FAYETTE — Helping students build confidence, empathy and independence is a key to Fayette Central School’s approach to social and emotional learning, according to Principal and Superintendent Courtney Lyons.

Lyons told the school board Oct. 2 that the state has not yet created its own social and emotional learning curriculum, but encourages schools to adapt materials used in other states and take advantage of the many online resources available.

“We have a staff member that comes in once a week and works with all students in the building,” she said. “The idea is for students to be working on skills they don’t necessarily get through academic work.”

The program focuses on five areas of competency — self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making — to help students recognize emotions, connect with others, and understand how their choices affect the people around them.

Lyons said much of the school’s approach draws on research discussed in “The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt, a book examining how reduced independence and increased screen time have affected children’s mental health. Fayette Central School has incorporated ideas from the book and the related Let Grow program, which encourages age-appropriate independence.

One example is the school’s “play club,” held one morning a week before classes when students gather for unstructured play and social time. “They go out and play with their peers and socialize,” Lyons said. “There are no structured activities, this time is really for them to connect.”

Students also take home small “independence challenges,” such as making their own snack or going into a store to make a purchase.

“Our curriculum is to build up independence in children and lifelong skills that will take them through, something teachers in class don’t always have time for,” she said.

According to the Maine Department of Education, social and emotional learning, often called SEL, is a research-based framework that helps students and adults “develop healthy identities, manage emotions, achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.”

The department supports schools through SEL4ME, a free, state-created prekindergarten to 12th grade curriculum platform. It provides hundreds of lesson modules for teachers and is aligned with the five nationally recognized Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making, according to the Maine Department of Education’s SEL4ME overview.

The collective is a national organization that developed the five core competencies used by schools to guide social and emotional learning programs.