 | KEY MESSAGE: School leaders, educators, and staff are elevating the priority of physically safe communities to support their students. School districts employed mitigation factors during the pandemic as well as ensuring that pre-existing ventilation, roofing, and plumbing needs did not prevent healthy learning environments. |
 | 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 12
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, (2020), How Does Indoor Air Quality Impact Student Health and Academic Performance? (2020, Aug. 12). Retrieved from: https://www.epa.gov/iaq-schools/how-does-indoor-air-quality-impact-student-health-and-academic-performance.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020), “Guidance for Reopening Buildings After Prolonged Shutdown or Reduced Operation” (2020, Sept. 22). Retrieved from: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/building-water-system.html.
This section contains a templates to support messaging of ESSER investments related to building and infrastructure improvements (e.g., HVAC upgrades) as an example of implementation of effective layered strategies for preventing the transmission of infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, that helped to maximize students’ access to a safe learning environment.
