The emotional well-being of students is the north star for educators in Linden Public Schools, an urban district in New Jersey. What other districts call SEL has been retitled "social-emotional cognitive growth."
Members of the class of 2023 are facing a challenge not shared by younger students–they have less time to bounce back academically before they graduate.
Schools are reimagining how to capitalize on the summer months–and experts say enrichment programs and other offerings may become a "permanent part of the landscape."
Principals are burned out and unsure if they can continue at the pace of the last few years. That makes it essential for central office administrators to restore their confidence by instilling hope for the future.
"I am going to use this bully pulpit to talk about the fact that tests are important, but that we are really doing our kids a disservice,” Chancellor David Banks said. “There’s a reason why so many of our kids disengage and drop out because we’ve just made our schools like testing mills.”
Go back in time with us for a moment. At the end of 2020-21, the big instructional challenge facing schools seemed obvious: help students rebound academically as quickly as possible.
