RULER Update

West EL Families,

You may be aware that the Andover Public Schools has committed to the implementation of the RULER Curriculum. RULER is an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning and was developed at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. The goal of the program is to engage our students, staff and families in understanding the value of emotions, to create and maintain positive school climates and to build the skills of emotional intelligence. Last academic year, RULER was launched under the direction of Interim Principal Dr. King. However, the demands of the building project as well as a large-scale move trumped much of the time required to properly launch this important work. As such, this academic year our RULER team as begun from step one and is working with our staff to lay the foundation for this work. In the space below, you will see the details of the RULER program and a real-time update of our work. Thank you Assistant Principal Mary-Frances Tintle, teachers Kara Abate and Sara Cooper and Social Worker Adam Hirschfeld for your leadership!

The Mood Meter is a tool used to recognize and understand emotions. The Mood Meter helps us to understand that all emotions are ok and that we all experience a wide variety of emotions throughout our lives daily. As a community, we also begin to learn about appropriate strategies for self-regulation of our emotions. The Mood Meter is divided into four color quadrants - red, blue, green, and yellow - each representing a different set of feelings. Feelings are grouped together on the mood meter based on their pleasantness and energy level.

In phase one of RULER, our staff is identifying their mood when we gather in professional meeting spaces such as faculty meetings and professional development. Some teachers and service providers such as social workers and speech and language pathologists have introduced this in sessions and during morning meeting. Allowing children to share their mood when beginning a task gives great insight to the instructor and validates the students' emotional space immediately. Helping members of our school community, especially students, recognize feelings helps them understand how feelings impact decisions and behaviors. It's also the first step in helping students develop empathy, the ability to understand the feelings of one another.

The Classroom Charter is a tool that can help us create the positive, supportive, social-emotional environments that we know are best for learning. The Charter is like a promise we make to one another, or an agreement. How it Works: The Charter describes how we want to feel at school and what we can do to ensure that everyone has those feelings more consistently. Everyone has a voice in its' creation and plays an active role in bringing it to life. The Charter is considered a “living” document – meaning once it’s created, teachers and students make a habit of checking in with the Charter throughout the school year. When there is a climate of emotional support and warm relationships between teachers and students, and students among one another, there is an increase in productivity and wellbeing, greater likelihood of academic success, and better outcomes for students as they become adult community members.

Our amazing staff is presently finalizing their grade-level team charters. As adults we first must come to consensus on how we want to feel while at work and then agree on how we will support one another to ensure we create and maintain a space that espouses these feelings. Once teams have come to consensus, we will work 'whole school' to generate a West Elementary School staff charter.

The Meta-Moment involves pausing before one responds to an emotional moment. In RULER we teach the children to first 'sense' how they are feeling, both mentally and physically. We model for them how to 'stop' and to assess the situation that is triggering feelings. We teach the children how to visualize how their best self would react to a situation and how to incorporate positive self-talk when they notice their mood is threatened by negative emotion. Children are explicitly taught strategies for such moments and are celebrated when they successfully move through challenging times. Lessons like these are embedded int he 18 unit program and are further enhanced by teacher created lessons. Andover has a district-wide RULER team that includes educators and social workers from all the elementary , middle, and high school.

Unlike the Mood Meter and the Charter, our team's work on the Meta-Moment is forthcoming. Until our staff is well -versed in the Meta-Moment and are able to sense, stop, see our best selves, strategize and reflect on how successful we navigate emotional situations, we will not be fully prepared to roll this tenant out. If you are interested in learning more about the Meta-Moment, you may like to check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfX1NefGeRQ

The RULER Blueprint supports the development of empathy and conflict resolution skills and serves as a guide for reflecting on conflict and restoring the environment disrupted by challenging emotions. In short, the RULER Blueprint helps adults and children in our communities and learning spaces to understand when one is struggling through explicit lessons on empathy and through modeling conflict resolution strategies. The goal of the blueprint is not to simply identify who was involved in the conflict and how they were feeling, rather the goal is to teach the children the impact of understanding one another's perspective and how once that is established restore the environment so everyone can see the best version of themselves.

Like the Meta-Moment, the West El team has not begun this work. Through our partnership in the district -wide RULER team, our school-based team is receiving professional development and will apply their learning to our in-house training. We look forward to sharing our progress with the greater community!