SEL Skill Assessment

Universal risk screeners, such as the SAEBRS, BASC-BESS, Strengths & Difficulties Questionnaire, and SRSS-IE, are designed and validated to be used to find students who are potentially at risk and in need of support. They are not validated as a skills assessment.

Using risk screeners for purposes for which they were not designed and validated may unintentionally leave students at risk. Schools should rather think of "growth" in this case as having increasingly robust, systematic processes that allow them to find every student who may be at risk and appropriately serve them.

In Kansas MTSS, that means universally screening students for risk three times per year, and using early warning data such as attendance, behavior referrals and course grades to respond to needs. Additionally, after consulting and partnering with parents, diagnostic tools may be necessary to fully understand and respond to more chronic or acute needs.

To help schools understand whether they are implementing the curriculum as intended, evidence-based SEL curricula often include tools for that purpose. Examples include lesson completion checklists, implementation surveys, scope and sequence checklists, peer observations, and student feedback tools. Some schools opt to create walk-through tools.

Fidelity may also include tools that help adults self-assess the degree to which they have and express the social emotional competencies that foster developmental relationships, a positive school culture and climate, students' voice and agency, and students' social and emotional skills.

Any of these may serve as artifacts of fidelity, along with a clear schedule. Schools must build time in the schedule for explicitly teaching the lessons following the scope and sequence, as well as any time needed for important processes that may be part of some programs, such as morning meetings, brief daily skill practice, etc.

School Climate may either foster or impede the development and practice of social and emotional skills. Climate data can serve several important functions: as a sort of needs assessment for a school system, and as a way to contextualize and understand the relationships among other data schools collect. For example, climate data is an important source for understanding at the systems level potential connections among competency assessment data, implementation data, risk screening, and early warning data.

Kansas schools have access to a free and anonymous climate survey for students through the Kansas Communities That Care survey. Guidance from Greenbush regarding recent legislation may be helpful to schools in implementing the KCTC. Schools also may access a free climate survey for parents called the Kansas Family Engagement Survey.

Measuring Social Emotional Growth means looking at skills assessments alongside the other data sources referenced on this page. The consensus of experts in the field is that:

"Taking a holistic view of competency development is essential. Student competency data should include intrapersonal and interpersonal skills that are being taught from PreK to 12. Competencies should also be examined alongside other related kinds of data, such as: adult SEL competencies (if available), school climate, implementation data, and other important student outcomes, such as attendance and academic achievement. Examining these data together is essential to understand how these factors may relate to each other, and ultimately to understand how, why, and when improvement occurs."

--Practitioner Guide Considerations for SEL competency assessment. (2019, January 15). Retrieved from https://measuringsel.casel.org/assessment-guide/considerations-for-sel-competency-assessment/

For more information related to this state board goal, see KSDE's Kansas Star Rubric for Social Emotional Growth Measured Locally, or our repository page Measuring Growth.