The Journey: What Are Some Strategies for Addressing Common Roadblocks?

Key Points

• The fourth post in our blog series on the importance of and practices for continuous measure improvement explores four challenges that can impede the social and emotional learning (SEL) journey.
• Drawing on the metaphor of the road trip, the authors describe these challenges as: Road Closure, Traffic Jam, New Passengers, and Low Fuel Light.
• They then describe how continuous measure improvement can help overcome these obstacles by building buy-in for SEL.

The authors of “Using Social and Emotional Competency Assessments for the Continuous Improvement of SEL,” a chapter within the second edition of the Handbook of Social and Emotional Learning, are sharing a blog series that extends their chapter to include additional examples of how to engage in continuous measure improvement. This fourth post continues the metaphor of a road trip, highlighting typical “roadblocks” that can slow your journey down. These blogs are authored by Laura Davidson, Rachel Gordon, and Marisa Crowder.

During the 2024 SEL Exchange, we presented the Continuous System Improvement-Continuous Measure Improvement (CSI-CMI) model to educators. At the end of our talk, we asked them to share what challenges they were experiencing to inform this blog series, in which we planned to offer examples of how the model could be applied to address those challenges. Four challenges emerged from the activity, which interestingly, all related in one way or another to a need to enhance buy-in for SEL.

In this blog post, we describe these challenges by extending our CSI-CMI road trip metaphor used in our previous blogs (Planning for a Great SEL Road Trip Through SEL Measure Improvement: An Introduction, Plotting the Course: What Should You Plan for as You Start Your SEL Journey?, Time for a Tune-Up: Maintaining Alignment Between SEL Systems and Measures) whereby your gauges (measures/data sources) are signalling unforeseen circumstances that will impact our ability to reach our SEL destination. If those gauges are working well, you can use their data to stay on or get back on course. If those gauges aren’t working properly, those signals may be taking you further off course.

The Four Challenges

Here are the four challenges we identified:

1. Road Closure: SEL progress can be inhibited when leaders shift priorities. This can cause the SEL road ahead to be completely closed with no detour signs in sight. How can you reroute to get back on track to your SEL destination?
2. Traffic Jam: Often, district and school staff must juggle competing priorities. Your “passengers” have many destinations they are trying to get to. How do you convince others that you share the same goals and should be together in the same car for efficiency?
3. New Passengers: You have everyone in the school/district trained in your SEL approach (great!), but you had to pick up other passengers along the way. They may have their own ideas about how to reach the destination or may not know much about how to get there. How will you ensure that new teachers and staff are trained as they enter?
4. Low Fuel Light: Districts who have been implementing SEL for a long time may experience the SEL doldrums. You notice that teachers and staff are “running low on gas”—perhaps the enthusiasm for SEL is not as strong as it once was. Is a refresh needed?

The Need for Buy-in to SEL

Interestingly, all of these challenges relate in one way or another to a need for buy-in for SEL. In fact, CASEL’s School Guide lists “buy-in” as the very first focus area to address for any district wanting to implement SEL.

Why does this lack of buy-in occur? Leadership might not believe SEL is important for academic outcomes, or they have another priority they want to launch instead. Some departments may feel they are competing with SEL for professional learning time, educator’s bandwidth, or funding resources. And sometimes you might have new (or even veteran) staff in schools who don’t have experience with SEL and don’t understand how to “fit” SEL into their instructional practices with everything else on their plates.

Leveraging the CSI-CMI Model to Help Build Buy-In

To build buy-in, it can be helpful to collect evidence that shows that SEL is advancing student learning in important way—but you might run into other roadblocks. Maybe you aren’t finding a correlation between SEL and student outcomes, and you aren’t sure if it’s because SEL implementation (system improvement) is not going as expected or if it’s because you’re not able to measure the relationship accurately (measure improvement).

In that case, our CSI-CMI model can help. The diagram below shows how you might go about collecting evidence on your implementation while also checking the quality of your measures that assess implementation along the way.

It also highlights multiple pathways to promote buy-in, like cross-walking standards with SEL skills that support learning, or hosting conversations with departments to figure out what is common or complementary to SEL among all the work you do.

As you work to address these buy-in challenges, just remember, all our efforts can benefit from continuous improvement, and our SEL systems and measures are no exception. Even if you feel like you are cruising along in a straight-away you want to protect against getting sleepy or missing a roadblock.

By keeping CSI-CMI on your radar, you can build in the system and measure checks, such as observations and feedback, to avoid common challenges. In the end, your students, teachers, staff, and broader communities will benefit as your measures (gauges) will give you the data (signals) you need so that your system (vehicle) can reach its destination of effective SEL practices!

If you would like additional information or ideas for applying the CSI-CMI model to your SEL challenge, contact Marisa Crowder (contact@theelevatedinitiative.org).

The views in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of CASEL.

Laura Davidson, Ph.D., has been the director of research and evaluation for the Washoe County School District in Reno, Nevada, for the past 14 years. Her team focuses on the use of innovative data tools, program evaluation, and user-friendly research to drive continuous improvement and informed decision-making.

Rachel Gordon, Ph.D., is associate dean for research and administration and professor of health studies in the College of Health and Human Sciences at Northern Illinois University. An engaged policy scholar, throughout her career, Dr. Gordon has worked at the intersection of academic research and social policy. Her most recent projects aim to advance understanding regarding the cost, quality, adaptability and ownership of educational products whose creation and use are publicly funded, as well as the ways in which snap judgments of appearance shape social constructions, identities and experiences.

Marisa Crowder, Ph.D., is a researcher and co-owner of The ElevatEd Initiative, LLC. She has expertise in leading partnerships that center and elevate local voices in the development and implementation of educational initiatives and measurement. She specializes in social and emotional learning, academic engagement, contextualization, and school-based mental health.

Related Posts

• Planning for a Great SEL Road Trip Through SEL Measure Improvement: An Introduction
• Plotting the Course: What Should You Plan for as You Start Your SEL Journey?
• Time for a Tune-Up: Maintaining Alignment Between SEL Systems and Measures

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