Prime Time and School District Discuss the Ingredients for a Successful Partnership and Implementation of SEL

On February 19, 2021, Prime Time Palm Beach County Director of Professional Development Katherine Gopie, The School District of Palm Beach County SEL Manager Kristen Rullison, and professionals from CASEL, and The Wallace Foundation discussed what Palm Beach County has learned about how school and out-of-school time partners can work together to align and implement SEL on CASEL Webinar: Building Partnerships Inside and Outside the Classroom.

“We started afternoon meeting So students develop relationships with their out-of-school time friends as well as really getting to know that practitioner.”  – Kristen Rulison, SEL manager, The School District of Palm Beach County 

“We’ve got to start with the adults first because if we don’t know how to take care of ourselves and we don’t know how to identify our emotions, how we’re feeling & regulate those things, we can’t show up as our best selves for kids.”  Katherine Gopie, director of professional development, Prime Time Palm Beach County 

As we have been learning, authentic school-community partnerships can help create and support positive student experiences both in school and out of school. But how do you align work on social and emotional learning in and out of school? Of course, that’s one of the questions that the Partnerships for Social and Emotional Learning Initiative (PSELI) was designed to answer.  Click here to watch webinar.

We needed to spend some time talking about what SEL meant to both organizations and also common language that we use within those organizations.” – Kristen Rulison, SEL manager, The School District of Palm Beach County 

“Bringing folks to the table just creates a space of information sharing. Communication is key.”  – Katherine Gopie, director of professional development, Prime Time Palm Beach County 

Key takeaways to strengthen community partnerships for SEL include:
– Spend time upfront developing relationship and learning about each others’ organizations.
– Establish shared expectations and organizational structures for the partnership with equal representation from both organizations.
– Align rather than replicate across school day and out-of-school time.
– Identify Champions across sites and systems to help ensure sustainability.