• All students in the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District participate in the Choose Love™ social-emotional learning curriculum during the school year. Founded by Scarlett Lewis, the program has been developed by educators to provide schools, families, and communities with the tools to promote self-empowerment, resilience, connection, and optimism.

    Choose Love™ teaches children that they can control their responses to emotions. Scarlett Lewis shares, “When children realize that they have the power to positively impact themselves as well as those around them, it is empowering and perpetuates their positive actions and interactions.”

    The program focuses on four important character values – Courage, Gratitude, Forgiveness, and Compassion in Action – which cultivate optimism, resilience and personal responsibility. The Choose Love™ curriculum blends social-emotional learning (SEL) with character education, positive psychology, mindfulness, neuroscience, and emotional intelligence. It is aligned with Common Core State Standards, the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) Mindsets and Behaviors for Student Success, and the five Core SEL Competencies of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL).

    Nelson Mandela has said, “People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love . . . for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” The Choose Love curriculum teaches children and adults that choosing love can empower them to respond with dignity and humanity to any situation.

    Choose Love™ is part of our district’s Framework for Success that combines academic, behavioral, and social-emotional supports to ensure student success.

    For more information on the Choose Love™ curriculum, please visit the Choose Love Movement website.