Virginia Regulatory Town Hall
Agency
Department of Education
 
Board
State Board of Education
 
Guidance Document Change: The 2020 Virginia General Assembly passed House Bill 753 directing the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) to develop guidance standards for social emotional learning (SEL) for all public students in grades Kindergarten through 12 in the Commonwealth. The Virginia Social Emotional Learning Standards were developed in collaboration with an SEL Advisory Committee, composed of educators, community leaders, agency personnel, and parents. The Virginia SEL Standards are aligned with the Profile of a Virginia Graduate and centered in equity. This intentional focus allows the Standards to explicitly teach the skills needed to be “life ready” and to create more equitable learning environments.
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5/14/21  12:30 pm
Commenter: N/A

SEL
 

I work in a fairly large district and I have been pushing the district slowly but surely towards trauma informed schools ideas.  I find some of these comments that are against SEL very interesting.  Schools have been and always will be providers of SEL - what the standards actually do is challenge us to become intentional in this process.  It is long overdue and absolutely necessary.  I'm a parent and honestly I don't send my kids to school to learn reading and math - they could learn that with me at home probably more effectively - I send them to school to be exposed to diversity outside of my home, for culture, for social skills, for problem solving skills for SEL.  If anything these standards don't go far enough - we need to require universal screening and we need to require MTSS around SEL and require that school based mental health professionals engage in not what instruction thinks but what the mental health expert believes is needed - one of the problems I have seen in my district is admin think they know what they need, they think they understand mental health and in reality they do not.  There is a reason as a school based mental health professional that I have very specific training to support the needs of children and adolescents - I don't tell you how to teach so how about you listen to me as the mental health expert?

 

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