Positive Action

Positive Action, a leader in social-emotional learning (SEL) for over four decades, has transformed from traditional print-based materials to the cutting-edge digital platform Pasela. This innovative platform empowers educators with customizable lessons, real-time feedback, and streamlined training, modernizing how SEL is implemented in schools and significantly enhancing student outcomes.

The transition to a digital format was shaped by input from educators and other stakeholders, ensuring that Pasela integrates seamlessly with existing systems and workflows.

“We worked closely with educators and end-users to gather feedback, ensuring that Pasela would meet their needs and improve upon the limitations of the previous print-based system,” says Alex Allred, president and CEO.

The success of Pasela can largely be attributed to Positive Action’s strong emphasis on customer feedback. This customer-centric approach has allowed the platform to remain adaptable and responsive, preserving the core principles of Positive Action’s original materials while continuously evolving to meet the changing needs of educators.

Digital Platform Built for Educators and Students

Pasela is a powerful and intuitive platform designed specifically for teachers. Its content library offers over 2,000 lessons on a wide range of SEL topics, making it a comprehensive, one-stop solution. A key feature of Pasela is Content Genome, an innovative sorting system that categorizes lessons on key SEL topics like friendship, cooperation, and resilience. This tool allows educators to quickly find resources that perfectly align with their teaching goals.

Teachers can search for lessons based on the themes they want to focus on, preview the content, and incorporate it directly into their lesson plans. The Content Genome simplifies content discovery, saving valuable time and allowing educators to focus on what matters most.

Pasela also features a standout in-browser editor that allows educators to customize lesson content. Teachers can modify lesson settings, adjust story details, and update cultural references to ensure the lessons resonate with their students’ backgrounds and interests. For instance, if a lesson features soccer but the schoolcommunity is more interested in football, educators can easily alter the content. These personalized modifications can be saved and reused, ensuring the content remains relevant and engaging year after year.

To support the effective use of Pasela, Positive Action offers comprehensive and tailored training for each client. The process begins with a thorough needs assessment, acknowledging that every school and district has unique challenges. Based on this assessment, trainers customize sessions to meet the specific goals and requirements of each institution. Whether helping educators implement lessons with fidelity or demonstrating how to use Pasela’s content discovery tools, the training ensures teachers are equipped to maximize the platform’s potential.

The training goes beyond the basics to include best practices for lesson editing. Educators learn how to use the lesson editor to modify and integrate lessons into their classrooms, enabling them to adapt SEL content to their local contexts. This flexibility is essential to ensure that SEL lessons meet the diverse needs of all students.

Seamless Integration and Deployment

A seamless onboarding process further makes Pasela appealing. Teachers and administrators can start using Pasela with minimal setup time. The platform offers smooth integration with Single Sign-On (SSO) through systems like ClassLink, allowing schools to quickly roster users and get them up and running within minutes. This ease of deployment is particularly beneficial for large-scale implementations, enabling districts to roll out Pasela to thousands of teachers with little delay.

The impact of Pasela is evident in the real-world success stories from schools across the country. In a Title I school in Kentucky, where language barriers contributed to frequent behavioral conflicts, Positive Action played a pivotal role in reducing discipline referrals. Within just a few months of implementing Pasela, the school saw a dramatic drop in office referrals—from 20-30 per quarter to just three in the current quarter. School leadership attributes this success to the flexibility of the platform, which helped teachers better meet the diverse needs of their students.

Another example comes from a kindergarten class in Maine, where severe behavioral issues were leading to a toxic classroom environment. The situation had become so challenging that the teacher resigned mid-year due to ongoing bullying. In response, the school introduced Positive Action, and within a year, the classroom experienced a remarkable turnaround. By the end of the academic year, they observed significant improvement in students’ behaviors. The school credits this transformation to the consistent, year-round application of Positive Action SEL lessons, which helped reshape student behavior and foster a positive learning environment.

A Bright Future Ahead

Dedicated to meeting the needs of educators and students, Positive Action focuses on building strong relationships with schools and maintaining continuous communication for the further development of the platform and refining implementation strategies. This collaborative approach ensures the company can make quick updates—often within 24 hours—based on educators’ real-time feedback after every lesson. The rapid feedback loop ensures that Pasela remains relevant and effective over time.

Looking ahead, Positive Action plans to expand its integrations, including with the student information system (SIS). This will further streamline data management and reporting. Additionally, the company is developing an assessment platform to complement the instructional content. The results of these assessments will integrate with SIS, allowing schools to track student progress in real-time. This ongoing commitment to ease of use ensures that Pasela will continue to be a valuable tool for educators, helping to drive transformative change in classrooms across the country.