aspects of the school day. The Companion Guides, designed to accompany Transforming Education’s Quick Reference Guide (found on the same resource page), go into more detail on each of the five components of SEL Integration.
• Mapping a Path Forward: Cross-Sector Approaches to Strengthen Community & Individual Resilience. This video from the Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety shares how Pia Escudero, the Executive Director of the Student Health and Human Services Division in the Los Angeles Unified School District is approaching the school year with a focus on resilience and collective care.
• Integrating Social and Emotional Learning throughout the School System: A Compendium of Resources for District Leaders. This compendium from the Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety  provides resources for district and school leaders to consider as they seek to implement evidence-based supports to ensure social and emotional learning (SEL) is fully integrated into the educational experience of their students, families, staff, and community.
• Student Engagement in Online Classes: Tips for Teachers Based on Trauma-Informed Approaches and Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Strategies. This fact sheet by the National Comprehensive Center provides concrete strategies that teachers can incorporate into their online teaching to increase engagement with students in middle and high school. The authors present a framework based on trauma-informed (TI) approaches and social and emotional learning (SEL) strategies to ensure students feel safe, connected, engaged, and ready to learn.
• Leveraging This Moment to Improve Schools and Systems through the Lenses of SEL, Trauma-Informed Practices, and Anti-Racist Education. This recorded webinar by Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety (CISELSS)  presents a panel of experts in youth development, trauma-informed practices, and school-based law enforcement to discuss challenges and opportunities to improve schools and school systems through the lenses of social and emotional learning, trauma-informed practices, and anti-racism.
• Case Study Compilation: Integrating Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Into Academics & Beyond. This case study compilation by the Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety (CISELSS) for educators include eleven case studies that highlight educator moves and strategies to embed social-emotional skills, mindsets, and competencies throughout the school day and within academics. They each conclude with a reflection prompt that challenges readers to examine their own practice. The case studies are written from several different perspectives, including teachers in the classroom and in distance learning environments, a school counselor, and district leaders.
• Strategies for Educators to Support the Social and Emotional Needs of Students Impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Demand for Racial Justice: Plans for Reopening Schools. This recorded webinar by the Regional Educational Laboratory West for school and district leaders provide evidence-based information about social and emotional competencies that educators can use to rebuild conditions of success for students. Using a trauma-informed lens, strategies addressed: Creating safe and supportive school environments; Promoting family and community communication and collaboration; and Fostering collective care.
• The Effects of Homophobia and Transphobia on the Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Students. This Equity by Design Research Brief by the Region III Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center for teachers and school administrators illustrate the relationship between mental health and LGBTQ+ identities, paying particular attention to how homophobia and transphobia manifest in schools and how to positively impact the mental wellbeing of their LGBTQ+ students.

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