It’s time for policymakers to sustainably integrate health and learning

The COVID-19 pandemic illuminated the interconnectedness of health and learning. Yet, as students prepare to return to school in August, persistent health crises and new COVID-19 variants threaten to disrupt their learning.  

Policymakers at the federal, state and local levels must commit to do more to address the crisis of the moment while simultaneously building policy, regulatory and funding systems that sustainably integrate health and learning.  

As a result of the pandemic, we now have a more resilient education system that can (after lots of painful lessons learned over the past two years) pivot to remote learning, perform diagnostic medical testing and take evidence-based steps to keep more kids healthy. Conversely, a narrow-focused approach on how schools respond to an ever-evolving pandemic will do our children a major disservice.  

There are intractable challenges that endanger the health of our children and their related academic and social progress. Millions of children lack access to healthy learning environments and, it’s been well-documented that millions more cannot access even the most basic mental health services through their schools. Now is the time to take lessons learned from the pandemic and apply them to the full range of health-related challenges our young people are facing. 

Where to start?  

At the federal level, the creation of an office within the U.S. Department of Education charged with overseeing all policy and funding related to healthy schools would bring desperately needed structure and accountability. The position would be responsible for coordinating technical assistance, as well as policy and funding across federal agencies and offices. This office would come at a time when education leaders must navigate a complicated maze of 10 formal interagency groups, 13 formula grant programs, 91 discretionary grant programs, as well as 67 technical assistance centers and initiatives.    

This recommendation is one of more than 100 included in the Healthy Schools Ten-Year Roadmap, a collection of comprehensive and complementary priorities and associated policy, programmatic and human-capital related opportunities intended to dramatically increase the number of healthy schools — schools that recognize and advance the mental, physical, social and emotional well-being of students and educators as a fundamental strategy to effective learning over the next 10 years.  

For state policymakers, there are tangible opportunities to include the integration of education data. Chronic absenteeism, school climate, preschool enrollment, workforce program participation and school readiness assessments into state health data systems are all critical factors to help overcome data silos that serve no purpose and impede our ability to holistically support the whole child. 

For local education policymakers, the Roadmap encourages the creation of data-sharing partnerships between community-based primary care providers, referring providers and school nurses to make electronic access available to select portions of their patient’s medical records while fully protecting privacy. This would enable many of the critical health providers in a child’s life to make decisions based on the same data.  

Nonprofits, community-based organizations, school districts and schools across the country are investing in this work. For example, Lockwood Schools, Mont.,has a population of nearly 9,000 residents but has no health care services or even a pharmacy that residents can easily access.  

This spring, with the help of the Sisters of Charity of Levinworth, the district opened the first primary care clinic for students and the entire community on the Lockwood High School campus. The clinic will provide primary care services and walk-in care all year. This will allow students and educators to access a host of preventative and diagnostic medical evaluations as well as receive treatment for ongoing health care conditions they have.  

The district will be able to offer vaccinations, health screenings and other care that will reduce absenteeism and keep students learning in school. Lockwood and its peers around the country are doing their part.  

It is time for policymakers to meet them halfway.  

Daniel A. Domenech is the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), known as the School Superintendents Association.