From Vision to Reality: Schoolwide SEL at a California Elementary School

Key Points

• A team from CASEL, along with a group of California SEL Fellows, visited an elementary school in Elk Grove, California, to learn more about how they integrate social and emotional learning (SEL) into education.
• SEL was deeply embedded throughout the school, including in interactions between students, school leaders, and teachers, environments designed to encourage a sense of belonging and positive relationships, and a palpable sense of community and support.
• Hear how founding principal Dr. Jodi Boyle brought her vision of an SEL-infused school to life, including her advice for others interested in implementing schoolwide SEL.

Thanks to generous grant funding from the Stuart Foundation, CASEL hosted two convenings of SEL leaders in California to provide in-person networking, learning, and collaboration. This past April, Katy Thomas, Program Specialist for Social Emotional Learning for Elk Grove Unified School District, hosted one of these convenings for both district and regional leaders from Northern California to join a two-day gathering including school visits and deep conversation focused on shared opportunities. 

Katy, an alumni of CASEL’s SEL Fellows Academy, arranged for us to visit Miwok Village Elementary School (MVES), which serves over 1,000 students from Pre-K to sixth grade, to learn about their social and emotional learning (SEL) practices. 

SEL at Miwok Village Elementary School

As we walked through hallways and classrooms, the infusion of SEL into every aspect of the school was palpable. 

We saw student projects and artwork throughout the school, including depictions of the Grizzly mascot and the values “courageous, strong, and wise.” On the playground, in classroom spaces, and in common areas, we saw posters with sentence frames for restorative language children can use to repair conflicts (“I feel ___ when you ___ because I would like ____”), along with inviting spaces intentionally designed for students to have those conversations and engage in personal reflection. We also spotted emotion wheels to help students identify their emotions and the emotions of others, posters listing strategies for calming, and artwork honoring the local Miwok tribe.

What We Heard From Students and Teachers

The values and strategies displayed throughout the school came to life in the way students and teachers interacted with one another during academic lessons as well as during explicit SEL instruction. When we spoke with school leaders, teachers, and students, they shared how they feel connected, supported, and joyful at school.

Teachers spoke about the way they are supported by school leadership and the many ways they strive to support students, including setting classroom norms together and holding regular class meetings. As one fourth grade teacher said, “Students are not going to learn if they don’t feel safe and valued in the classroom.”

Students were engaged in their learning, collaborating with one another productively and respectfully. They shared how, through SEL, they have learned strategies to solve problems, resolve conflicts, and manage emotions and stress. One student said, “SEL really does work. It helps us with things we’re dealing with in real life.”

How Principal Jodi Boyle Brought Her SEL Vision to Life

To learn more about how SEL became so deeply embedded in day-to-day life at MVES, we spoke with Dr. Jodi Boyle, the school’s founding principal.

Before the doors even opened in 2022, she envisioned a school where SEL was purposefully embedded into culture, practices, and policies from the first day. She shared with us some of her key strategies for bringing that vision to life.

Setting Expectations

As the school prepared to open, Boyle set the expectation that SEL would be a core component. She shared with both staff and families, “This is who we are and what we are going to do. This is what is needed, not only for our students, but for ourselves.”

She held monthly Q&A meetings on Zoom and started each meeting with two slides: the CASEL framework and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This was an opportunity for staff, families, and community leaders to engage in a dialogue about what a school designed with SEL as central to  its vision could look like. Boyle used personal examples from her own life (“Self-management is sometimes a struggle for me”) and engaged participants in sharing if there were needs that wouldn’t be met in this kind of educational environment and how she could help meet them.

Throughout the planning process, she kept them up-to-date on the district’s progress with the school’s opening and where they as a community were heading. She helped them stay focused on the mission and vision for the school and how SEL would be central to the work they were doing. This approach created collaboration, buy-in, and opportunities to learn about SEL from the earliest days of opening the school.

Adult SEL

Adult SEL was a priority for Boyle from the beginning. She explained, “The adult piece is essential. It’s impossible for us to be able to teach social and emotional skills if we don’t have them for ourselves first.” She also recognized that for teachers to thrive, a supportive, collaborative culture was a necessity.

She worked to build strong foundational knowledge of SEL and the competencies, making sure staff knew the CASEL framework and had a shared language for talking about SEL. Recognizing that we all have a limited bandwidth for implementing multiple new initiatives, Boyle helped teachers notice how they already use SEL in their teaching, then supported them in refining it.

At staff meetings and professional development, she modeled SEL strategies that teachers could use in their classrooms. At these meetings, too, she opened with the CASEL framework and Maslow’s hierarchy, guiding teachers through a check-in and asking how she could better support them. She also put this promise of support into practice. For example, it was a regular part of her leadership practice to step in to teach a class if a teacher needed to have a private conversation with a student who was struggling.

Connecting With Families and the Community

After MVES opened, Boyle continued monthly Zoom Q&A calls with families and the community. These calls were emailed to the school’s email list, posted on the website, and uploaded to YouTube to make them more accessible.

Boyle and her staff frequently strategized about how to notice when students or families needed extra support, along with how to provide that support effectively. 

She prioritized learning about and honoring the experiences and cultures of students and families, including the local Miwok tribe that is the school’s namesake and inspiration. The tribal organization was involved in the school’s opening ceremony, designing murals celebrating the Miwok tribe, and in the school site’s landscaping and how to care for it in a way that honors the elders and members of the tribe. Boyle said, “We wanted to make sure that it’s not just artifacts of ‘what used to be’ or a museum; this is an active tribe and we want to recognize and celebrate that.”

Advice for Others on Implementing Schoolwide SEL

Boyle led MVES to become the district’s top performing school in both academic outcomes and SEL survey data for adults and students. Her top two pieces of advice for other school leaders interested in implementing schoolwide SEL are:

1. Prioritize checking in with staff consistently. “Everyone who works in education is busy, and it’s easy to have regular check-ins and conversations with staff fall away. Prioritize that and don’t be afraid to ask those questions. ‘What do you need to be successful in this? How can I support you in this?’”

2. Be willing to be vulnerable. “Anything I’m going to expect of others, I have to expect in myself as well. There is vulnerability in that, in being able to acknowledge this is an area of weakness for me, or an area where I want to continue growing. I can’t walk in like, ‘I’ve never done anything wrong.’ You need to be able to own both your successes and your mistakes. Know what you ultimately want to achieve and how you’re going to bring that forth in others.”

This piece of advice reminds Boyle of one of her favorite stories to share: a time when a first grade student’s parent drove over some cones to reach a parking space in a closed parking lot. Moments later, the parent rolled down his window and said, “I need to apologize to you because my son just told me that was not very courageous, strong, or wise. I’ll do better next time.”

“That sums up how this school and community is,” said Boyle. “There will always be moments, as adults or as kids, where we make mistakes. When you own it and look to repair and make a change, that’s how you grow as a human. That’s something I wanted for our students, where they recognize that adults make mistakes, too, and we can all reflect on that, make change, and do better.”

Thank you to Miwok Village Elementary School and Dr. Jodi Boyle for welcoming us into your space and your openness to learning together about what SEL efforts contribute to your special school community.

Related Posts:

• A Relationship-Fueled Learning Community: Teachers and Students in California Share the Impact of SEL
• We’ve Implemented SEL for 12 Years. Here’s My Advice to Districts Getting Started Now.
• Nurturing Tomorrow’s Leaders by Making SEL a Way of Life

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