Wickersham Elementary earns recognition for social emotional learning tool success [photos, videos] | Local News

Wickersham Elementary School will be a model for more than 5,000 schools across the world due to its success employing a tool that helps students identify and communicate about their emotions.

Yale University recently recognized the School District of Lancaster elementary school as a 2025 RULER Spotlight School. RULER (Recognizing Understanding Labeling Expressing Regulating) is a social-emotional learning approach developed by Yale’s Center for Emotional Intelligence designed to build skills to identify and communicate emotions.

“The whole purpose of RULER is to help children and the adults who are raising them and teaching them … navigate their lives, to have greater wellbeing, better relationships and better performance,” said Marc Brackett, founder of the Center who developed RULER in 2003.

Wickersham is the only school in Pennsylvania and one of fewer than 10 schools globally named a 2025 RULER Spotlight School, Brackett said. The school was selected after the district submitted …