Little Falls to pilot Character Strong SEL at middle school and tighten cell-phone rules

Mr. Swenson, presenting middle-school updates to the Little Falls Public School District board on June 26, said the district will pilot Character Strong, a social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum, at the middle school next school year.

Character Strong "is a social emotional learning curriculum" designed with grade-level outcomes and five instructional pillars — emotion understanding and regulation, empathy and compassion, values and purpose, goals and habits, and leadership and teamwork — Mr. Swenson said. The pilot would deliver one lesson per week during two advisory periods and include family engagement through weekly "character dares" and publicly available scope-and-sequence materials for parents to review.

Mr. Swenson said the district would evaluate the pilot using traditional metrics (attendance, disciplinary reports, grades) and by adding a measure of students’ sense of belonging. "I would like to have some type of a measure where we're able to hear from students and measure their sense of belonging at school," he said.

At the same presentation Mr. Swenson described changes to middle-school cell-phone procedures. Citing classroom testing periods, he said teachers reported students missed large numbers of notifications; for example, "there are eight phones in the sixth grade class — kids had missed 150 notifications." He added, "I do believe that not allowing phones at the middle school this year I think it will be a really positive change for everyone." Mr. Swenson said he had solicited family feedback after sending a communication and received 23 responses, 22 of which were supportive.

During public comment earlier, Sarah Marrow praised staff and thanked community advocates for the phone restriction, saying she hoped the new policy would "give teachers the ability to teach their students with less distractions." Marrow also named several teachers who had supported her children.

The board did not record a formal, separate vote on the cell-phone policy in the minutes of the June 26 meeting; Mr. Swenson and district leadership said they will return with updates after implementation and monitoring.

The district plans to start the Character Strong lessons in advisory periods in the fall; families will receive templates and a grade-level "at-a-glance" summary of content.