Austin, Texas
District overview
The Austin Independent School District (AISD) is the fifth largest in Texas, serving approximately 86,000 students in 124 schools. As both the state capital and the home of one of the nation’s most prestigious public universities, Austin is an education-oriented community, and Austin’s philanthropic leaders have been highly supportive of social and emotional learning.
Austin has a particularly strong and effective approach to positive school climate at the elementary level. Although relatively new to social and emotional learning, the district has articulated a vision for social and emotional learning focused on systemic implementation.
During the 2011-12 school year, AISD created the position of director of social and emotional learning, established a new department of social and emotional learning, and began to support the CDI with other key staff positions and assignments.
District website
Social and emotional learning highlights
- Opening of school year presentation by Superintendent Meria Carstarphen, which emphasizes the “whole child” approach and social and emotional learning as keys to achieve the district’s overall goals.
- AISD presentation to parents on the importance of social and emotional learning and AISD’s efforts to address it.
The superintendent says…
From an interview with Superintendent of Schools Meria Carstarphen and Chief Academic Officer Ramona Trevino, Austin Independent School District
Why is social and emotional learning important in your school district?
Social and emotional learning is critical to our district’s mission to graduate students who are ready for college, career, and life in a globally competitive economy. The skills of social and emotional learning are in high demand to be successful in college and the workforce. We want our students to be functioning, knowledgeable, and informed citizens in our democracy.
What are your hopes and goals for the Collaborating District Initiative in your district?
We’re trying to build a culture of embracing the whole child through a district-wide initiative called “Whole Child, Every Child.” Ultimately, we want social and emotional learning to be an essential element of teaching and learning in Austin just like reading, math, and social studies. We want to have a written curriculum, standards, an array of instructional strategies, and assessments for social and emotional learning in pre-Kindergarten through 12th grade. We want our district to be a national model for best practices in social and emotional learning.
What do you think will be the benefit of working with CASEL and the other collaborating districts as part of the CDI learning community?
The biggest benefit is being able to examine the research in depth and hone in on best practices in our district and the other collaborating districts. We’ll look to CASEL and the other partner districts for guidance and advice so we can learn together from what we’re all doing.
What do you think is the single greatest challenge to the effectiveness of social and emotional learning in your district?
In the current fiscal atmosphere, providing support for the initiative is going to be very hard. We’re a large district, we’re growing, and we have no new resources. Our state is cutting $4 billion from education. It’s the first time this has happened in Texas in more than 60 years. That will be a great challenge for us. Given what people value in our state, especially the state accountability and testing system, another challenge will be getting people to change their culture, mindset, behavior, and thinking about what we’re trying to do in education. The goal has to be more than filling in the correct bubble on a standardized test.