There have been many conversations across sectors to reimagine education amid a global pandemic, continued racial injustice, and a climate crisis — many of these conversations center SEL as a tool for healing. However, we’ve seen how well-meaning SEL initiatives, policies, and practices have been weaponized against young people, specifically Black and Brown and LGBTQ+ youth of color, as mechanisms of control and policing. The narrative has been that to exhibit or practice SEL, young people must control and manage their emotions, and in turn, stifle their most authentic selves. This harmful framing is further exacerbated by the physical policing of students through harsh disciplinary practices and policies. Together, SEL, school climate, and school safety are used as means to criminalize and punish Black and Brown and LGBTQ+ youth of color, rather than create and sustain schools as spaces that are emotionally, psychologically, intellectually, and physically safe. For SEL to live up to its true promise, there must be a container for SEL, meaning that school climate, safety, and SEL must be connected in intentional and holistic ways. Through the #ReclaimSEL series, we will bring together multiple education stakeholders to explore how to reclaim SEL from its use as a metric of compliance. Instead, the conversations will connect SEL to positive school climate and school safety policies and practices that use relationship-building as their foundation. This series will also uplift and amplify the power of strategic organizing praxis as a model for radical SEL.