EXCLUSIVE — A Wisconsin school district has received over $1 million in grants since 2017 to bolster Social Emotional Learning initiatives which facilitate “health equity.” SEL initiatives are linked to programs that promote social justice ideals, including critical race theory.
According to documents obtained through a Parents Defending Education records request, the Greater Watertown Community Health Foundation provided the Watertown Unified School District with 14 grants dating back to May 2017, with most of the money going to SEL initiatives.
“Social emotional learning is one of those things that sounds benign, even nice, on its face,” PDE director of outreach Erika Sanzi told the Washington Examiner. “But [it] often turns out to be something very different.”
Sanzi noted one cause of confusion surrounding the concept stems from “a definitional change in 2020 that infused SEL with social justice ideology and notions of equity and collectivism.”
In 2020, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning updated its SEL framework to incorporate a stronger focus on social justice. CASEL’s website states that SEL is “leveraged to promote equity.”
CASEL’s website says that SEL “Can help school districts promote understanding, examine biases, reflect on and address the impact of racism, build cross-cultural relationships, and cultivate adult and student practices that close opportunity gaps and create more inclusive school communities.”
“This requires that SEL is implemented with an explicit goal of promoting educational equity,” it continues.
According to a document from Watertown Unified School District titled “100 day plan,” the district intends to implement SEL into the curriculum “to teach empathy and cooperation, reinforcing these lessons with group activities that foster teamwork and positive social behaviors.”
An employment contract shows that the district also hired an SEL coordinator, also referred to as a mental health coordinator, and a powerpoint presentation made by this employee states her role is not to be “a therapist or counselor for individual students,” nor a “substitute for teachers, administrators, psychologist counselors, or social workers.”
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“Despite all the claims of it being research based, there is not a shred of evidence that [SEL] helps students at all,” Stanzi said.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Watertown Unified School District for comment.