Addie Angelov: Academics, health must be tied for children to succeed

For the last decade, my colleagues and I at the Paramount Health Data Project have been researching the academic impact of health outcomes on K-12 students in schools across Indiana. We quantify the interaction between academics and health outcomes for schools so they can take a holistic approach to academically supporting students.

We have found that roughly 20%-25% of the students in our schools annually are not physically healthy enough to academically achieve on grade level. We call this the academic health of a school. This means that no matter what academic interventions a school uses, if the underling physical health concerns of students are not met, those students are unable to grow academically.

Getting health and education to innovate and work together is tricky. While both fields inherently share mission and intent, they use vastly different approaches. Given that children are required to attend school but not required to attend medical appointments, schools are the most logical access point for services. Conversely, it is not the mandate of schools to affect health outcomes; it is their mandate to impact academic achievement.

Schools are not funded to provide health services, nor are they judged on the health outcomes of their students. Schools are judged for their ability to raise test scores and show academic achievement gains. This paradigm has left education and health care both struggling to see the academic and health outcomes we want for Hoosier children.

In 2023, then-Gov. Eric Holcomb’s Public Health Commission found that a need for school nurses was the No. 2 priority for the state. Based on this report, he allocated $275 million to the Health First Indiana initiative, the largest allocation in state history. Unfortunately, not a single penny of those dollars went to school nurses or supporting academics, and we have continued to see schools struggle academically. We are also facing a devastating shortage of school nurses and school-based health care.

According to the most recent research, getting a high school diploma increases your life expectancy by six to nine years. This is a greater impact on life expectancy than if a person stops smoking. The outcomes of education and health are undeniably tied together.

On April 15, Gov. Mike Braun shared Executive Order 25-59. It is a bold move pushing Indiana’s health and education fields to innovate and collaborate. The spirit and intent of the order is clear: If Indiana is going to have a healthy future, we have to have academically healthy children. The order is preventive and proactive on behalf of Hoosier kids. It’s also playing the long game to reduce future health care costs.

To get the return on investment that both education and health strive for, we have to innovate, collaborate and get laser focused on the academic impact of school-based health initiatives. We must include school nurses and data like a school’s academic health score and academic health cliff on academic intervention teams. Without an appetite for innovation, we will continue to see the same results if we continue to work in the same ways.•

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Angelov is co-founder and CEO of the Paramount Health Data Project. She started her career as a teacher and coach in Speedway and served as director of research for the Indiana Department of Education.