Schools & afterschool
School
K–12 schools
Boosts engagement & attendance through hands-on STEAM; produces a music video usable for recruitment & funder reports; strengthens SEL & school climate; gives students access to celebrity producers.
We offer Attendance/chronic-absenteeism improvement, PBIS, MTSS Tier 1 SEL, positive school climate, arts/STEAM access
FAQs
Straight answers.
Tier 1, with Tier 2 use in small groups. Schools looking for MTSS tier 1 activities support or tier 1 SEL generally have the tiers defined and nothing specific to run in them that interests their students.
For PBIS tier 1 activities and tier one interventions, the distinction worth keeping is that ours is content students opt into rather than an expectation posted on a wall. Integrating SEL and music into MTSS is what the Psychological Effects of Music Supplemental Instructional Books and school assemblies are built for.
MTSS tier 2 interventions in our case means the same material in a smaller group, not a different product.
For schools comparing MTSS tier 1 strategies or looking for PBIS tier 1 interventions examples, the honest framing is that ours is a universal offering rather than a behavior protocol.
The ones students choose. Creating a positive school climate is mostly a question of what happens in the hours nobody is required to be anywhere, and most school culture activities on a list are things done to students rather than with them.
Promoting a positive school climate through music programming works because participation is the signal. A positive school climate is created with tools the students are already into. They spend countless hours on Tiktok for that very reason.
Administrators collecting positive school climate ideas usually have the survey instrument, the committee, and the framework already. What they are short of is the offering. Musical Community building activities for students work when students would have come anyway.
For instance, In California, school climate is LCFF Priority 6. We are aligned to that framework, not claiming we move your survey scores.
Yes, as the engagement component. Research identifies attendance, behavior, and course performance — the ABCs — as the strongest predictors of high school completion, more predictive than demographics or socioeconomic status. Through our interactive SEL assemblies and supplemental books, we music to support with dropout prevention teaching how music effects their perspective of education, their behavior, emotions, and why education is important. The SEL assemblies have been described as fun AND life-changing and transformational. Afterwards, directors have asked for more because after the books are completed, students now have a thirst for knowledge.
Districts building dropout prevention programs, an attendance success plan, or a student attendance improvement plan generally have the identification system and the committee already, and need the offering students will actually show up for. Strategies to reduce absenteeism in school that rely only on notification and consequence tend to stall.
This is aligned to that framework. It is not a claim that the books move your graduation rate on their own.
Yes. The Psychological Effects of Music Interactive Social Emotional Learning School Assembly works as a site-wide event an end-of-session showcase, or a family engagement event teaching students and/or parents who music effects their behavior, self-regulation and how music can be used as a tool to manage behavior, emotions and stress management.
For sites running enrichment across several campuses, we can do a SEL school tour providing morning and afternoon assemblies at multiple sites within a drive-able radius.Events, programs, and school assemblies like ours create a sense of belonging and new friendships which consequently increase retention.
Both, honestly. Recording is where the A in STEAM does real work sound is physics, mixing is math, and the equipment is engineering. Students learn the Science of Sound, Audio Engineering, and Music technology.
Schools comparing STEAM enrichment programs generally find the arts component is the weakest part of most offerings. This is the reverse.
Yes. LREBG statute requires funds support academic learning recovery and staff and pupil social and emotional well-being — the social-emotional half is written into Education Code Section 32526 itself.
Districts funding enrichment programs for students through LREBG should confirm the line against their own LCAP, since LREBG expenditures are reported there. Funds run through 2027-28.
LREBG is allocated to the LEA rather than to school sites, so this is a district-level conversation.
We are not going to claim that, and you should be skeptical of anyone who does. Searches for best SEL programs for elementary school or best SEL curriculum return whoever has the biggest content budget, not the best fit for your school.
What we can tell you honestly: we are supplemental rather than comprehensive, we use music as the vehicle, and we are consumable. If you need a comprehensive multi-year program addressing all five competencies, look at the CASEL Program Guide instead — that is what it is for.
We are supplemental rather than a curriculum, but on the substance: yes, the Psychological Effects of Music Supplemental Instructional Books were built so students see themselves in the material rather than reading about someone else.
Administrators searching for a culturally responsive curriculum are usually looking for something that holds students who have learned to tune out. Ours runs alongside whatever core curriculum you have adopted.
Request a sample and put it in front of two or three students. That answers the question better than anything we could assert.
Yes, ask us for samples. For enrichment activities for kids at the elementary level, enrichment ideas for elementary students, and enrichment day activities, we can show you what a session looks like rather than describing it.
For older students, enrichment ideas for students at the secondary level generally means the teen edition or the recording programming.
Music as the delivery mechanism. Among the types of student engagement strategies available to a school, the ones that move attendance are the ones students opt into.
Administrators comparing student engagement strategies examples — or looking for student engagement strategies for high school or student engagement strategies middle school specifically — will find most lists are classroom technique. These are content students choose, which is a different lever.
For student motivation and engagement strategies, the mechanism is that melody and rhythm aid recall, so what students learn stays available later.
The music carries it. SEL in music education fails when it is bolted on — a feelings check-in before rehearsal, then back to the repertoire. Music SEL works when the social-emotional content is inside the musical task rather than beside it.
Ensemble work already demands listening under pressure, adjusting to others in real time, and accepting critique. Teachers searching for SEL music education resources usually have the instinct right and need the structure.
The Psychological Effects of Music Supplemental Instructional Books provide that structure without displacing rehearsal.
Yes. Music recording and video production programming runs during the school day, in an elective block, or after school. It connects arts to technology, engineering, and math acoustics, signal flow, and digital audio are STEAM content students reach through music first.
Schools searching for music resources online or music activities for students frequently want a project students will commit to over several weeks. That is what the recording programming is built for..
Yes, as engagement programming. Attendance is the early warning indicator most responsive to engagement, and it is one of the three — attendance, behavior, and course performance — that predict high school completion more reliably than demographics. Our interactive sensory SEL assemblies and books set the tone - no pun intended. Music becomes the trojan horse for meeting your objectives.
Schools building a school attendance improvement plan or working on school climate goals use engagement offerings as the part students choose rather than are assigned. In California, school climate is LCFF Priority 6 and student engagement is Priority 5, which is where the funding justification usually sits.
It is aligned to that framework. It is not a claim that the material improves attendance rates on its own.
As the participation piece. A school climate framework typically covers relationships, safety, and engagement, and school climate interventions tend to be strong on policy and thin on what students are actually offered.
School climate activities students choose to attend do work that policy cannot. Administrators collecting positive school climate ideas usually have the survey instrument and the committee already, and need the offering.
Schools building school climate strategies, positive school climate activities, or a safe school climate plan use voluntary programming as the part students choose rather than are assigned. In California, school climate is LCFF Priority 6.
We are aligned to that framework. We are not claiming our material shifts climate survey scores on its own.
Hands on. Students work real equipment and produce a finished recording, which is the difference between STEAM project based learning and a packet about sound waves.
For STEAM activities for elementary specifically, the science is audible — children hear what changes when they change something, which is the part a diagram cannot do.
STEAM enrichment in our version is a project cycle across several weeks rather than a one-off activity.
A supplemental resource is material used in addition to a school's core adopted curriculum rather than as a replacement for it. Ours are consumable student workbooks each student writes in their own copy — organized around music and social-emotional skill development.
Because they function as supplemental curriculum rather than a core replacement, they do not require a curriculum adoption cycle in most districts. Schools searching for books on social emotional learning as an addition to an existing framework are usually looking for exactly this category.
K through 4th grade, and a 5th grade to teen advanced edition for middle and high school. Teachers looking for SEL books, social emotional books, or educational books for students at a specific grade generally order by grade band.
Yes, and it is one of the more common uses. There is very little written specifically for SEL for band students — most SEL material assumes a general classroom. The material works in a rehearsal setting because the social-emotional content is carried by the musical work rather than bolted on beside it.
Ensemble directors typically use it in warm-up or sectional time rather than displacing rehearsal.
No. The books are written so a general classroom teacher can lead them. No instrument reading is required of the teacher or the student.
Yes, and schools use it that way. Enrollment strategies work on two things: what families hear from current families, and what visibly distinguishes your school from the one down the road.
Administrators looking for school marketing ideas to help increase enrollment or marketing strategies to increase student enrollment often land on programming as the differentiator, because a music and social-emotional offering is something a parent can picture. Many rural communities have also used our program to help increase enrollment. Case in point, Rappahanock Community College had little enrollment, but after doing the Music Video program, they now had a waiting list.
Consumable instructional books, music enrichment activities, recording and video production programming, and keynote or assembly sessions.
Administrators searching for enrichments for students, what are some enrichment activities, fun enrichment activities for students, or school enrichment program ideas are usually trying to fill a defined block with something structured. Ours run as a weekly session, a project cycle, or a single event, depending on what you need.
Engagement responds to choice. Student engagement activities that students opt into outperform mandatory programming, which is why arts and recording work holds attendance where assemblies and advisory curricula often do not.
Administrators asking how to increase student engagement in high school are usually looking at attendance and participation data. Attendance is the indicator most responsive to programming, and it is one of the three — attendance, behavior, and course performance — that predict graduation.
The recording and video production programming works as an extracurricular or club offering. Administrators looking at extracurricular activities examples or the best extracurricular activities for high school students often want something with a visible product at the end, which recording provides.
No. We send our own staff to run the programming. We do not train your staff to run it.
Recording and production is a skill set, not a procedure. Trying to hand it off in a few hours would be like teaching a doctor to perform surgery in an afternoon — you would get a session that technically happened and a result nobody wants to hear.
Your teachers are in the room and most find it useful, but we bring the staff and the equipment.
No. We are supplemental. We do not replace your SEL curriculum, your trauma-informed practice, or any program you already have in place.
If you run a core SEL program, keep it — ours adds a music-based component alongside it. If you have trauma-informed protocols, training, and referral pathways, those stay in force exactly as they are. Nothing in our material substitutes for them, and our facilitators are not a substitute for your clinical, counseling, or behavioral staff.
If your district has adopted a core SEL curriculum, ours runs alongside it. Adopted curriculum stays adopted.
45 minutes to 2 hours. Most schools book a class period or 90 minutes.
The 90-minute format is the one we recommend when you have the room. 45 minutes works for a single class period or a tight bell schedule, and 2 hours suits a half-day event, a grade-level rally, or a Black History Month or Red Ribbon Week program.
Tell us your bell schedule and we will fit the session to it rather than asking you to build around us.
Yes. The Psychological Effects of Music interactive Assembly is built for exactly this — a family engagement event where parents and children participate together rather than sitting through a presentation.
That is the difference that matters for attendance. Families come to an event where something happens; they skip an information night. The session is music-driven and participatory, so a parent who speaks little English and a fourth grader are in it on the same terms.
Title I schools carry a parent and family engagement set-aside, and this is an allowable use of it. Administrators who have watched a family night draw twelve people tend to be the most interested in a format that draws differently.
Attendance responds to whether a student wants to be there. Strategies to improve attendance that work tend to pair accurate identification with something worth showing up for.
How to improve student attendance in elementary school and how to improve student attendance in high school are different problems — elementary absence is usually a family logistics issue, secondary absence is usually disengagement. Attendance interventions for high school students have to give the student a reason. We help them engage.
Our part is the reason. The identification and family outreach side stays yours.
Yes, at Tier 1 and Tier 2. Schools building culturally responsive PBIS generally have the behavior framework and the data system and need the offering students will actually choose.
Music is voluntary in a way behavior expectations are not, which is why it reaches students that a matrix on the wall does not.
Website orders are set up for class-set quantities. If you need a single desk copy or sample before committing a site, contact us directly.
Quote, W-9, and invoice on request. We accept purchase orders and purchasing card payment. A 30-student class set is typically well below district formal bid thresholds and often within a site administrator's card limit — ask your business office what your per-transaction limit is.
How this program runs
Same SIWM work. Built for School.
Start with the social emotional learning books. Add a keynote. Bring a recording program when you want participants writing and performing — we produce the song and video.
Aligned with school district priorities and applicable standards, including CASEL’s five SEL competencies; National Core Arts Standards in Music and Media Arts; ELA writing, speaking and listening; mathematics; science and engineering through sound waves, frequency, amplitude and acoustics; CTE Arts, A/V Technology and Communications; digital media literacy; and STEM/STEAM. The program also supports Tier 1 PBIS and MTSS priorities through student engagement, collaboration, self-management, positive behavior, belonging and school climate.
Send a request and tell us this is a School site.
The Psychological Effects of Music
SEL books & curriculum
SEL books by Ava Johnson plus keynotes for the same rooms.
Ava the Aviator
Keynotes & assemblies
Interactive talks on the science of sound and the psychology of music.
The studio
Recording & music video program
Participants write and perform. We record, produce, and film.