The Harrisonburg City School Board heard a detailed presentation on Nov. 6 about student support services and the school division's social-emotional learning (SEL) work. Chloe, the district's director of student services, told the board the district has rolled out Second Step as the core K–12 SEL curriculum and is using the Panorama survey and the MTSS platform to monitor student needs and target supports.

Chloe described how the district measures SEL competencies with a developmental rubric (beginning, developing, meeting, exceeding) and blends teacher observation, lesson completion, and survey responses. “So we rate that on a scale, not a grading system, but a developmental rating scale of beginning, developing, meeting, and exceeding,” Chloe said during the presentation.

Implementation details provided to the board include:
• Elementary: roughly 20 Second Step lessons across four units with an added five bully-prevention lessons in October.
• Middle schools: about 26 lessons delivered during Friday advisories.
• High school: a smaller set of advisory lessons because high-school advisories also cover career planning and goal-setting.

Chloe said the Panorama survey — adopted by the division in 2022 — is now part of an intentional schedule: fall and winter checks on supportive relationships (grades 2–12), a school-selected competency each interim period, and a full six-competency administration each spring with accompanying teacher-perception data for comparison. Staff reported that this fall’s survey found more than 80% of students in every building indicated they had at least two of three supportive relationships (adult, peer, community/home), a result that meets or exceeds national benchmarks in the elementary schools.

Teachers and school teams can view Panorama data in the district’s MTSS platform. Chloe explained that classroom teachers can see which students are flagged at risk on specific competencies and that MTSS teams use the combined SEL, attendance, and academic data to form interventions. The Second Step platform now offers tier‑2 and tier‑3 intervention components that use consistent language and strategies with classroom instruction.

Board members questioned how preschool and families are included. Chloe said preschool uses other practices (for example, Conscious Discipline) and that the Second Step preschool module has been piloted in summer programming but is not yet implemented in the district’s preschool classrooms. On family access to data, staff said SEL outcomes are currently reflected on report cards and shared in conferences rather than being sent as a separate survey report; the district is working on ways to grow family-facing reporting.

Chloe closed by noting the department’s work with McKinney‑Vento students during Youth Homelessness Awareness Month and reiterated the integration of SEL, attendance and academics in MTSS to support the whole child.

Provenance: The SEL presentation and Q&A opened at 00:17:07 (transcript start ~1027.13) and ran through Q&A and follow-ups recorded through about 00:29:00 (transcript ~1740.93).