SEL Case Studies: 8 Districts That Implemented SEL at Scale

By the Transforming Education editorial team. Reviewed for accuracy against the sources listed below.

Most SEL case studies are written by the people who ran the program. Each of the eight cases below draws only on documents we could read in full: district reports, CASEL's District Resource Center case studies, independent evaluations and journalism. Where a district reported its own numbers, we say so, and where results are descriptive trends rather than causal evidence, we say that too. The page ends with a template for documenting your own work with the same discipline.

Seven of the eight were members of CASEL's Collaborating Districts Initiative, which began in 2011 with eight large districts (Anchorage, Austin, Chicago, Cleveland, Nashville, Oakland, Sacramento and Washoe County) and reached 20 districts serving 1.7 million students by 2022. The eighth, California's CORE Districts, is included for its measurement work.

1. CORE Districts, California: measuring SEL at scale

Context. A network of large urban California districts serving more than one million students. According to the PACE research brief, six districts (Fresno, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco and Santa Ana) used a 2013 federal waiver to build an alternative to No Child Left Behind accountability; Garden Grove and Sacramento City are also network members.

What they did. With the former nonprofit Transforming Education as partner, CORE selected four skills to measure (growth mindset, self-efficacy, self-management and social awareness) based on measurability, predictive validity and malleability, per Martin West's Brookings analysis. A 2014-15 field test reached more than 450,000 students in grades 3 to 12. From 2015-16 the measures counted for eight percent of CORE's School Quality Improvement Index. The 25-item survey, given to grades 4 to 12 each spring, was completed by about 390,000 students a year.

What changed. When ESSA passed in December 2015 the accountability requirement fell away, and the districts kept the survey for improvement. Results showed self-efficacy and social awareness declining through middle school and girls' self-efficacy falling behind boys' by grade 7. The 74 reported that Long Beach schools responded with new SEL curricula, growth-mindset nights for parents, and a math course alternating algebra with SEL lessons.

Lesson. Low-stakes, well-designed measurement can inform practice across hundreds of schools; the designers themselves warned against using it for high-stakes judgments.

2. Austin Independent School District, Texas: phased rollout through feeder patterns

Context. About 85,000 students and 129 schools in 2015, 59.5 percent Latino and 59.7 percent economically disadvantaged, according to CASEL's March 2015 case study.

What they did. Austin joined the first CDI cohort in spring 2011 and organized its rollout around vertical teams, a high school and its feeder schools. The district's own 2016 summary records SEL in 26 schools in 2011-12, expanding to all 130 schools in 2015-16. Elementary and middle schools taught explicit lessons from Second Step; high schools used School-Connect and a ninth-grade transition course. Each school had a steering committee and an assigned SEL specialist who observed lessons and coached; specialists grew from two to 13 plus two parent specialists. The SEL budget rose from $690,416 in 2011-12 to $2,020,693 in 2014-15, supported by a $250,000 annual NoVo Foundation grant for three years, a $1 million local donor challenge that yielded $2.4 million and, per Bridgespan's 2016 profile, federal Title II funds for some coaches.

What changed. Austin funded a dedicated SEL evaluation analyst and produced regular implementation reports. CASEL's 2017 CDI report states that Austin's middle and high school students significantly improved in all five competencies on district surveys, and that Austin's NAEP reading and math scores and GPAs improved during the implementation years. These are district-reported trends without a comparison group.

Lesson. Bridgespan quotes SEL director Sherrie Raven: the most critical factor was the number of SEL coaches. Phased rollout bought time to build that coaching capacity.

3. Chicago Public Schools, Illinois: SEL as the umbrella for climate and discipline

Context. The nation's third-largest district in 2015, with 400,545 students in 664 schools and 85 percent of students eligible for free or reduced lunch, per CASEL's Chicago case study.

What they did. CPS convened a cross-content SEL task force in 2012, adopted Second Step for explicit K-8 instruction, and in September 2013 renamed its youth development department the Office of Social and Emotional Learning, placing MTSS, school climate, student behavior and mental health, restorative practices and discipline policy under one umbrella. For 2014-15 the district funded 14 network-level SEL specialists at roughly $2 million a year while facing a $1 billion deficit, and about 100 schools had restorative practices coaching. CPS reported investing more than $9 million in the third implementation year and providing 81.5 percent of SEL funding itself.

What changed. CASEL's CDI report reports that Chicago's suspensions declined 65 percent in two years, translating to 44,000 fewer students suspended in one year; overall attendance improved by eight percentage points from before the CDI through 2015; average GPA rose from 2.19 to 2.65; and the graduation rate increased 15 percent during the CDI years. Separately, a University of Chicago Consortium study of 160,148 CPS students, reported by The 74 in 2023, found that students at high schools strong at developing social-emotional skills were 2.41 percentage points more likely to graduate and 2.57 percentage points more likely to attend college within two years, and were 20 percent less likely to be arrested on campus.

Lesson. CPS chose to restructure existing departments rather than add a new one, and tied SEL explicitly to discipline reform and attendance, which protected it through leadership and budget turmoil.

4. Oakland Unified School District, California: standards for adults as well as children

Context. Eighty-five schools serving about 35,000 students, predominantly Black and Latino/a and from low-income households, with 2,100 faculty and staff, according to a 2026 EdPrepLab brief. Oakland is both a CDI district and a CORE Districts member.

What they did. Oakland partnered with CASEL in 2012 and established a dedicated SEL department. A team of teachers, administrators, youth and community members worked for a year to write Pre-K to Adult SEL standards, drawing on Illinois and Washoe County standards and California's pre-K standards, as documented in CASEL's District Resource Center case study. The standards became part of districtwide instructional rounds and, per CASEL's CDI report, of performance frameworks for teachers and principals. The district trained Lead Learners as school-based SEL teacher leaders, co-developed the Three Signature Practices (welcoming inclusion, engaging strategies, optimistic closure) with CASEL for every meeting, and in June 2022 introduced Transformative SEL workshops for educators.

What changed. The EdPrepLab brief reports that 97 percent of educators who attended Transformative SEL workshops said the sessions made their work feel more sustainable or effective and increased their desire to stay in the district. CASEL's CDI report lists Oakland among districts where GPAs were higher at the end of 2015 than before the initiative.

Lesson. Oakland treated adult SEL as a system responsibility rather than individual self-care, and wrote that commitment into standards and evaluation frameworks.

5. Anchorage School District, Alaska: standards that took years to become practice

Context. Anchorage adopted K-12 SEL standards in 2006, years before most districts, and was a founding CDI district in 2011.

What they did. The district's CASEL case study describes 15 standards across four competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social management. Elementary teachers piloted them for three years, writing lessons, indicators and rubrics. The standards were woven into the health curriculum, creating a Health/SEL Specialist role filled by about 30 people. In 2013-14 the SEL team ran a University of Alaska Anchorage credit course on infusing SEL into academic content, taken by 130 K-12 teachers.

What changed. The district reports that despite board adoption in 2006, many educators first saw SEL as a 30-minute weekly add-on, and that it took three to six years for the standards to be widely understood. Surveys after the 2013-14 course found that the share of participants intentionally planning for SEL rose from 31 percent to 100 percent, and those making explicit connections to the standards rose from 12 percent to 98 percent. CASEL's CDI report adds that after staff survey participation dropped sharply, Anchorage used the data to reset priorities and participation rose from 30 percent to 79 percent.

Lesson. Standards on paper did little. Visibility (posters in every school), adult modeling and debriefing the SEL in every professional development activity made them real.

6. Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Ohio: Humanware

Context. A founding CDI district in 2011. Cleveland's SEL work runs under the name Humanware.

What they did. The district's Humanware pages list the components: class meetings, the Conditions for Learning survey, PATHS for pre-K through grade 5, Planning Centers, weekly Student Support Teams, restorative practices and SEL curricula. Planning Centers, staffed by an instructional aide, are described as the last stop before a student is removed from the building and the first stop on return from suspension. The Conditions for Learning survey asks students about a safe and respectful climate, challenge and high expectations, student support, and social and emotional learning; the American Institutes for Research processes the data, and CASEL's CDI report notes it is given twice a year.

What changed. CASEL's CDI report states that Cleveland's NAEP reading and math scores improved during the implementation years, GPAs were higher by 2015, climate improved on district surveys, and middle and high school students grew particularly in self-awareness and self-management. In CASEL's 2021 release, CEO Eric Gordon described the district as on a long journey and said "we are better for it."

Lesson. Cleveland built the data infrastructure first and kept it running for a decade, leaving one of the few continuous district climate records.

7. Washoe County School District, Nevada: train-the-trainer at low cost

Context. About 63,000 students and 91 schools in Reno and surrounding Washoe County in 2015, 38.9 percent Latino and 43 percent economically disadvantaged, according to CASEL's Washoe case study.

What they did. Washoe joined the CDI in February 2012 with a $125,000 planning grant and $250,000 a year for three years from NoVo. A multidisciplinary group wrote district SEL standards in a three-day session, and 12 pilot schools went first. The district adopted MindUP for K-8 and School Connect for grades 9 to 12, and built a train-the-trainer model: each school's SEL leadership team attends a three-day training, then trains its own staff with quarterly professional learning communities and specialist coaching. All 93 schools were scheduled to be trained by January 2016. With CASEL and the University of Illinois at Chicago, the district developed the free, open-source WCSD-SECA competency assessment and embedded it in an annual climate survey of about 24,000 students.

What changed. The district's CASEL snapshot reports that the share of staff saying their school followed an SEL curriculum rose from 43 percent in 2012-13 to 80 percent in 2016-17, and that graduation rates increased by 20 points since SEL began in 2012. The SECA FAQ reports that, controlling for demographics and prior achievement, students with higher competencies had reading and math scores about 8 points higher, higher GPAs and lower suspension and absenteeism. K-12 Dive reported that Nevada later built statewide SEL standards with Washoe's team.

Lesson. A small central team can reach every school if it invests in teacher leaders and pays for their time, and if it publishes its data openly.

8. Boston Public Schools, Massachusetts: SEL across school and after-school

Context. Russell Elementary in Dorchester served about 400 students, mostly Hispanic or Latino and Black and mostly eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, half a mile from the Boys & Girls Clubs of Dorchester, which served nearly 4,000 members. The two had no prior relationship, according to RAND's 2022 Wallace Foundation case study.

What they did. Under Wallace's Partnerships for Social and Emotional Learning Initiative, launched in 2017, the school and club adopted a shared curriculum (MindUP) and shared rituals such as warm welcomes and optimistic closures. In fall 2018 a new principal began sending all 400 students to the club twice a week during the school day for enrichment the small school building could not provide. Districtwide, Boston launched SEAD (social, emotional and academic development) coaching in 2017; the Rennie Center's 2025 report describes five coaches in 2024-25, each with up to five schools, and 31, 29 and 24 schools coached over three years from 2022-23.

What changed. RAND reports that the share of school staff agreeing there was a respectful relationship between the school and the after-school program rose from 11 percent in spring 2018 to 71 percent in spring 2019, and 100 percent of club staff agreed in spring 2020. The Rennie Center reports School Health Profiles gains between 2022 and 2024 of 12 percentage points in principals comfortable with their SEL training, 10 points in principals reporting all staff trained on the district's SEL competencies, and 19 points in schools implementing staff SEL practices. At one school, students reported a 9 percent rise in belonging mid-year and teachers a 17 percent improvement in climate indicators.

Lesson. Shared language and routines across settings mattered more than any single program, and leadership-level communication kept logistics from derailing the partnership.

Cross-cutting lessons

1. Leaders have to carry it. CASEL's 2021 synthesis of ten years of CDI work lists a shared vision championed by leaders first among six elements for sustaining SEL. Austin, Washoe and Cleveland survived superintendent turnover because other senior leaders and a stable SEL director held the line.
2. Standards create common language only with years of modeling. Anchorage's and Oakland's standards became real through posters, debriefs and evaluation frameworks, not adoption votes.
3. Roll out in phases and coach. Austin's vertical teams, Washoe's cohorts and Chicago's network specialists put coaching capacity ahead of coverage.
4. Attend to adults first. Anchorage paused to focus on staff; Oakland wrote adult SEL into standards; Boston embedded signature practices in staff meetings.
5. Build the data system early and keep stakes low. Cleveland's climate survey, Washoe's open-source assessment and CORE's dashboard informed practice because they did not decide anyone's fate.
6. Braid the money. General funds carried most of the cost; grants and Title funds filled gaps and paid for evaluation.
7. Tie SEL to outcomes the system already tracks. Chicago framed SEL through discipline and attendance, Washoe through graduation, and that framing protected budgets.

A template for writing your own case study

Keep each section to a paragraph or a short list; the printable version is in the companion download.

1. Title and timeframe. Name the initiative and the years covered.
2. Context. Enrollment, demographics, number of schools, and the problem or goal that started the work.
3. Starting conditions. What existed before: standards, programs, data, staffing.
4. What was done, by year. Programs, staffing, training, structures, data systems. Note who decided and why.
5. Resources. Annual budget, funding sources, staff positions, external partners.
6. Measures. What you tracked, how often, and your baseline values.
7. What changed. Report results against the baseline and, where possible, a comparison. State clearly whether the data are district-reported trends or independent evaluation.
8. What did not work. Every honest case study has this section.
9. Lessons for others. Three to five, each tied to evidence above.
10. Sources and contact. Link every report and name a person who can answer questions.

Note: The results here are mostly district-reported and descriptive. Rising graduation rates or falling suspensions do not by themselves prove SEL caused the change; discipline reforms, enrollment shifts and state policy move the same numbers. Treat the cases as evidence of what is feasible, and look to independent studies such as the University of Chicago Consortium work for the strongest impact claims.