As school districts nationwide address continued urgency around academic recovery and well-being, 33 education leaders will join a national fellowship to advance social and emotional learning (SEL). Representing 30 school districts and regional education offices from 20 states, the newest cohort of CASEL’s SEL Fellows Academy is set to impact 2.39 million students across the country
Selected from an exceptionally competitive pool of applicants, the SEL Fellows take part in a rigorous 10-month engagement to deepen their leadership and implement systems-wide strategies in support of their students, educators, and communities. The 2024 cohort hail from districts ranging in size from 819 students up to some of the largest urban districts in the country. The full roster can be found here.
Since its inception in 2020, the SEL Fellows Academy has stood as a beacon for educational leaders committed to reimagining how schools can better support the 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 SEL Fellows Academy to bring educators together to share best practices and grow the implementation of SEL across the country. After three cohorts of leaders, we have seen how putting robust SEL implementation plans in place, building coalitions within and across districts, and implementing Fellows’ capstone projects has impacted communities across the country that serve millions of students,” said Karen VanAusdal, CASEL Vice President of Practice. “Our new cohort is an impressive group of dedicated education leaders to join those ranks, and I can’t wait to see the great things they will learn and put into place on behalf of the adults and young people in their communities.”
This new cohort joins 128 leaders from the first three cohorts of SEL Fellows, who serve more than 5.32 million students collectively. SEL Fellow alumni have shared about the impact of their experience, with 100 percent of the previous three 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:
- A California-based SEL Fellow launched a districtwide Wellbeing @ Work initiative to address the diverse needs of employees across the eight dimensions of wellness and create a supportive, enriching work environment.
- An SEL Fellow in Virginia led weekly focus groups with high school students about their perspectives on secondary SEL. These sessions prompted students to create lessons that they would find meaningful and learn how to facilitate community-building circles for their peers.
- In Louisiana, an SEL Fellow developed an SEL Family and Community Engagement Toolkit with monthly topical content for newsletters, ideas for family and community engagement, strategies for integrating SEL into parents’ nights, and more.
For more than a decade, CASEL has partnered with districts nationwide to study and scale high-quality SEL. The SEL Fellows Academy is an opportunity to support more leaders in addressing the social and emotional development of their students and educators and scale high-quality practice in their districts across the country.
