Teach Explicit Social Skills Instruction and Build School-Wide Community

Caring School Community® fosters a culture of kindness and respect school-wide through the intentional building of relationships, direct teaching of social skills, and a proactive approach to discipline.

Caring School Community:

Builds caring relationships with and among students
Directly teaches social skills
Creates calm, orderly learning environments through the effective use of classroom management practices
Helps students acquire self-discipline through a caring and effective approach to discipline
Gives leaders guidance to ensure the adult community feels valued, respected, and included

A CASEL SELect Program

“Evidence-based, well-designed, and classroom-based program that systematically promotes students’ social and emotional competence, provides opportunities for practice, offers multiyear programming, and delivers high-quality training and other implementation supports.”

– The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)

What Educators Say About Caring School Community

"Our teachers are solving most of their behavior issues without administrative assistance." —Brandy McDill-Zamarripa (K–8 principal)

“I have noticed an increase in students’ awareness of other people’s emotions and well-being. I see students help each other without being asked, and check on students who are feeling sad or left out. Students are realizing that their actions have an impact on others and their own school experience.” —Sarah Gamarra (2nd grade teacher)

“I appreciate having morning circles AND closing circles. We know more about each others’ lives this year and it creates space for community building every day. I appreciated that the Collaborative Classroom trainers we’ve had were prepared, engaging, and flexible. I think the curriculum provides a great foundation for new teachers to start with. It also highlights the types of conversations we are expecting teachers to have with students and our expectation that students will also be developing their social-emotional skills every day at Bayshore.” —Taylor Heinrich Van Gundy (3rd grade teacher)

“I have noticed students being introspective and seeing situations from others’ points of view.” —Nina Dominguez (7th grade math and science teacher)

About Collaborative Classroom

Since the organization’s founding in 1980, our work has reached more than 8 million students and 328,000 teachers in classrooms across the country, developing fluent readers and skilled writers, supporting instructional equity, transforming discipline practices, and bolstering student and teacher engagement.

Explore Caring School Community, K–8

Download Sample Lessons

Teach Explicit Social Skills Instruction and Build School-Wide Community

A CASEL SELect Program

What Educators Say About Caring School Community

About Collaborative Classroom

Download Sample Teacher’s and Principal's Packages