Virginia Regulatory Town Hall
Agency
Department of Education
 
Board
State Board of Education
 
Guidance Document Change: The 2020 Virginia General Assembly passed House Bill 753 directing the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) to develop guidance standards for social emotional learning (SEL) for all public students in grades Kindergarten through 12 in the Commonwealth. The Virginia Social Emotional Learning Standards were developed in collaboration with an SEL Advisory Committee, composed of educators, community leaders, agency personnel, and parents. The Virginia SEL Standards are aligned with the Profile of a Virginia Graduate and centered in equity. This intentional focus allows the Standards to explicitly teach the skills needed to be “life ready” and to create more equitable learning environments.
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5/25/21  9:11 am
Commenter: school psychologist, Virginia- see comment

contains negative subjective constructs and political ideology- not appropriate for public school
 

We all want to make schools better for our children. We all want our children to develop age appropriate social interactions and relationships. Emotional development and healthy self-regulation is important as well. What we do not want, and what is not acceptable, is for the public school to incorporate a curriculum/ standard, that includes determining for children what comfortable, uncomfortable, just or unjust, determining group identification, how one should feel about self and others based on group determination, what is equitable, unconscious biases, who is advantaged and disadvantaged, what is fair and unfair, what emotions they should be feeling, and then to be evaluated on their ability to feel/ think/ and behave the way in which the school has told them is appropriate. These are subjective constructs, which by nature are unethical to impose on children. It should be a clue that these standards are not appropriate for public school application when many psychologists, counselors, school administration, teachers, and parents have such great concern. This document has been tainted by a political agenda to fall in line with the current social narrative. It is not in the best interest our our children, and is not an appropriate approach to social and emotional learning.  

CommentID: 98701