Measuring Success in Whole Child Education Initiatives

Research increasingly confirms the inextricable link between children’s development and their academic success. Specifically, school environments that support the whole child to foster academic achievement and positive development into adulthood enable children to be healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. Many school districts seek to implement “whole child” education initiatives to rise to these needs but struggle to find metrics that meaningfully capture initiative progress.

This brief outlines key assessment practices districts can use to establish an initiative’s value and measure the success of whole child education initiatives across all key stakeholders in the school community. Read the key takeaways below or download the full brief.

Use practice assessments to measure institutional alignment

Use district and school-wide practice assessments to measure institutional alignment with whole child best practices. Districts build the environments that either foster or thwart whole child success through institutional practices spanning staff, curriculum, school environment, and more. Tools like ASCD’s Whole Child Indicator Survey or Turnaround for Children’s Whole Child Design Inventory allow districts to evaluate their current practices and compare them to research-based indicators of whole child success.

Districts can use these assessments both before initiative implementation to identify strengths and gaps in their whole child approach and periodically as an initiative matures to assess progress.

Implement surveys to understand students’ holistic well-being

Implement thoughtful student surveys and assessments to understand how a whole child initiative is supporting students’ holistic well-being. Districts can use more frequent in-class surveys and annual climate surveys to gain insight into how district whole child practices impact students’ perceptions and experiences at school. Given the powerful link between students’ SEL skills and positive life outcomes, educators can also consider using SEL competency assessments to measure how an initiative is supporting students’ social-emotional development.

Track student outcome data to benchmark student success

Track student outcome data to benchmark a whole child’s initiative’s impact on student success. Conveniently, research links much of the data districts already collect (e.g., academic achievement, attendance, disciplinary incidents) directly to student success across the five whole child pillars (healthy, safe, supported, challenged, engaged).

Districts can analyze this data to both establish baselines of student outcomes before initiative implementation and measure progress in whole child success over time.

Monitor key indicators influencing a whole child initiative’s success

Monitor key employee, parent, and community indicators that influence a whole child initiative’s success. School community stakeholders such as parents and school staff play a critical role in ensuring the success of a whole child initiative. Districts can use tools such as employee climate surveys and self-reported parent engagement measures to track how district practices support these groups and engage them in student success.