skip to main content
share-link

District 30 Leaders Emerge on the SEL Front

Leaders Emerge on the SEL Front Photo 1 thumbnail180142
Leaders Emerge on the SEL Front Photo 2 thumbnail180143
Leaders Emerge on the SEL Front Photo 3 thumbnail180144
Fostering student and staff success starts at the top. Building administrators from Valley Stream District 30 have paved the way for social-emotional learning lessons, practices and initiatives to flourish at Clear Stream Avenue, Forest Road and Shaw Avenue schools through their strong leadership. Social-emotional learning is an important process in the district for helping students manage emotions, set goals, maintain positive relationships and express empathy towards others. These life skills are especially vital during these continuously changing times.

The social-emotional learning committee at Clear Stream Avenue School, led by Assistant Principal Yannie Chon, has been working hard this year to utilize SEL tools throughout the building. Among the committee’s many initiatives, they have embraced different wellness themes once a month for both hybrid and remote students, created virtual wellness rooms filled with digital tools and have assisted teachers with extending the Center for Emotional Intelligence’s RULER Approach (recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing, and regulating emotions) into class lessons.

In addition, Ms. Chon has incorporated the Blueprint into her disciplinary approach when talking to students. The Blueprint is a chart from the RULER Program that serves as a problem-solving tool to help students handle conflict. It asks students to recognize their emotions, understand what caused them and find the best way to express or regulate them. The chart is also used in classrooms during lessons for students to better understand the actions of others, such as in a story.

“This helps students solve problems, look at situations from the past, present and future and is used for interpersonal situations,” said Ms. Chon. “We have used the Blueprint as a learning tool for different situations.”

At Forest Road School, Principal Erin Malone and Assistant Principal Michael DeBlasio have worked diligently to support the wellness of staff and families during this pandemic. They conduct check-in’s with their teachers to help ease the instructional transition and strive to be transparent with their staff through the school’s Forest Forum, a school-wide newsletter. Ms. Malone and Mr. DeBlasio also continue to find new ways to connect teachers with each other during the school day. This could be in the form of extra lesson planning time or problem-solving sessions with other staff members.

Since the spring, Ms. Malone and Mr. DeBlasio have also made it their mission to bridge the gap between families and staff. Thanks to the support of their highly involved teachers, the school has created virtual events in the form of trivia nights to connect with families and all students. In the near future, Mr. DeBlasio is interested in increasing the communication with families through virtual monthly meetings which will be called “Coffee and Conversations.” On the horizon will also be digital SEL resources, provided by the school’s SEL team, for students and their families to engage in during school breaks or any down time. This will take the SEL practices that students are doing in class and transfer them home for students to share with their own families.

At Shaw Avenue School, SEL is not only being embraced within the school building but beyond, thanks to Assistant Principal Andrew Canlé. Mr. Canlé started a personal YouTube channel, EDUCanle Presents, as a way to stay visible during the pandemic and to help guide student focus throughout each week. Each video features a Mindset Moment of the Week to get students to think and challenge themselves. Topics range from following your passion, to using criticism to motivate you. Shaw Avenue teachers of intermediate grades started using his videos as a wellness period option for students to start the day on a positive note and educators across the country have also incorporated his videos into their lessons.

“The initial idea was to help kids cultivate a positive mindset through weekly focus questions…moving forward I'm excited to see how it grows to help more students and teachers stay positive and build resilience,” said Mr. Canlé.

Without the leadership of all Valley Stream District 30 administrators, SEL would not shine as brightly in the schools. The district thanks the members of the Valley Stream 30 Board of Education for supporting the vision of educating the whole child and continuously supporting SEL in the district’s strategic planning for next five years. The sky is the limit as the district continues to strengthen the wellbeing of students, staff and families through this unprecedented school year.