Identifying and Responding to Students\u27 Social-emotional Learning Needs related to COVID-19

In this practice-oriented article, the authors aim to provide teachers with tools to identify and respond to students’ social-emotional learning (SEL) during COVID-19 and beyond. Related to the principles of whole schooling, this content connects with Principle 1: Creating Learning Spaces for All, Principle 4: Build a Caring Community, and Principle 6: Partner with Families and the Community. In this article, the authors provide an overview of SEL literature and research-based related strategies, then introduce two vignettes, one pre-COVID-19 and one peri-COVID-19 (i.e., during COVID-19), and conclude with a discussion connecting SEL literature and strategies to the data they received from surveying students’ SEL needs at their school. The authors hope that by sharing how they surveyed students to identify their SEL needs because of the pandemic, that administrators and teachers can recreate a similar “SEL roadmap” that they used to navigate students’ emotional support needs resulting from excessive stress, anxiety, and isolation connected to remote learning and the pandemic at large