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eSchool News
5 reasons to adopt an SEL curriculum in your district
By Brandon Hubbard, Supt., Chilton Independent School District
January 29th, 2021
Here’s how Chilton ISD’s SEL curriculum helped it break through the
misperception that it was an “F” school and achieve its goal of
becoming a high-performing educational institution
With our district demographics, it’s no secret that—to be considered a
high-performing school—our students are going to have to hurdle some
barriers. As a small rural district in Texas where 92 percent of
students have families that are economically disadvantaged and where 68
percent of students are at risk, we place a big emphasis on social and
emotional learning (SEL) and its value in the educational environment.
Three years ago, we implemented an SEL curriculum that’s not only
helped students overcome some of life’s natural barriers, but has also
given both our teachers and students the mental framework they need in
order to achieve high performance both in and out of the classroom.
Getting there requires grit, persistence, and resilience, and the
ability to push past mental limits to reach new levels of achievement.
Here’s how our 7 Mindsets SEL curriculum helps our district reach these goals:
1. Supports strong culture. I’m a firm believer in the fact that
culture precedes achievement. If you’re going to have sustained high
achievement, you need a culture that allows for that. What we needed
was a culture of resilience, grit, and “everything is possible.” If
your team, your students, and your staff don’t have the mental
framework or the belief system to overcome the challenges, then
sustained achievement won’t happen. That’s why SEL is non-negotiable;
culture is always going to precede achievement.
2. Provides a teacher-ready curriculum. Our SEL curriculum includes an
online portal, student lessons, and parent resources. User-friendly and
teacher-ready, it was developed for all students and doesn’t require
teachers to do a whole lot of searching and gathering to present a
lesson. The curriculum’s lesson plans help guide the discussions, its
clips are relevant, and implementation was easy.
3. Helps teachers lead the way. On “Mindset Mondays,” our staff members
wear our 7 Mindsets shirts, just so that we are all sending the same
message to students. Every Monday, students go over the assigned
mindset, and every teacher has access to the portal, the lesson, and
the schedule. They then lead their students through the SEL curriculum
process and lessons.
4. Garners leadership buy-in. We hired a new principal for our
secondary school and she started doing “Mindset Slips.” If someone
exhibited a mindset that we had already covered, then he or she
received a positive “Mindset Slip” that was read over the loudspeaker
and posted on the board. This helped drive more buy-in for our SEL
curriculum from the leadership level, with elementary principals
beginning to recognize exhibited mindsets. This really helped us become
who we are as a district.
5. Brings SEL to life. We challenged student organizations to do
community events that were focused around our SEL curriculum, including
a coat and blanket drive. Several of our athletics department leaders
ran the drive and delivered blankets to one of the nursing homes. They
also delivered cards around the Christmas season to the nursing homes
as their representation of the “live to give” mindset. We’ve also had
food drives, carnivals, and other events to bring the community
together and support our “attitude of gratitude” mindset.
From “F” school to “B” school, and beyond
As a standardized testing state, Texas uses district demographic data
to conduct cycle analytics. Through this process, it has identified a
high percentage of our student as being low-SES, ESL learners, and
at-risk. As such, our district was predicted to perform at an “F”
level. I used that as kind of a rallying cry for our teachers and while
we’re not where we want to be yet, we are going to get there.
For the most recent school year, we received an 87 rating—it’s a “B”
rating and just three points away from an “A.” I do believe that the
grit that is directly related to our use of an SEL curriculum, and by
having students participate in Mindset Mondays, watch the videos, and
read the quotes. We also recognize students/teachers for exhibiting
certain mindsets. Combined, these have all impacted student performance.
Going forward, my broader vision for the Chilton community is to go
beyond using our SEL curriculum on campus and for community events, but
to also include churches and youth groups in this effort. Social and
emotional learning is truly a community undertaking; if you want to
drive positive change within your system and truly develop good,
empathetic citizens, then SEL has to be a major part of everything you
do.
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