The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine teachers' perceptions of the impact of the RULER approach on both student academic achievement and emotional regulation in one suburban school district. This study explores teachers' perception of the impact of the RULER program in a large suburban district by examining the following factors: teachers' perception of their students' academic performance, students' social emotional well-being, and students' emotional regulation ability. The suburban school district identified for this study has administered the RULER program in specific phases over the course of five years. The RULER program is a perceptive approach to social emotional learning (SEL) for k-12 schools and focuses on supporting and increasing emotional intelligence for the entire school community and its stakeholders. The name "RULER" is an acronym for the five skills of Emotional Intelligence: Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, and Regulating emotions. Data for this study was gathered over a six-week period through the use of teacher surveys and semi structured interviews with teacher who have been trained and are using the RULER approach within their classrooms. The findings in this study suggest that teachers perceive that RULER is having a positive impact on students and their ability to recognize the emotions of themselves and others as well as can better regulate their emotions. While teachers did not perceive RULER to have an impact on a student's academic achievement, they did however perceive RULER to help students be more available for learning which may allow for academic success. Specific recommendations were made based on the results of this study to district and building level administrators. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]