​​This case study is one of a series detailing how schools and out-of-school-time (OST) programs in six communities have collaborated to build students’ social and emotional skills. The communities are participants in Wallace’s Partnerships for Social and Emotional Learning Initiative, which has brought together school districts and their OST partners to develop and implement mutually reinforcing social and emotional learning (SEL) activities and instruction across learning settings.

​The piece features Lister Elementary School in Tacoma and its efforts to build a schoolwide commitment to SEL. It describes how, over time, Lister school leaders and staff members integrated a focus on racial equity and restorative practices into its SEL approach. The school used four key strategies as its work evolved, including gaining and maintaining staff buy-in to the effort, building racial equity and restorative practices into its SEL resources, designing and delivering a range of professional supports to build staff members’ SEL and equity capacity, and reframing SEL and equity work as complementary to (rather than competing with) academic priorities.