A Systemic Approach to SEL

Along with PBIS supporting our students and staff, ACPS has partnered with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence to adopt a division-wide approach to growing our emotional intelligence. RULER is a systemic and evidence-based approach to SEL, utilizing a Pre-K to 12th grade curriculum to infuse the principles of emotional intelligence into the culture of every school in the division. RULER is an acronym for the five skills of emotional intelligence, which include Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, and Regulating. The development of these five RULER skills relies on four core tools: The Charter, Mood Meter, Meta-Moment, and Blueprint. These skills and tools are introduced to all stakeholders in the school community—school leaders, teachers, staff, students, and families and are designed to inform how leaders lead, teachers teach, students learn, and families support students. The RULER approach ranks among the highly regarded models designated by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning as CASEL SELect programs.