The purpose of this capstone is to provide social-emotional learning (SEL) strategies for educational professionals to use with high-school students in the alternative high school. Included in this capstone is a detailed description of SEL as well as an analysis of the need for SEL offering in alternative high schools. The project provides three succinct strategies that educators and professionals can implement within an alternative education setting to best support the high needs of their students. Adapted from Nancy Hellander Pung’s UpCoaching framework, the three strategies focus on deepening questions that allow students to realize their values, their intentions, and aid them in goal setting and conflict resolution. The strategies are framed around these three questions: 1) What is your goal?; 2) What will that give you?; 3) What can you do to achieve that goal? Within conversations with a student, the educator would continue to ask deepening questions to unveil the student’s values and ultimate intentions. This process can incorporate all five of the SEL competencies as described by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL, 2017): social-awareness, self-awareness, self-management, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. There is yet to be sufficient evidence of their effectiveness due to the lack of extensive data. Given that the implementation of these strategies rely highly on both buy-in from education professionals as well as students, results will vary
