Social-Emotional Needs Entwined with Students' Learning, Security

Brander S. Suero, 16, walks past Central Park East High School after buying lunch in Harlem. The school is using a program that focuses on students' resilience and connection to other students as building blocks for success.

—Melanie Burford

Research and schoolroom practice show a supportive environment can promote achievement—and stress can be a hinderance

Students' ability to learn depends not just on the quality of their textbooks and teachers, but also on the comfort and safety they feel at school and the strength of their relationships with adults and peers there.

Most of education policymakers' focus remains on ensuring schools are physically safe and disciplined: Forty-five states have anti-bullying policies, compared with only 24 states that have more comprehensive policies on school climate.

Mounting evidence from fields like neuroscience and cognitive psychology, as well as studies on such topics as school turnaround implementation, shows that an academically challenging yet supportive environment boosts both children's learning and coping abilities. By contrast, high-stress environments in which students feel chronically unsafe and uncared for make it physically and emotionally harder for them to learn and more likely for them to act out or drop out.

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