Manhasset focuses on emotional, social learning in the district

Amelia Camurati
Director of guidance and counseling services Jane Grappone gave a presentation about social and emotional learning to the Manhasset Board of Education on Thursday. (Photo by Amelia Camurati)

Three Manhasset school district administrators stressed  the need for focus on “the whole child” with social and emotional learning across the district during the Board of Education meeting Thursday

Assistant superintendent for curriculum Charles Leone said the presentation by director of guidance and counseling services Jane Grappone and executive director of special education programs Allison Rushforth was the beginning of a conversation about what the district is doing to implement social and emotional learning, why the implementation is important, what the district is already doing and what steps it could take in the future.

“We know that schools are a partnership with home and family, and we feel we’re the heart of the community in many ways,” Leone said. “We have a responsibility to develop that social and emotional component as well as the academics. We need to make our students ready for whatever path they pursue.”

Rushforth said social and emotional learning focuses on five key components: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making.

“We’ve seen it over and over again in interviews and articles with people going for jobs and that interface, that social and emotional piece, is so important,” Leone said. “They say employers make decisions in the first few minutes based on that, so it’s our responsibility as a school district to be supporting students and having an understanding.

The district currently implements social and emotional learning into the health curriculum districtwide, offers one-on-one mentoring with staff counselors and social workers and provides counseling support for all students.

Guidance counselors at all four Manhasset schools also do lessons in the classroom, and approximately 20 teachers have been trained in the responsive classroom curriculum, Grappone said.

Grappone said responsive classroom gives teachers strategies to use in the classroom to center the students, including a daily morning meeting to schedule the day and lets the students feel more involved in the planning.

“One of the beautiful parts of it is it cultivates an ownership of one’s place in the classroom and the classroom within the school and a collective decision to come together to support one another to move from point A to point B,” Munsey Park Elementary School and Shelter Rock Elementary School assistant principal Theresa Curry said. “Being in the classrooms and observing lessons, especially on the elementary level, it’s wonderful because I know I’ve been asked to sit in on the activities, and the kids take such pride and joy in trying to teach me what to do.”

While social and emotional learning are implemented on the classroom and schoolwide levels throughout the district, Grappone said she sees a need to adjust the focus for middle and high schoolers.

“We need to really look at the whole approach we’re doing in the counseling department because it’s not balanced at this point,” Grappone said. “There is way more social and emotional systematic learning going on in the elementary school, but once they get into seventh through 12th [grades], the focus turns to college and career. It really is going to require us looking at the secondary piece and the implementation a little bit more.”

Share this Article