Proposed Outcomes
Participants will…
- Understand and be able to use available research and evaluation results to
- Demonstrate the linkage between learning support and personal and academic achievement.
Basic Assumptions of Learning Support
- Educational success, physical health, emotional support and family/community strength are inseparable
- Learning support fosters academic achievement
- Every student can learn to at least a proficient level
- Students in a safe, secure learning environment can focus on learning and achieve academically
- Learning support addresses the “whole child” by serving students, families, and communities
Definition of Learning Support
- To provide resources and instructional strategies that give students the physical, social, emotional, and intellectual support needed to learn.
It is difficult for students to be successful in school if they are:
- Depressed
- Tired
- Being bullied
- Stressed
- Sick
- Using alcohol or other drugs
- Hungry
- Abused
How does Learning Support impact academic achievement?
California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS)
"Schools with large percentages of students who engage
in risky behavior have lower API scores than other schools."
— California Healthy Kids Survey, 2003
Data Analyses
- How health risk and resilience are related to academic progress at the school level
- Longitudinal changes in SAT-9 test scores, 1998-2002
- Analyses adjust for socioeconomic differences across schools
- Breakfast Consumption
- Safety at School
- Lifetime Intoxication
- School Caring Relationships
- Meaningful Participation
2001 Physical Fitness and Math/Reading Scores
- Positive, linear relationships
- Consistent across grade levels, gender
- Students who met minimum fitness levels in three or more physical fitness areas showed the greatest gains in academic achievement.
- Higher academic achievement was associated with higher levels of fitness.
- The relationship between academic achievement and fitness was greater in mathematics than in reading, particularly at high fitness levels
School-based Dropout Prevention Program
- Statewide, 78 percent of all schools met or exceeded their API target
- Schools with dropout prevention programs met or exceeded their API target by 93 percent
School API Comparison
After School Education and Safety Program
- More evidence that Learning Support works!
- Students had improved READING scores
- Students had improved MATH scores
- Students attended school more often
It Is Clear That:
"Youth development and successful learning are not competing
goals but rather complementary and synergistic processes."
"Students' capacity for learning cannot be optimally engaged
if their basic developmental needs—such as love, belonging,
security, respect, identity, power, mastery, and meaning—are
not being met."
— National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health
Leaders like you agree:
"[Children]...who face violence, hunger, substance abuse, unintended pregnancy, and despair cannot possibly focus on academic excellence.
There is no curriculum brilliant enough to compensate for a hungry stomach or a distracted mind."
— National Action Plan for Comprehensive School Health
Education, 1992.
Want to know more?
- California Healthy Kids Survey, Safe and Healthy Kids Program Office, 916-319-0920
- Physical fitness, Jennifer Rousseve, 916-319-0724
- Dropout Prevention Program, Margarita Garcia, 916-323-5029
- After School Partnerships, Jane Ross, 916-319-0923
