South Orangetown Middle School Principal Chad Corey, Ed.D. and Assistant Principal Danielle Rodriguez, Ed.D. presented at the New York State Middle School Association’s 40th Annual Middle-Level Conference last Friday. Their presentation, “School Support Team: Lessons In and Out of the Classroom,” discussed the leadership role of the SOMS school counselors, prevention counselor, social worker and psychologists in developing and implementing building-wide social emotional learning (SEL) programming.
“We choose to present on this topic to share the work our school support team has done in implementing a proactive approach to social emotional learning. It is important for us to meet the social, emotional, and academic needs of all students,” Rodriguez reported.
Throughout each school year, the School Support Team lead classroom lessons, small groups and school-wide initiatives which focus on the three New York State SEL Benchmarks: develop self-awareness and self-management skills essential to success in school and in life; use social awareness and interpersonal skills to establish and maintain positive relationships; and, demonstrate ethical decision-making skills and responsible behaviors in personal, school, and community contexts.
Having a forum to share SOMS’ successes was meaningful, noted Corey. “We appreciated the opportunity to share the outstanding work of our School Support Team with fellow NYS middle school educators and administrators and we built in time at the end of our presentation to have a round table discussion to learn about the work other schools are doing around this topic.”
