School-Connect®: Optimizing the High School Experience is a 40-lesson curriculum (grades 9-12) designed to improve students’ social and emotional skills, boost academic achievement, and facilitate supportive relationships among students and teachers.

School-Connect can be implemented in freshman seminar, life skills, health, English, advisory, psychology, leadership courses, and special education.

The curriculum consists of four modules:

  1. Creating a Supportive Learning Community

  2. Developing Self-Awareness and Self-Management

  3. Building Academic Strengths and Purpose

  4. Resolving Conflicts and Making Decisions

School-Connect works especially well in preparing inc oming freshmen for the demands of high school. Lessons focus on bolstering protective factors (e.g., supportive relationships, social skills, emotional management, and effective study habits) and reducing risk factors associated with school violence and high school drop out rates (e.g., bullying, social isolation, and poor academic attitudes and habits).

School-Connect lesson plans apply the latest research in emotional intelligence, positive psychology, prevention, conflict resolution, and character education.  The lessons are designed to create a positive school climate while giving students opportunities to explore, discuss, and practice skills crucial to success in school and the workplace. Particular attention is given to the needs of at-risk youth.  As students’ sense of competency grows, so does their self-esteem and attachment to school.

Lead author Kathy Beland, M.Ed., is the original author of the award-winning Second Step, A Violence Prevention Curriculum, which is implemented in over 20,000 classrooms in the U.S. and Canada and in 21 other countries. Second Step has been recognized as a model school safety program by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice and has received the highest ratings (straight A’s across all categories) by a national panel of prevention experts.  School-Connect builds upon the same skills introduced in Second Step with an added emphasis on academic readiness. The lessons received top ratings in addressing social-emotional learning competencies as identified by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL).