Leander ISD will launch a districtwide social skills curriculum program for the 2017-18 school year after approval Thursday by the board of trustees.

Trustees approved about $325,000 to be spent on the Second Step curriculum in kindergarten through fifth-grade classes. The program was reviewed and considered with other options by the Student Health Advisory Committee. Tiffany Spicer, the district’s executive director of College and Career Pathways, said the committee wanted to find a “systemic approach to meeting the social needs of our students, benefiting the whole child.”

“The overall goal in social skills programs is to increase our students’ instructional time by helping them stay on task, increase their capacity to learn as well as decrease behaviors impacting learning,” said Steve Clark, director of LISD Counselor Services.

Each grade level has age-appropriate lessons that focus on four units—skills for learning, empathy, emotional control and problem solving.

Spicer said the program provides options to help students find ways to deal with crucial conversations or relationships with their peers.

“You have students on campus that come from all walks of life. Sometimes we’re not taught how to cope with certain situations,” Spicer said, using test anxiety as an example.

The program follows a letter to the community that Superintendent Dan Troxell wrote in March stating the district would launch a positive peer-to-peer relationship curriculum in grade K-5 beginning in the 2017-18 school year.

Trustee Aaron Johnson said implementing the curriculum is an “important first step.”

“I think curriculum like this is really important to our goal of focusing on the whole student, the whole child," he said. "I think this presents a strong mental health framework or context at an early age that’s really socially engaging and socially responsible.”

Spicer said while campuses can continue to offer social curriculum programs they already pay for, Second Step “is district funded, [so] this is a district requirement expectation.”