Social & emotional Learning (SEL)

Reading Elementary School is a Second Step school. We believe that creating a supportive emotional environment for positive discipline conversations allows students to look at their behaviors collaboratively. It frees them up to decide how to make amends and how to use Second Step skills to approach similar incidents in the future. 

The Second Step program promotes school success, school connectedness, and a safe and respectful school climate. It does this by directly teaching and reinforcing students in the skills that strengthen their ability to:

• Learn

• Have empathy

• Manage emotions

• Solve problems

RES Behavioral Expectations

Consistent, fair and respectful discipline is essential to the educational process. We believe that almost all behavior can be addressed through one of three questions:

1. Are you being respectful of yourself? 

2. Are you being respectful of others?

3. Are you being respectful of property? 

We teach the children that the words “respectful of” can be replaced with the words “safe with” or “kind to”. Children understand that when you are not safe, often someone or something gets hurt. Anytime the answer is “no” to any of these three questions, there is an opportunity for learning and growth, though we also recognize that sometimes there needs to be more concrete consequences. We will first attempt to work through a restorative process to both address the misbehavior and to help a child to learn from the mistake.