Associates in Action articles highlight CSG Associates’ philanthropic efforts and public-private partnerships throughout the states.
ACT, a CSG Associate, has had a long and successful partnership with Region One Education Service Center (Region One) which serves 38 school districts and 10 charter school systems on the Texas/Mexico border. Educators at Region One were midway through testing their students’ Social Emotional Learning skills with ACT Tessera when COVID-19 hit. Now, the center is doing everything it can to connect with and assess its students on a virtual platform in a new world.
Region One Education Service Center is one of the longest-standing recipients of funds through the GEAR UP program, a federal grant focused on preparing low-income students for success in postsecondary education. As an extension of their grant funding, Region One partnered with ACT in 2011 for a 7-year cohort case study that explored Social Emotional Learning and equitable education, becoming ACT’s biggest national online pilot to date.
This partnership has continued to thrive, with Region One applying ACT’s advanced, multimodal assessment methodology at the 7th grade level last spring to monitor the growth of a single cohort year-by-year. GEAR UP facilitators used the resultant data to customize interventions for each of the 14,000 students across 55 middle schools, helping to ensure that the students have the social and emotional skills they need to achieve success.
With the second Tessera assessment originally scheduled for spring 2020, Region One — like so many education agencies — has had to pivot quickly in response to COVID-19. In response, Region One turned to ACT’s online-friendly Social Emotional Learning resources, which are specifically curated to complement the shifting academic landscape.
As part of the current research collaboration, educators at Region One chose to crosswalk Grit and Resilience as the center’s core Social Emotional Learning skills long before COVID-19 hit. Students need these SEL skills now more than ever, particularly since so many are having to balance academic success with everyday responsibilities.
“When students return to the classroom, it’s critical for schools to recognize that many will have had their lives changed permanently by COVID-19”, said Texas state Senator Eddie Lucio Jr., chair of the Senate Committee on Intergovernmental Relations and the vice chair of the Senate Education Committee. “Nowhere is this more true than in the communities of Region One, which include some of the hardest-hit areas of Texas. Educational methods that reach the whole child and help them overcome non-academic barriers to their success will be crucial in ensuring the lasting effects of COVID-19 do not extend into the academic realm.”
Though it is uncertain how COVID-19 will impact the educational climate in the long term, Region One’s dedication to Social Emotional Learning is helping to prepare students both academically and emotionally for the future, no matter what that future looks like.
ACT Tessera is now part of Mosaic™ by ACT®, a research-backed, comprehensive learning solution featuring social emotional learning resources, adaptive academic resources and learning and professional services. Mosaic by ACT strives to provide educators, learners and families with quality online learning tools and services to address student needs in the classroom and at home, during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
To learn more about CSG Associate, ACT, Inc. and its Social Emotional Learning research, visit act.org.