CASEL Announces Fifth Cohort of Social and Emotional Learning Fellows to Support Students Nationwide

Fellows hail from 17 states serving nearly 2.5 million students

As school districts nationwide address continued urgency around academic recovery, student and educator well-being, and emerging technologies in the classroom, 36 education leaders will join a national fellowship to advance social and emotional learning (SEL). Representing 32 school districts and regional education offices from 17 states, the newest cohort of CASEL’s Fellows Academy is set to impact nearly 2.5 million students across the country. The 2025 cohort come from districts ranging in size from 800 students up to some of the largest urban agencies in the country.

Selected from a competitive pool of applicants, the new cohort of Fellows join a rigorous 10-month program to deepen their leadership and implement systems-wide strategies in support of their students, educators, and communities.

Since its inception in 2020, the Fellows Academy has stood as a beacon for educational leaders committed to reimagining how schools can better support the academic, social, and emotional needs of their students. The fellowship provides a unique platform where leaders from rural, suburban, and urban settings can come together, share best practices, and develop actionable plans alongside a network of peers and CASEL experts.

“CASEL launched the Fellows Academy to bring educators together to share best practices and grow the implementation of social and emotional learning across the country. After four cohorts of leaders, we have seen firsthand how putting robust implementation plans in place, building coalitions within and across districts, and implementing Fellows’ capstone projects has positively impacted communities across the country that collectively serve millions of students,” said Jessica Bernstein, CASEL’s Senior Manager of Practice. “This new cohort is a dedicated group of outstanding education leaders to join those ranks, and I can’t wait to see the amazing things they will learn and enact on behalf of the adults and young people in their communities.”

This new cohort joins 161 leaders from the first four cohorts of Fellows, who serve more than 7.7 million students collectively. Alumni have shared about the impact of their experience, with 100 percent of the previous four cohorts reporting an eagerness to bring others into the work and engage more deeply. Each Fellow engages in a capstone project to elevate SEL across their community, for example: 

• Two Fellows in Wisconsin prioritized future readiness in their work through enhancing student engagement and skill development through AI personalized-learning and thinking classrooms. 
• In California, one Fellow led a series of empathy interviews with educators and administrators to better understand their needs for professional learning and cultivation of their own skills.
• In light of Ohio’s new statewide required health curriculum, one Fellow created guidance for the district to ensure alignment with existing science and social studies pacing at the elementary level and sharing lesson planning best practices for middle and high school. This work also included very intentional communications planning for sharing about this new requirement with teachers and families.

For more than a decade, CASEL has partnered with districts nationwide to study and scale high-quality social and emotional learning. The Academy is an opportunity to support more leaders in addressing the academic, social, and emotional development of their students and educators and scale high-quality practice in their local communities.