Minnesota: Creating Systematic Supports for Student Social and Emotional Development

In 2015, the Minnesota Department of Education’s (MDE’s) School Safety Technical Assistance Center (SSTAC) reached out to the GTL Center and the Midwest Comprehensive Center (MWCC) to support Minnesota’s social and emotional learning (SEL) efforts. Under the state’s Safe and Supportive Schools Act, the SSTAC is charged with developing policies and technical assistance strategies to mitigate bullying in Minnesota. One approach SSTAC staff identified to help accomplish this goal was promoting SEL in schools.

To prevent misconceptions or confusion over terminology around SEL, SSTAC staff decided, as a first step, to develop competencies that clarify how MDE defines social and emotional learning, including what it looks like developmentally from prekindergarten through Grade 12.

Creating Connections for the Stakeholder Working Group

MDE staff formed a stakeholder working group to develop the social and emotional competencies. The working group included more than 30 participants, including principals, teachers, counselors, social workers, parents, students, researchers, and advocates. During a 15-month period, the working group used a systematic process to create developmental benchmarks for the competencies.

GTL Center and MWCC staff co-facilitated in-person and virtual meetings of the working groups alongside MDE staff members while also contributing a national perspective to the deliberations. According to Heather Hirsch, school climate specialist for SSTAC:

“GTL and MWCC provided significant support by connecting us with national experts, providing technical review, and identifying others that could provide expert and content review of the different areas…including connecting us with other districts and states working on similar areas so we could continue to learn from them, hear how their process was going.… GTL/MWCC also helped connect us to the Great Lakes Equity Center, who provided a cultural review of our competencies as well, which has been really helpful for us going forward.”

Collaborating Across Offices to Support Implementation

While the SEL working group was developing the Minnesota SEL Competencies, the GTL Center and MWCC staff helped SSTAC convene a cross-office working group to:

  • provide guidance on the development the Minnesota SEL Competencies;
  • establish SEL connections with the other offices; and
  • identify the types of resources and support that would be useful to the field.

Offices that were a part of the cross-office working group included staff from standards and assessment, college and career readiness, school improvement, early childhood, and special education.

Based on the cross-office meetings, MDE staff developed a series of guidance documents to support implementation of the Minnesota SEL Competencies with districts, schools, and educators. Specifically, they developed guidance on implementation, professional development, assessment, and special education.

To support this work, GTL Center and MWCC staff shared relevant research and resources with the group, served as thought partners on the development of the guidance documents, and offered extensive feedback on the documents. According to According to Heather Hirsch, the GTL Center’s support for this work enabled the work to move forward rapidly:

“Having the GTL Center to help us move the working groups along much quicker than I would have been able to on my own was really helpful because we had about 30 or 40 different education stakeholders who stepped up to…be part of this process. GTL’s support allowed me to manage multiple work groups simultaneously, including developing and putting together all of the materials.... [W]e were able to support five different working groups working on different pieces of guidance.… That really helped us to get through this a lot more quickly.”

Cross-walking SEL and Academic Standards

In addition, MDE staff completed a crosswalk between their academic standards and their social and emotional competencies. GTL Center and MWCC staff brought a national perspective to this work by connecting MDE to the College and Career Readiness Success Center (CCRS), which guided MDE through the process of creating the crosswalk. MDE and CCRS designed each of these guidance documents to help educators to:

  • Understand effective ways to engage educators in professional learning;
  • Provide strategies for implementing the Minnesota SEL competencies;
  • Identify ways that SEL is already embedded in the work of educators;
  • Promote ways to effectively assess SEL efforts for continuous improvement; and
  • Connect SEL to other initiatives (e.g., special education and college and career readiness).

Future Work

The GTL Center and MWCC are working with Minnesota to develop a collaboration across several selected districts to pilot implementation of the various SEL competencies resources and guidance.

Minnesota Partners

Heather Hirsch, MHP
Minnesota School Safety Technical Assistance Center
Heather.Hirsch@state.mn.us

Key Resources

Minnesota SEL Resources

GTL Center SEL Resources