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Mountain Lakes officials recommend expanding Panorama SEL survey after baseline flags emotional regulation
Summary
District presenters told the board that a spring baseline administered to grades 3–12 using the Panorama platform found supportive relationships relatively strong but emotional regulation relatively low; the team recommended ongoing Panorama administrations, a staff survey, targeted classroom strategies and professional development.
At the Mountain Lakes Board of Education meeting in June 2026, district staff recommended continuing and expanding use of the Panorama social‑emotional learning (SEL) survey after administering a baseline to students in grades 3–12.
District staff framed their review around the CASEL framework, saying they selected Panorama after reviewing five programs and customizing a shorter administration that covered six priority domains. "CASEL is a leading framework of social emotional learning, and it has 5 main domains," said the presenter. The administration chose Panorama to align survey domains with CASEL and to produce disaggregated, actionable data.
Presenters said the survey served as a baseline and found supportive relationships (peer, staff and family connections) to be a district strength, while emotional regulation — coping skills and recovering from setbacks — emerged as a consistent area for improvement across buildings. "A strength that we've noted is supportive relationships...An area we're looking to focus on is emotional regulation," Marissa Fleming said.
The team recommended several next steps: continue Panorama with two to three administrations per year to track growth; add a staff survey to corroborate student results; use Panorama's implementation playbook (hundreds of lessons) for classroom interventions such as teacher check‑ins and morning meetings; and pursue targeted professional development for counselors and teachers. They also suggested exploring a school community book study to align family, student and staff learning.
Board members pressed on methodology and subgroup analyses. A board member asked whether results could be disaggregated for students with individualized plans; the presenters confirmed Panorama allows breakdowns by grade, plan status and other demographics and noted that open‑ended student responses gave immediate, actionable examples.
The presenters and board emphasized that the results are a baseline, not a conclusive evaluation, and that future administrations will be used to measure growth. The district plans follow‑up work this summer (staff survey planning) and additional briefings to the board as data accumulates.
