Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Archive

Developed by the Council for Chief State School Officers, Healthy Schools Campaign and National Center for School Mental Health, this guidance highlights how state education agencies can use Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds to support student and staff wellbeing and connection. It also explains how to leverage these one-time-only funds to access additional funding streams, such as Medicaid, to ensure efforts are sustained.

This guidance provides an essential roadmap for strategic and sustainable investment that can help advance student and staff wellbeing and connection for years to come.

This case study highlights Tennessee’s work to leverage the nation’s education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), to support the critical connection between health and learning. Tennessee’s inclusion of health and wellness in its ESSA plan and the guidance developed to support district-level implementation provide best practices and lessons learned for states striving to support student health and wellness through education policy and practice.

Sandra Williamson, American Institutes for Research; Anne Mathews-Younes, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; Valerie Sims Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Adolescent and School Health; Sarah Lee, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Healthy Schools Branch

This guide highlights the ways that school needs assessments required by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) can be a valuable tool in identifying, understanding and addressing health conditions that contribute to poor academic performance. It provides child advocates, community leaders, school personnel and other key stakeholder groups with the information that they need to convince their state and local education leaders to make health and wellness a significant component of the needs assessment and school improvement process.

Child Trends partnered with the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago and EMT Associates, Inc. to review relevant state statutes and regulations enacted as of September 2017 and analyze their alignment with the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model of healthy schools.

This policy update highlights actions state education decision-makers can take to address the health-related causes of chronic absence.

This resource is meant to help those who are particularly interested in leveraging ESSA to support efforts to address chronic absenteeism.