Social Awareness: The ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others from diverse backgrounds and cultures, to understand social and ethical norms for behavior, and to recognize family, school, and community resources and supports. This involves being aware of other people and their emotions, as well as other settings/contexts and their social rules, and using that to determine appropriate behaviors for varying social situations, as well as the ability to engage in positive relationships with others.

Self-Management: The ability to regulate one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations. This includes managing stress, delaying gratification, motivating oneself, and setting and working toward personal and academic goals. Students with strong self-regulation skills arrive to class prepared, pay attention, follow directions, allow others to speak without interruption, and work independently, and with focus.

Self-Efficacy: The belief in one's own ability to succeed in achieving an outcome or reaching a goal. Self-efficacy reflects confidence in the ability to exert control over one’s motivation, behavior, and environment. Students with a high sense of self efficacy may approach difficult tasks as challenges, quickly recover from and persist despite setbacks, and see failure as a need for more effort and strengthened skills.

Self-Awareness: The ability to accurately recognize one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior. Students who are self-aware can demonstrate knowledge of their emotions, personal strengths, challenges and potential, and awareness of how to get help and support when needed; they also self-monitor and constantly reassess where they are in relation to a goal.

Perseverance: The tendency to stay focused on a goal despite obstacles and to forego distractions or temptations, prioritizing higher pursuits over lower pleasures. Students with high perseverance are often passionate and committed to a long-term goal and work hard despite experiencing failure or hardships. Academic perseverance is the difference between doing the minimal amount of work to pass a class and putting in long hours to truly master course materials and excel.

Learning Strategies: Students’ deliberate use of strategies to manage their own learning processes in class.

Growth Mindset: The belief that one’s abilities and skills can grow with effort. Students with a growth mindset see effort as necessary for success, embrace challenges, learn from criticism, and persist in the face of setbacks.

Curiosity: A strong desire to learn information or know something for its own sake. Students with high curiosity have the willingness to engage in more effortful thinking, higher intrinsic motivation to perform challenging cognitive tasks, and are willing to make adjustments to existing attitudes and behaviors once they have been exposed to new ideas or situations.

Teacher-Student Relationships: How strong the social connection is between teachers and students within and beyond the classroom.

Sense of Belonging: How much students feel that they are valued members of the school community. Students with a sense of belonging in school feel socially connected, supported, and respected. They trust their teachers and their peers, and they feel like they fit in at school. They are not worried about being treated as a stereotype and are confident that they are seen as a person of value.

School Safety: Perceptions of student physical and psychological safety while at school.

Rigorous Expectations: Students’ feelings about how much they’re held to high expectations around effort, understanding, persistence and performance in class.

Fairness: A set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system or agency, and enable them to work effectively in cross-cultural situations.

Engagement: Students’ level of attentiveness and investment in their classes.

Diversity and Inclusion: How diverse, integrated, and fair school is for students from different races, ethnicities, or cultures.

Cultural Awareness and Action: How often students learn about, discuss, and confront issues of race, ethnicity, and culture in school.