Taking the Next Steps to Expand Social and Emotional Learning

AISD's Executive Director of the Office of Innovation and Development Michelle Wallis, donor Jeanne Klein, SEL Director Sherrie Raven, and Betsy Abell of the Buena Vista Foundation were on hand to witness the contract singing.

Today, Kevin Cole, Chair of the Austin Public Education Foundation, stopped by to sign the contract with St. David's Foundation to finalize a grant of $1,068,051 to support the district's expansion of the Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) initiative.

We have chosen to roll SEL out over a five year period in 2-3 vertical teams at a time, while working on climate and culture and cultural proficiency in all schools and central office. We started with two vertical teams, Austin and Crockett, which had applied to be “pioneers” in this area.  In the past year, we have added the Eastside Memorial, McCallum, and Travis vertical teams, and we intend to expand to all vertical teams by 2015. Funding from the St. David's Foundation will allow us to proceed with this expansion. Thanks to all of our partners for their support of Social and Emotional Learning in Austin ISD.