 | MEETING BASIC NEEDS KEY MESSAGE: Meeting students’ basic needs is fundamental to child and adolescent growth, development, well-being, and overall academic success. Access to food, school nurses, and transportation help to create safe and healthy learning environments — districts have made key investments in these areas to support the basic needs of students and families. |
 | Connect non-academic investments to student success. Consider consistently communicating the impact of how non-academic investments, such as food access and infrastructure upgrades, benefit student well-being and learning acceleration. |
 | Focus on forward-looking impact. As systems shift from maintaining steady and safe in-person instruction to broader pandemic recovery and learning acceleration, it is important to emphasize the ongoing benefits of investments such as health and safety upgrades, including HVAC upgrades, and their significant impact on maintaining a positive environment for students, educators, and families. |
 | Know who the services where available to AND who received services. |
| How were students identified for support, especially those who were disproportionately impacted by COVID? |
| If funds were passed onto schools, how were school funds determined? |
A theory of action, or logic model, is a tool to help you explain and talk about the reasons why resources were deployed as they were. The following graphic illustration of the relationship between a program’s resources, activities, and its intended effects is meant to help you speak about this investment priority. Logic models clearly and concisely show how interventions affect behavior and achieve a goal.
Download the graphic as a template you can edit.
Resource links related to research on this investment priority:
- Department of Education, (2021), ED COVID-19 HANDBOOK Roadmap to Reopening Safely and Meeting All Students’ Needs, Volume 2, https://www2.ed.gov/documents/coronavirus/reopening-2.pdf page 5
- Cook J and Jeng K. (2009), Child Food Insecurity: The Economic Impact on our Nation. Chicago: Feeding America. https://www.nokidhungry.org/sites/default/files/child-economy-study.pdf
- Frongillo, E. et. al. (2006). Food Stamp Program participation is associated with better academic learning among school children. J. Nutr. 136:1077-1080.
This section contains templates to support messaging of related ESSER investments like providing school meals, food distribution, school nutrition staff, school nurses, and transportation staff. Click on the buttons below to pull up a sample template you can use and modify to tell your story.
