Bringing Social-Emotional Learning to Northern California Schools

Northern California's K–12 schools serve wildly different communities — rural farm towns in the Sacramento Valley, fire-recovery communities in the far north, growing suburbs outside Sacramento — but they're converging on the same conclusion: academic recovery depends on social-emotional recovery first. Social-emotional learning (SEL) gives teachers a structured way to build the self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making that the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) identifies as the five core competencies kids need to re-engage with school.

SEL Academy started this work in Butte County — Chico, Oroville, Durham, and Gridley — and is now extending it across the North State, from the Sacramento Valley up through Shasta and Tehama counties and west into the Yuba-Sutter region. The need looks similar everywhere: county offices of education and individual districts are standing up their own wellness and SEL initiatives, but classroom teachers are often doing the implementation work without dedicated training or ready-to-use materials.

That's the gap SEL Academy fills. Our free tools — a CASEL-aligned Self-Assessment, a Daily Check-In for building the "first five minutes" habit, an Educator Wellness check-in, a Family Hub, and a growing Lesson Library — give any Northern California classroom a starting point at no cost. For schools and districts ready to go further, our Speaking Engagements & Professional Development programs range from a single 60-minute virtual session (starting at $500) to full-day district training (starting at $4,000) and custom multi-session district partnerships. See our Speaking Engagements & Professional Development programs for details.

Explore how SEL Academy is supporting specific Northern California communities below. Want to see what the CASEL framework looks like in practice? Start with our CASEL overview or try the free SEL Self-Assessment with your students this week. Start with our CASEL overview or try the free SEL Self-Assessment.

Looking for California-specific professional development? See our SEL PD programs for California schools — including how our work aligns with SB 224, CYBHI, and LCAP requirements.