SEL Alternatives by State: Terminology Guide for District Leaders

By Miriam Gayle, EdD, VP of Operations at Ori Learning · Updated August 27, 2026

Last policy review: August 24, 2026. This guide is educational information for district planning, not legal or compliance advice. Requirements change; verify current rules with your state department of education and district counsel.

District leaders searching for SEL alternatives by state will find that each state has its own legal and administrative framing. Texas requires districts to adopt character education and teach listed “character traits and personal skills” in specified grade bands (Texas Education Code §29.906). Florida requires at least five hours annually of “resiliency education” in grades 6–12 (Rule 6A-1.094124). Georgia requires K–12 character education (O.C.G.A. §20-2-145) and adds specified grades 6–12 suicide-awareness and youth-violence-prevention instruction in 2026–27. California and New York publish voluntary SEL frameworks, while separate laws govern health and mental-health instruction. These labels overlap in some skills, but they are not interchangeable legal terms. “SEL curriculum” works as discovery language; in board and procurement materials, identify the state term, its source, and its legal status. This page maps all five, with the questions to ask a vendor in each.

What each state calls it: side-by-side

Jump to: how to evaluate a program · frequently asked questions

The label and the requirement are two different questions

District teams need to separate terminology from legal status. Official language and search language are different things: curriculum directors in Tampa and Fort Worth still type “SEL curriculum” into a search bar, because that is the industry’s vocabulary. The official term matters somewhere else — in board packets, parent communications, procurement documents, and any review a program must survive. A program described to the board in the state’s own statutory language is answering the question the board is legally responsible for.

And a state using a term is different from a state defining a requirement. An official page that mentions character education does not make “character education” a synonym for SEL, and it does not tell you what instruction is mandatory. Each section below separates the two — what the state officially calls this work, and what applies in grades 6–12 — with each claim tied to the statute, rule, or agency page it comes from.

What does Texas require instead of an SEL program?

The Texas provisions summarized here do not use SEL as the operative label for grades 6–12 instruction. A key provision, Texas Education Code §29.906, is titled “Character Traits and Personal Skills Instruction”: it directs the State Board of Education to integrate listed traits and skills into the TEKS and requires each district to adopt a character education program. Parts of the statutory list read like an SEL competency framework under a different name — “responsibility, including accountability, diligence, perseverance, self-management skills, and self-control,” and “good citizenship, including patriotism, concern for the common good and the community, responsible decision-making skills, and respect for authority and the law.” The implementing rule (19 TAC Chapter 120, Subchapter A, effective 2021) requires that instruction at least once in the grades 6–8 band (§120.7) and once in the 9–12 band (§120.9). The Senate Research Center analysis of SB 123 (2021) described that bill as incorporating “social and emotional learning competencies into an existing character traits instruction program,” while the enacted statute and implementing rules use Texas-specific terms and establish the applicable instruction.

Alongside character instruction, the middle school health TEKS include a “mental health and wellness” strand covering “social and emotional health” — a healthy self-concept, risk and protective factors, and identifying and managing mental health concerns (19 TAC §115.26–115.27).

One 2025 change matters to procurement more than any label. TEC §26.0083(h), effective September 1, 2025, requires a district to provide a copy to parents and obtain consent before administering an instrument that falls within the statutory phrase “student well-being questionnaire or health screening form” in grades preK–12. Districts should determine whether a particular check-in, assessment, or screener falls within that language. Parents also hold standing rights to review all teaching materials (TEC §26.006) and to request a formal instructional material review (TEC §26.0061, added by HB 1605 in 2023).

What to ask a vendor in Texas:

• Can you provide a crosswalk from your lessons to the §29.906 traits and skills list?
• Which student-facing instruments does the program contain, and do any fall within the §26.0083(h) phrase “student well-being questionnaire or health screening form”? How is the consent step supported?
• Can every student-facing and teacher-facing material be produced for a §26.006 parent review?

For a deeper Texas treatment, see our Texas character education curriculum guide and the companion piece on social and personal competencies within Texas MTSS.

For how the Emotional Well-Being Curriculum maps to Texas’s framework, see the Texas standards alignment page.

What is Florida’s “resiliency education” requirement?

Florida is the clearest case of a state building its own vocabulary. The operative term is “resiliency education,” and it carries a concrete instructional requirement: “School districts must annually provide a minimum of five (5) hours of data-driven instruction to students in grades 6-12 related to civic and character education and life skills education through resiliency education” (State Board of Education Rule 6A-1.094124(4)). The rule’s required topics include character and personal responsibility, critical thinking and problem solving, self-awareness and self-management, suicide prevention, substance-abuse prevention, and recognizing signs of mental-health concerns.

The vocabulary has a traceable history: a 2019 “Mental and Emotional Health Education” rule (five hours, grades 6–12) was repealed in December 2020 and folded into Rule 6A-1.094124, which a November 2022 amendment reframed as resiliency education — in the rule’s own words, “reframing the approach from mental health education to resiliency education.” The rule was amended again in 2024 and 2026, which is a reason to re-check it each buying cycle. The statutory foundation, §1003.42(2), Florida Statutes, requires instruction in life skills “that build confidence, support mental and emotional health” — naming self-awareness and self-management, responsible decision-making, resiliency, and relationship skills and conflict resolution — and Florida’s 2023 health standards carry a dedicated Resiliency Education strand (HE.68.R and HE.912.R in the secondary grades).

On SEL specifically, precision matters. In April 2022, FDOE said it rejected submitted mathematics textbooks for reasons that included “the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL)” and said publishers had been told not to incorporate “unsolicited strategies such as SEL.” That announcement concerned a mathematics-textbook review; it does not establish a blanket statutory ban on teaching social-emotional competencies. Florida separately requires the topics listed in its resiliency-education rule, and districts should verify which review and transparency procedures apply to the particular materials and course — including the parental objection process in §1006.28(2) and the curriculum transparency requirement in §1003.42(5).

What to ask a vendor in Florida:

• Can you map lessons to the Resiliency Education strand benchmarks rather than to a generic SEL framework?
• Which of the rule’s five-hour topics — suicide prevention, substance-abuse prevention, recognizing mental-health concerns — does your content support, with what documentation?
• If a parent files an objection under §1006.28, is every piece of content available for review?

Our Florida character education curriculum guide covers the state’s requirements in more depth.

For how the Emotional Well-Being Curriculum maps to Florida’s framework, see the Florida standards alignment page.

What terminology does Georgia use for this work?

The current GaDOE program pages reviewed for this guide (August 2026) do not use SEL as their program label. Georgia law uses character education, while GaDOE’s Office of Whole Child Supports presents School Wellbeing, school climate, and Georgia’s Multi-Tiered System of Supports (GaMTSS) as related administrative frameworks, with PBIS embedded. The statute, O.C.G.A. §20-2-145, requires a “comprehensive character education program” for K–12 — the statute calls it a “character curriculum” — built on a list of more than twenty-five traits including “courage, patriotism, citizenship, honesty, fairness, respect for others, kindness, cooperation, self-respect, self-control.” A 2024 amendment (SB 351) added social media and internet-safety content beginning in 2025–26.

The newest requirement is the one to plan around. Georgia’s 2025 school safety law (HB 268) rewrote O.C.G.A. §20-2-779.1: beginning with the 2026–27 school year, students in grades 6–12 must receive annual instruction — at least one hour each — in suicide awareness and prevention and in youth violence prevention, and GaDOE must maintain a publicly available list of approved evidence-based training programs and materials for it. That list applies specifically to materials proposed for the required suicide-awareness and youth-violence-prevention instruction; it is not a general approval list for character education or student well-being curricula. Health education sits on a different footing in the secondary grades: for grades 6–12, Rule 160-4-2-.12 says districts “shall make available” health and physical-education instruction and lists mental health among multiple content areas — different from a per-student hours requirement.

Two Georgia statutes shape any materials review. The Parents’ Bill of Rights (O.C.G.A. §20-2-786) gives parents the right to review all instructional materials, with a defined review window in the first two weeks of each grading period and local objection procedures. The divisive-concepts law (O.C.G.A. §20-1-11) applies explicitly to curriculum “delivered or facilitated by” a third party, so vendor content is in scope by name. One caution on sourcing: Resilient Georgia, which appears often in searches about Georgia student well-being, is an independent nonprofit coalition — cite GaDOE or the Code, not Resilient Georgia, in board documents.

What to ask a vendor in Georgia:

• Can your content be mapped to the district’s character education program under §20-2-145?
• If you propose a lesson as fulfillment of the §20-2-779.1 instruction, identify the exact lesson and its status on GaDOE’s approved-materials list; otherwise, do not describe the broader curriculum as state approved.
• Can complete materials be produced for the §20-2-786 parent review window, and has content been screened against §20-1-11?

Georgia does not yet have a dedicated deep-dive guide on this site; our Georgia standards alignment page is the closest companion resource.

For how the Emotional Well-Being Curriculum maps to Georgia’s framework, see the Georgia standards alignment page.

Does California require SEL?

California uses SEL openly in CDE guidance, and its T-SEL materials state that they were developed for voluntary use. The CDE publishes the Social and Emotional Learning Guiding Principles (2018) and the California Transformative SEL (T-SEL) Competencies and Conditions for Thriving, built on CASEL’s five competencies. The Education Code provisions cited here do not establish a statewide SEL-curriculum mandate.

What is binding sits in adjacent statute. Where a district offers a covered middle or high school health course, Education Code §51925 et seq. (SB 224, effective 2022) requires that course to include mental health instruction. Education Code §215 requires a suicide-prevention policy covering grades 7–12. The Local Control Funding Formula makes “school climate” and “pupil engagement” named state priorities (Education Code §52060), which is where well-being programs typically attach to a district’s LCAP narrative and metrics. And adoption is local: for grades 9–12 there is no state adoption list (Education Code §60400), so the board’s own evaluation process carries the weight.

On surveys: Education Code §51513 concerns instruments containing questions about a pupil’s or family’s personal beliefs or practices in sex, family life, morality, or religion; §51938 provides different notice and opt-out rules for specified anonymous, voluntary health-behavior surveys in grades 7–12. Neither provision automatically covers every well-being check-in — districts should determine which, if either, applies to a program’s instruments. One thing not to put in a board packet yet: AB 1851, a bill that would direct CDE to build a statewide universal Tier 1 SEL and behavioral-health approach, was held in Senate Appropriations in August 2026. It is not law.

What to ask a vendor in California:

• Which T-SEL competencies and which LCAP priority does your documented crosswalk address, and what locally selected measure would the district use?
• If we deliver this in a covered health course, which §51925 components does it support, with documentation?
• Which student-facing instruments does the program contain, and has the district determined whether §51513 or §51938 applies to any of them?

Our California SEL curriculum guide goes deeper on the state’s framework.

For how the Emotional Well-Being Curriculum maps to California’s framework, see the California standards alignment page.

Are the New York SEL Benchmarks mandatory?

No — and knowing exactly which New York pieces are mandatory is the useful part. The New York State Education Department publishes the NYS Social Emotional Learning Benchmarks (revised November 2022) with three goals spanning identity and agency, belonging and mutually supportive relationships, and intentional decision-making that considers “social, emotional, and physical safety and well-being.” The Benchmarks document describes its indicators as “recommended for voluntary use,” in grade bands from K–2 through 11–12.

NYSED’s SEL framing sits alongside, and is often confused with, requirements that are not voluntary. Health education must include mental health: “All schools shall ensure that their health education programs recognize the multiple dimensions of health by including mental health” (Education Law §804, effective 2018, with a skills focus required “by no later than middle school”). Instruction in “civility, citizenship and character education” is required in grades K–12 (Education Law §801-a, part of the Dignity for All Students Act framework). Secondary students also take required health-course units under the Commissioner’s regulations.

For procurement, note New York’s data-privacy framework. An online program that handles student data may trigger Education Law §2-d and Part 121 obligations, including district and vendor documentation, security commitments, and breach-notification terms. Districts should determine the required documents before contracting.

What to ask a vendor in New York:

• Can your program map to the three 2022 Benchmark goals at our grade bands?
• How does it complement, rather than replace, the required health course’s mental health content under §804?
• What student data does the program collect, and which §2-d and Part 121 contract, privacy, security, and breach-response documents can you provide for district review?

Our New York SEL curriculum guide covers the state’s layered framework in detail.

How to evaluate a program in a terminology-sensitive state

The five states differ in vocabulary; the evaluation discipline is the same. Seven checks:

1. Map to the state’s own list, not to a brand. Ask for a written crosswalk to the specific traits, strands, goals, or topics your state names — §29.906’s traits in Texas, the Resiliency strand in Florida, the character curriculum in Georgia, T-SEL in California, the Benchmarks in New York. “Aligned to CASEL” is not an answer to a state-specific question.
2. Label each source as mandatory, regulatory, voluntary guidance, or a local option before comparing programs. A vendor claiming a voluntary framework is “required” is telling you something about their research.
3. Find the consent triggers. Texas defines a consent step for instruments within its “student well-being questionnaire or health screening form” language (§26.0083(h)); California has distinct rules for belief-related and health-behavior surveys (§51513/§51938). Ask exactly which student-facing instruments the program contains, then determine what applies.
4. Test materials transparency. Parents in Texas (§26.006), Georgia (§20-2-786), and Florida (§1006.28) hold review or objection rights. A vendor should be able to provide the applicable student- and teacher-facing materials through the district’s review process.
5. Screen content against the state’s content statutes. Ask district counsel and materials reviewers which content statutes apply to the proposed course, grade, and delivery model — Texas’s §28.0022, Georgia’s §20-1-11 (which names third-party curricula), and the restrictions within Florida’s Rule 6A-1.094124 are the ones cited in this guide; do not assume every restriction governs every program.
6. Check the data paperwork. Identify every category of student data collected and obtain district-reviewed privacy and security documentation; in New York, include the applicable §2-d and Part 121 materials.
7. Write the board packet in the official terminology. Present competencies and evidence; let the state’s own language carry the framing.

The same discipline applies to vendor comparisons — our Second Step vs Ori Learning comparison is written program-to-program, with terminology fit as one factor among several, and our SEL curriculum evaluation guide covers the program-quality questions that don’t change by state.

Related resources: for outcome planning, see how to measure social-emotional learning; if your framework conversation is really a tiered-supports conversation, start with the difference between SEL and PBIS. Funding sources may use different terminology from curriculum frameworks — our guide to social-emotional learning and student well-being grants summarizes current programs; verify eligibility and allowable uses against each grant’s current terms.

Where the Emotional Well-Being Curriculum fits

Terminology alignment addresses the label conversation. It does not teach a lesson. What a full curriculum adds is the instruction itself, plus materials a district can put through the review processes described above.

Ori Learning’s Emotional Well-Being Curriculum is a grades 6–12 program: each grade level has its own 25-lesson course organized in five units mapped to the five CASEL competency domains — self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Texas, Florida, and New York name some related skills within different statutes, rules, or guidance, giving districts a basis for reviewing documented state crosswalks; a CASEL mapping is not itself a finding that a program satisfies a state requirement. State mappings are available in the standards alignment library, lessons carry standards tags at the lesson level, and state crosswalk documents are available on request.

Three product facts bear on the checklist above. Every lesson includes lesson plans, teacher guides, printable student worksheets, and answer keys — materials in reviewable form for district review workflows. Units include pre- and post-assessments, with per-lesson warm-ups and exit tickets; these artifacts may help a district document implementation, but they do not by themselves establish instructional minutes or satisfy a state reporting or approval requirement — districts remain responsible for determining what their state and local processes require. And accessibility accommodations are built into each lesson — text-to-speech, translation into 136 languages, speech-to-text responses — with delivery modes that fit advisory blocks, homeroom, or health classes.

Frequently asked questions

Is SEL banned in Texas or Florida?

The statutes and rules cited in this guide do not impose a blanket ban on teaching social-emotional competencies in either state. Florida’s April 2022 announcement concerned submitted mathematics textbooks with what FDOE called “unsolicited” SEL content, and Florida separately requires resiliency-education topics under its own labels. Texas enacted its requirements as “character traits and personal skills” instruction and, since September 2025, requires parental consent before administering a “student well-being questionnaire or health screening form.” The practical rule in both states is to use the state’s framework and follow its review and consent procedures.

What do states use instead of the term SEL?

Among the five states in this guide: Florida uses “resiliency education,” Texas uses “character traits and personal skills,” and Georgia uses “character education” alongside “Whole Child” and “School Wellbeing.” California and New York use “social and emotional learning” openly in state guidance. The label a state uses is separate from what it requires, so check both before writing board or procurement documents.

Are California’s T-SEL competencies or New York’s SEL Benchmarks mandatory?

No. Both describe themselves as voluntary — California’s T-SEL materials were “developed for voluntary use,” and New York’s Benchmarks are “recommended for voluntary use.” The mandatory requirements in those states sit in health and mental-health statutes: mental health instruction where covered California health courses are offered (Ed. Code §51925) and mental health within New York health education (Education Law §804).

Does a well-being program need state approval before a district can adopt it?

Do not assume one approval rule applies to every grades 6–12 well-being program. State and local procedures can differ depending on whether material is supplemental, embedded in a regulated course, or proposed for a specific statutory instruction requirement. California has no state adoption list for grades 9–12 under Education Code §60400, while Georgia’s approved list applies specifically to the instruction described in O.C.G.A. §20-2-779.1. Verify the applicable state and local process for the subject, grade, and intended use.

Should district teams use “SEL” or the state’s term in board materials?

Use SEL when describing the search category or a framework that officially uses the term. In board and procurement materials, identify the state’s terminology and citation, then explain any documented crosswalk. Do not present resiliency education, character education, T-SEL, or the New York SEL Benchmarks as interchangeable mandates, and verify the terminology against current sources before each buying cycle — several of the rules on this page changed between 2024 and 2026.

Sources and official guidance

Texas: TEC §29.906 (Character Traits and Personal Skills Instruction) · TEC Ch. 26 (§§26.006, 26.0061, 26.0083) · TEC §37.115 (Safe and Supportive School Program) · 19 TAC Ch. 120, Subch. A (character traits rule) · 19 TAC Ch. 115, middle school health TEKS · SB 123 Senate Research Center analysis (2021)
Florida: Rule 6A-1.094124, F.A.C. (Required Instruction Planning and Reporting, incl. Resiliency Education) · Rule 6A-1.094121, F.A.C. (Mental and Emotional Health Education — repealed 2020) · §1003.42, Fla. Stat. (Required instruction) · §1006.28, Fla. Stat. (materials duties and objection process) · FDOE announcement, April 15, 2022 · CPALMS Resiliency Education resources
Georgia (Code text reproduced by Justia, with Ga. Laws citations): O.C.G.A. §20-2-145 (character education) · O.C.G.A. §20-2-779.1 (suicide and violence prevention) · O.C.G.A. §20-2-786 (Parents’ Bill of Rights) · O.C.G.A. §20-1-11 (divisive concepts) · official rules and pages: SBOE Rule 160-4-2-.12 (health and PE) · GaDOE Office of Whole Child Supports
California: CDE Social and Emotional Learning · CDE T-SEL Competencies · Ed. Code §51925 (mental health instruction) · Ed. Code §215 (suicide prevention policy) · Ed. Code §52060 (LCAP) · Ed. Code §60400 (grades 9–12 materials)
New York: NYSED Social Emotional Learning · NYS SEL Benchmarks (November 2022) · Education Law §804 (health and mental health education) · Education Law §801-a (civility, citizenship and character) · Education Law §2-d (student data privacy)