CPS-scale SEL system example

Chicago Public Schools built a districtwide social and emotional learning system that now reaches more than 600 schools and tens of thousands of staff through centralized training and support. (cps.edu) (zialearning.com) For the 2025-26 school year, CPS reports 630 schools and 316,224 students. Zia Learning, a district vendor, says CPS needed a way to train more than 30,000 teachers across 600 campuses on its teaching framework while also delivering supports for students and families. (cps.edu) (zialearning.com) The district’s Office of Social and Emotional Learning, or OSEL, says it works with schools and networks to build multi-tiered systems of support for students’ social, emotional, and behavioral development. In practice, that means universal schoolwide supports for all students, added targeted help for some students, and intensive services for a smaller group. (cps.edu) (schoolmentalhealth.org) CPS has used that structure for years. A 2017 K-12 Dive report, citing district officials, said the SEL push dated to 2012 and was supported by training, coaching, and a Supportive Schools Certification program that gave schools a framework for implementation. (k12dive.com) The digital layer is what makes the model portable for other large districts. Zia Learning says it partnered with CPS’s Office of Teaching and Learning to build more than 40 hours of web-based professional development across subjects including math, early childhood, physical education, career and technical education, digital media, and student health and wellness. (zialearning.com) (cps.edu) That same case study says teachers and students now have anytime access to web-based professional development and digital learning options, while families and students can use online, blended, and remote-learning supports. The setup shifts part of staff training from one-time in-person sessions to materials schools can reuse across campuses. (zialearning.com) CPS has also tied SEL to a broader district strategy around trauma and school climate. The district says it began a “healing-centered” effort in fall 2019 to make CPS a more trauma-engaged and culturally responsive system for students, staff, families, and communities. (cps.edu) Illinois gives that work a wider policy base. The Illinois State Board of Education says one of the state’s seven Social-Emotional Learning Hubs is housed within Chicago Public Schools and is meant to provide professional development, coaching, and capacity-building for SEL and trauma-responsive programming, though the state notes that page is archived. (isbe.net) CPS has also expanded the staffing base around schools in recent years. In an October 16, 2024 update, the district said it had added nearly 7,000 staff since 2019 and lowered its average student-to-teacher ratio from 14.3-to-1 to 12-to-1. (cps.edu) For superintendents looking at scale, the CPS example is less about a single curriculum than about district plumbing: a central SEL office, network-level support, common frameworks, and digital training that can reach hundreds of campuses without rebuilding the system school by school. (cps.edu) (schoolmentalhealth.org)