Brooklyn, New York – Today Mayor de Blasio, First Lady Chirlane McCray, and Chancellor Carranza announced the expansion of social-emotional learning (SEL) for all New York City elementary school students and restorative justice training (RJ) for all middle and high schools students. The Sanford Harmony social-emotional learning program was the vision of Philanthropist T. Denny Sanford, and it encourages positive relationships in the classroom by teaching communication and collaboration skills. SEL provides the foundation for RJ, which helps middle and high school students to practice their SEL skills in every aspect of their lives, whether it is in or outside the classroom.
Certain parts of SEL are already included in the universal Pre-K curriculum; students learn how to identify and communicate their emotions or how to deal with stress. The administration and educators realized that social-emotional learning needed to be expanded if they wanted to see even lower dropout and higher graduation rates. (Last year, NYC saw the lowest dropout and highest graduation rate in history.)
Mayor de Blasio, “That was the piece that was missing, and it’s missing honestly all across the United States of America. And we have an opportunity to get it right here in the nation’s largest city. And we have an opportunity to set a new pace for this city, this country by finally recognizing the whole child and everything that is going on in their life.”
As part of the Thrive initiative, 85 licensed clinical workers are going to provide support to teachers and help students who are dealing with emotional distress. First Lady Chirlane McCray started the Thrive initiative in 2015 to destigmatize mental illness, and the program offers free mental health first aid training to all New Yorkers.
Chirlane McCray, “When we created Thrive NYC one of our goals was to act early not only to prevent illness and intervene at the first signs of disease but to provide more children with a strong social-emotional foundation to promote resilience.”
She explained that learning how to deal with emotions from an early age on develops stronger communication, decision making, and problem-solving skills, and that students who received social-emotional education can apply those skills throughout their lives and are less likely to suffer from stress or abuse drugs, and are better learners. McCray, “Thanks to years of work and advocacy by so many people, New York City schools will have the most comprehensive and pro-active approach to social-emotional learning in the nation.”
Chancellor Carranza described the new initiative as a simple but common sense approach, “When we support the whole child and foster safe and supportive learning environments, our students will succeed. When we keep students in the classroom instead of relying on suspensions, they will succeed. And they are more than just ideas; these are proven approaches that we know work.”
He contradicted those who claim that schools would become less safe without punishments. “That is a false narrative. It is not true. Under the leadership of Mayor de Blasio, suspensions have gone done 31%, and NYPD has seen a 29% decrease in crimes in schools. It’s proof that this approach works.”
NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson acknowledged that improving NYC schools isn’t an easy task and that adding social workers to the school system was pivotal to creating a healthy learning environment. “The times we are living in can be confusing for young people. They are bombarded with conflicting ideas on social media; they are grappling with so much stress, classes, sometimes being bullied and family pressure. And there are also more severe problems we know social workers can help with like housing instability and homelessness, and food insecurity,” he said.
To Johnson, the budget is personal in many ways, “I understand how valuable social workers and guidance counselors are to a young person. When I was sixteen years old, living in a little tiny town, 30 miles from Boston, Massachusetts, I was depressed, despondent, and suicidal because I knew I was gay, and I was scared to come out. The very first person, the very first person that I ever told that I was gay was a guidance counselor who at one point said something very kind to me in passing because they knew that I was having a difficult day. And then they put a sticker on their door that said “Safe Space.” At one point, Corey Johnson was bordering on full depression, the one person he was able to turn to was that guidance counselor. “This is why we need more social workers and guidance counselors.”
https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/314-19/mayor-de-blasio-first-lady-mccray-chancellor-carranza-major-expansion-of#/0