The Urban Assembly Social-Emotional Learning Team builds schools' capacity to ensure that all staff and students in the UA network receive relevant experiences and purposeful instruction to develop the social emotional competencies that impact students’ success in school, work, and life.
SEL accomplishes its goals through its work in the following programs:
Deans’ Climate and Culture Community: This program develops deans’ capacity to create, and implement systems and structures that create safe, and supportive environments for learning. The program also assesses schools’ cultural climate, and addresses underlying issues that constrain students’ academic and social-emotional growth.
Positive Behavior Interventions & Support: This framework helps schools to create safe and predictable learning environments for their students by developing the systems, structures and practices needed to create and teach common expectations, employ a multi-tier data based model of service delivery and development of a strong climate through the intentional recognition of positive behavior. The framework’s main goal is to increase positive interactions between staff and students leading to a reduction in suspensions and an improvement in overall climate and culture.
Resilient Scholars Program: This program is a guided implementation model designed to support schools and districts to organize their systems and structures around the principles of Social-Emotional Development. The Urban Assembly Resilient Scholars supports the implementation, integration and sustainability of Social Emotional Learning programs and supports. ( The program has been recognized as a reflection of SEL best practice in an urban environment that can serve as a replicable model for NYC schools and other districts throughout the United States.
Social-emotional learning supports early college and career readiness by helping students build on their resiliency, develop prosocial behavior, and take part in positive experiences beyond the classroom. These experiences are essential for students to become strong candidates as they apply to college, and give them cultural competency as well as transferable meta-cognitive skills to succeed after their transition from their high school to a post-secondary institution.
Working across schools with key school staff, including principals, deans, social workers, teachers and counselors, the Urban Assembly Social-Emotional Learning Team employs the following key strategies:
- Develop and Establish Behavior Support Systems
- Develop and Establish Social-Emotional Learning Programming
- Monitor and Enhance School Culture/Climate