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Resources for Educators and Schools

This resource collection provides available resources for school leaders and educators working remotely supporting social-emotional and behavioral needs during COVID-19.

  • Responding to the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak through PBIS. The Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) TA Center encourages all schools to continue to focus on building prosocial skills, not simply attempting to eliminate challenging or problem behavior, as well as other key principles of PBIS, as they continue to address the COVID-19 pandemic. This resource compilation provides simple recommendations educators can embed across a continuum of supports.
  • Teaching Social-Emotional Competencies within a PBIS Framework. Positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) provides an ideal framework for promoting social-emotional competencies to improve outcomes for the whole child. The purpose of this brief from the PBIS TA Center is to describe how school personnel can teach social-emotional competencies within a PBIS framework to support systematic, school-wide implementation through one system, rather than trying to improve student outcomes through separate, competing initiatives.
  • Investing in Evidence-Based Social and Emotional Learning. This report from the Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety (SEL Center)provides guidance on how to assess local needs relative to SEL and how to identify appropriate evidence-based interventions that address those local needs.
  • Community-Care Strategies for Schools During the Coronavirus Crisis: Practical Tips for School Staff and Administrators. This brief from the SEL Center offers practical guidance for educators and other school staff, and for administrators and other leaders, to help ensure that school communities are effective, cohesive, collaborative, healthy, and sustainable while coping with the stresses of social isolation, school closures, and changes to how services are provided.
  • Mindfulness in Education: An Approach to Cultivating Self-Awareness That Can Bolster Kids' Learning. This brief from the SEL Center introduces mindfulness as a strategy for facilitating social and emotional learning in school, explains the potential benefits for both students and educators, provides examples of mindfulness strategies, and lists resources for learning more about mindfulness.
  • Returning to School During and After Crisis: A Guide to Supporting States, Districts, Schools, Educators, and Students through a Multi-Tiered Systems of Support Framework during the 2020-2021 School Year. This guide from the PBIS TA Center describes the use of a multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) framework to support students, families, and educators during the transitions back to school during and following the global pandemic in a manner that prioritizes their health and safety, social and emotional needs, and behavioral and academic growth.
  • PBIS Cultural Responsiveness Field Guide: Resources for Trainers and Coaches. This field guide from the PBIS TA Center outlines an integrated framework to embed equity efforts into school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports (SWPBIS) by aligning culturally responsive practices to the core components of SWPBIS. The goal of using this guide is to make school systems more responsive to the cultures and communities that they serve. This guide is part of a 5-point intervention approach for enhancing equity in student outcomes within a SWPBIS approach.
  • Supporting Students with Disabilities at School and Home: A Guide for Teachers to Support Families and Students. This guide from the PBIS TA Center highlights 5 key practices for teachers and families to support all students, including students with disabilities, at school and home. For each practice, the guide provides (a) tips for teachers to support students with disabilities during instruction; (b) tips for families that educators can share to support or enhance learning at home, especially during periods of remote instruction; and (c) free-access resources that include strategies shown to be effective by research (e.g., informational guides, downloadable materials, research-based programs).
  • Creating a PBIS Behavior Teaching Matrix for Remote Instruction. This practice brief shares tips for maintaining continuity of learning through defining classroom expectations for remote (i.e., distance) instruction and online learning environments. With a few adaptations, teachers can use a PBIS framework to make remote learning safe, predictable, and positive.
  • Guidance on Adapting Check-in Check-out (CICO) for Distance Learning. This brief from the PBIS TA Center provides considerations and suggestions for adapting Check-in Check-out (CICO), an evidence-based Tier 2 school intervention, for situations where students are learning from home.
  • Continuity of Learning: Resources to Support Social Emotional Learning. This resource compilation curated by the National Comprehensive Center features resources to support SEAs, LEAs, and school leaders in the important work of supporting social emotional for learning as students learn from home.
  • Informational Resources on Improving Social and Emotional Learning and Outcomes.This resource document by the Region 6 Comprehensive Center supports educational stakeholders with improving students' social and emotional learning (SEL) and outcomes by providing resources for understanding, prioritizing, and measuring SEL competencies and providing resources on evidence-based SEL programs and interventions. The document organizes resources and information about SEL into nine categories listed under two broad headings: What is SEL? and How is SEL being implemented?
  • Better Together: A Coordinated Response for Principals and District Leaders.This brief published by the National Comprehensive Center for school and district leadership presents strategies, research and a structured approach to manage and support the social-emotional well-being of adults in the school building as well as the families and students they serve post COVID-19 closures.
  • Student Engagement in Online Classes: Tips for Teachers Based on Trauma-Informed Approaches and Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Strategies.This fact sheet by the National Comprehensive Center provides concrete strategies that teachers can incorporate into their online teaching to increase engagement with students in middle and high school. The authors present a framework based on trauma-informed (TI) approaches and social and emotional learning (SEL) strategies to ensure students feel safe, connected, engaged, and ready to learn.
  • Leveraging This Moment to Improve Schools and Systems through the Lenses of SEL, Trauma-Informed Practices, and Anti-Racist Education.This recorded webinar by Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety (CISELSS) presents a panel of experts in youth development, trauma-informed practices, and school-based law enforcement to discuss challenges and opportunities to improve schools and school systems through the lenses of social and emotional learning, trauma-informed practices, and anti-racism.
  • Strategies for Educators to Support the Social and Emotional Needs of Students Impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Demand for Racial Justice: Plans for Reopening Schools.This recorded webinar by the Regional Educational Laboratory West for school and district leaders provide evidence-based information about social and emotional competencies that educators can use to rebuild conditions of success for students. Using a trauma-informed lens, strategies addressed: Creating safe and supportive school environments; Promoting family and community communication and collaboration; and Fostering collective care.
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE)
Page Last Reviewed:
September 3, 2025