Johnson City Schools Supporting
Academics by Supporting Student
Mental Health and Safety Needs
Sometimes, grant-funded school programming effectively has an expiration date. When temporary
funds end, so do the services they paid for.
Sometimes. But not always.
Eight years ago, SCORE Prize finalist Johnson City
Schools (JCS) won a sizable federal grant: $5
million in Safe Schools/Healthy Students funds,
received over the course of four years. The grant
allowed JCS to establish the HEROES program, a
comprehensive set of services designed to meet a
wide range of student mental health and
safety needs.
“We tried to inundate our schools with support,” said JCS’s Greg Wallace, director of the
HEROES program. “We essentially established
local mental health clinics in all our schools.”
JCS’s use of the funds was so successful that the
district received a national Voices of Prevention award from the federal Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Services Administration. It’s
challenging to isolate academic benefits of the
program, as many kids receiving services are
also enrolled in Response to Instruction and
Intervention (RTI2), but documented measurable
results do include decreases in drug and alcohol
use, bullying events, and student absences due
to fear.
In 2012, the grant ended – but the services
didn’t. JCS and community partners decided the
HEROES program was too important to lose, collaborating to locate funds necessary to maintain
the level of investment initially made possible
through the grant. Individualized mental health
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services have been provided to about 20 percent
of JCS’s students.
“We’re like everybody. We don’t have a ton of
money floating around. But we’ve made it a priority,” said Dr. Wallace.
The HEROES story is just one example of how JCS
allocates resources to support student well-being.
High academic expectations are set for all students in the district, and kids are fully supported in
meeting them. From a thoughtful, comprehensive
RTI2 program to nutritional services designed to
truly meet kids’ needs, JCS has achieved success
by caring for every student.