By Kelly Notarfrancesco | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice
Should teachers in Colorado K-12 classrooms be performing daily assessments on the thoughts and feelings of your children?
At the beginning of the 2024-25 school year, Pueblo D70 School District controversially implemented a Social Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum which Superintendent Ronda Rein described in an email from September 24, 2024 as a “daily assessment of thoughts and feelings.”
SEL is promoted to parents and school administrators as the panacea for kids’ mental health concerns, and SEL advocates believe the concepts benefit students by providing important emotional training which leads to academic success, healthy relationships, and proper civic engagement.
Opponents of SEL are concerned that the lessons are the psychoeducational “injector needle” used to insert woke beliefs such as intersectional identity divisions and gender ideology into classrooms. Opponents are also worried that SEL manipulates children’s emotions and values in the model of thought reform techniques used in China during the Cultural Revolution, as described by psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton in his book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism.
The SEL debate erupted in Pueblo D70 after concerned parents and teachers learned the district’s administration had implemented an SEL curriculum called TRAILS (Transforming Research into Action to Improve the Lives of Students).
Rein advocated for the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)-aligned TRAILS SEL curriculum, stating, “We know this is good for kids,” many alarmed parents and concerned teachers disagreed with her perspective, and voiced their concerns to district leadership during public meetings.
Are parents right to be concerned that their children’s public-school class time is used for SEL lessons which monitor and evaluate students’ feelings? Is SEL the best use of public resources?
The most recent Colorado Measures of Academic Success (CMAS) standardized test results from Pueblo D70 show that the majority of its 3rd-8th grade students are below expectations in both English and math proficiencies. Nearly 60% of the students are below expectations in English, while shockingly over 70% are below expectations in math.
Perhaps Pueblo D70 students would be better served by using class time to practice math facts or reading instead of using precious classroom resources identifying problematic thought patterns.
The TRAILS SEL program which was implemented in D70 is grounded on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Mindfulness, both of which are psychological interventions. While targeted mental health interventions conducted by trained professionals are beneficial, SEL lessons become concerning when they are broadly applied in a non-therapeutic group classroom setting by a teacher unlicensed to provide clinical therapy.
Source: Common Trails Terms from trailstowellness.org
Is it fair to task teachers with teaching psychoeducational lessons based on CBT and Mindfulness? Is it the best use of limited resources and class time?
CBT, which is a foundational element of TRAILS, is a type of psychotherapy designed to create awareness of personal thinking patterns which is used to treat mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorders and schizophrenia.
The Mayo Clinic recommends that CBT be provided by licensed and qualified psychotherapists in an individual setting, as people engaged with it may explore potentially painful feelings and experiences, which could cause stressful emotional and physical responses. Yet TRAILS engages classrooms full of kids in CBT.
Mindfulness is another key component of the TRAILS curriculum which TRAILS describes as the act of paying attention to the present moment. Mindfulness is rooted in the religious traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism, but has been repackaged as a key component of proper mental health.
Harvard Health Publishing states that mindfulness alters the brain’s physiology, while a recent study published by the NIH National Library of Medicine cited the use of mindfulness in spiritual development. The NIH study stated that mindfulness can be used to help one “…deeply understand themselves and their places in the world,” while it may also provide a “…feeling of connecting to a larger, all-encompassing universal consciousness.”
Should public school teachers be engaged in guiding students to connect with a universal consciousness through religiously derived lessons which alter the physiology of children’s brains?
In addition to the concern that students are subjected to psychoeducation in their classrooms, other worrisome TRAILS lessons include:
- Guiding students to identify themselves based on social and political intersectional characteristics (“Identity Wheel”)
- Teaching kids to recognize that their “identity factors” influence their “thoughts, feelings, and relationships,” and teaches them that they have unfair biases.
- A high school lesson which instructs children that it is their responsibility to ensure their school community is safe and welcoming for all identities. Teachers are instructed to guide students to creating social change initiatives and are encouraged to connect children with community activist organizations outside of the school.
The TRAILS SEL training is not limited to brief 30-minute lessons but is specifically intended to be incorporated throughout the school environment, including other academic lessons.
TRAILS teacher material includes:
- SEL Progress forms with which teachers can share students’ adherence to psychoeducational programming with their parents and seek additional information about students’ emotional skills at home
- Training to surround students with SEL lessons throughout the school day, embedding SEL in academic lessons such as in English and history
- A self-evaluation rubric in which teachers are encouraged to “Specifically instruct[ing] students to include SEL reflection in their main-subject class and homework.”
- Encouragement to incorporate SEL throughout the school by, “Consistently…model[ing] social and emotional competencies in language and in interactions with colleagues, students, families, and community partners.”
The TRAILS SEL lessons focused on intersectional identities such as race and gender, which encourage students to do activist work. This should not surprise anyone who does a brief overview of TRAILS and the associated organizations which connected the curriculum with Pueblo D70.
The organizations involved—TRAILS, CASEL, the Tides Center, Prosono—are all organizations dedicated to the principals of diversity, equity, and inclusion and are committed to facilitating transformational social change.
- TRAILS, which was developed by University of Michigan professors funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institute of Health, states, “We commit to advancing DEI across all facets of our organization, including the programs we develop, the partnerships we build, and the team we recruit…”
- The Tides Center which is the fiscal sponsor and manager of TRAILS describes itself as an organization dedicated to advancing social justice partnering with organizations to “unlock transformative change.”
- CASEL, the education industry driver of SEL programming on which the TRAILS curriculum is based, is an organization focused on facilitating transformational social change through the manipulation of students’ thoughts and emotions, encouraging kids to activate on behalf of social-justice-aligned political change while viewing the world through intersectional identities.
- Prosono, the company which Pueblo D70 publicly credits with bringing TRAILS to the district, is a private consulting firm of “social impact engineers” who help their clients achieve “social impact goals.”
Source: Public presentation regarding TRAILS, Pueblo D70, Fall 2024 https://district70co.diligent.community/home/public/document/24471
TRAILS, which centers its mental health and educational work on DEI, is currently targeting expansion to districts in Colorado for partnership possibilities. The TRAILS website states that the Tides Center-sponsored organization is “…currently active and expanding in Colorado and Michigan.”
Will more of Colorado’s public-school teachers be implementing TRAILS psychoeducational lessons, performing daily assessments of students’ thoughts and feelings, while encouraging kids to view each other by their intersectional identities?
Colorado public school districts should thoughtfully consider Pueblo D70’s SEL experience and question whether accepting a “free” psychosocial therapy program from organizations focused on societal change is in the best interest of students and their families.
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.