School-Connect®: Optimizing the High School Experience is a 40-lesson curriculum (grades 9-12) designed to improve students’ social and emotional skills, boost academic achievement, and facilitate supportive relationships among students and teachers.
School-Connect (S-C) can be implemented in freshman seminar, life skills, health, English, advisory, psychology, or leadership courses.
The curriculum consists of four modules:
School-Connect works especially well in preparing incoming freshmen for the demands of high school. Lessons focus on bolstering protective factors – such as supportive relationships, social skills, emotional management, and effective study habits – and reducing risk factors associated with school violence and high school drop out rates (e.g., bullying, social isolation, and poor academic attitudes and habits).
School-Connect lesson plans apply the latest research in emotional intelligence, positive psychology, prevention, conflict resolution, and character education. The lessons are designed to create a positive school climate while giving students opportunities to 
explore, discuss, and practice skills crucial to success in school and the workplace. Particular attention is given to the needs of at-risk youth. As students’ sense of competency grows, so does their self-esteem and attachment to school.
Lead author Kathy Beland, M.Ed., is the original author of the award-winning Second Step, A Violence Prevention Curriculum, which is implemented in over 20,000 classrooms in the U.S. and Canada and in 21 other countries. Second Step has been recognized as a model school safety program by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice and has received the highest ratings (straight A’s across all categories) by a national panel of prevention experts. School-Connect builds upon the same skills introduced in Second Step with an added emphasis on academic readiness.