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Standards and Policies» SEL Policy Two states, Illinois and New York, have passed legislation requiring schools to address social and emotional learning. California is funding projects between schools and mental health agencies working together to promote SEL, and is considering legislation to help all students succeed in school, in part, by requiring schools to better address student social and emotional issues. Many other states have policies that touch upon SEL practices, including anti-bullying and character education, and four states have contacted CASEL for assistance in crafting SEL legislation. We detect a policy trend! If you are aware of relevant SEL policies in your state, please let us know about them at casel@uic.edu. Details about these legislative initiatives can be found below, followed by resources for developing an SEL policy for your own school or district. |
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IL SEL Policy In 2003, the Illinois Children's Mental Health Task Force, comprising over 100 state agencies and organizations (including CASEL), released a report documenting that mental health services fell far from addressing the needs of children in Illinois. The report further stated that services were fragmented, and the state lacked any short- and long-term plans to address these issues. The report called for reform to the existing mental health system to ensure that the full range of children's social and emotional needs are addressed across the continuum of prevention/ promotion, early identification/intervention, and treatment (Illinois Children's Mental Health Task Force, 2003). Following this report, CASEL helped draft the Children's Mental Health Act, passed by the state in 2003, and designed to provide comprehensive, coordinated mental health prevention, early intervention, and treatment services for children from birth through age 18. This act is intended to ensure that schools:
Key provisions of the act relating to SEL are:
The Illinois State Board of Education shall develop and implement a plan to incorporate social and emotional development standards as part of the Illinois Learning Standards for the purpose of enhancing and measuring children's school readiness and ability to achieve academic success.
Every Illinois school district shall develop a policy for incorporating social and emotional development into the district's educational program. The policy shall address teaching and assessing social and emotional skills and protocols for responding to children with social, emotional, or mental health problems, or a combination of such problems, that impact learning ability. New York SEL Policy New York's 2006 Bill 9649C legislates for a comprehensive, coordinated approach to children's mental health services that incorporate social and emotional development into elementary and secondary educational standards for every school district. This act provides “"for the establishment of a children's mental health plan; and to amend the education law, in relation to requiring the incorporation of social and emotional development standards in the development of elementary and secondary school educational guidelines ." With this legislation, the Department of Education is required to “"promulgate and implement rules and regulations for incorporating social and emotional development into elementary and secondary school educational standards and programs in every school district."” It will be voluntary for school districts to use such a plan. Verbatim Excerpts from NY 2006 Mental Health Act (Word) In 2007, New York also introduced a law, A1913, (currently in Committee) which would require the completion of a curriculum in the social and emotional development and learning of children as a condition for teacher certification. California Mental Health Policy In California, the new Mental Health Services Act (Proposition 63) approved by voters in November 2004 is intended, according to official documents, to bring about "an unprecedented level of cooperation" between mental health agencies and schools to provide school-based emotional and social learning programs. Exactly how that is to be done will apparently depend on the responses the state receives to a request for proposals, but California is providing substantial funding for the projects, all of it from state general revenues. That may make California the first state to make such a local commitment; individual school districts in a number of other states, including Illinois, have mounted school-based mental health programs using federal funds from the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act. (From Vol 7(6) Health and Health Care in Schools) In 2007, Senator Lee introduced legislation (Senate Bill 288, Comprehensive Pupil Learning Support System) that would require each participating school in the pilot program to develop, "a comprehensive system of learning supports as a primary and essential component at every school with a view to ensuring each pupil has an equal opportunity to succeed at school...Each school plan would be designed to enhance the capacity of classroom and school-wide programs to address problems, engage and re-engage pupils in classroom learning, and foster social, emotional, intellectual, and behavioral development..." Resources for Developing School and District SEL Policies
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