When the CDC and the ASCD (then the Association of School Curriculum Development), created the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSSC) program in 2014, its purpose was to transition from “a focus on narrowly defined academic achievement to one that promotes the long-term development and success of children.” That goal has continued to evolve to its more expansive current framework: “…student-centered and emphasizes the role of the community in supporting the school, the connections between health and academic achievement and the importance of evidence-based school policies and practices.” [FN-1] Like many school-based programs the objectives of the WSCC rely primarily on the activities and tasks undertaken by adults (staff, faculty, local organizations), as shown in the famous WSCC Wheel: serving more nutritious meals; ensuring safe campus grounds; erecting outdoor learning centers; ensuring healthy air and environmental quality; providing nursing and counseling services, supporting staff. This consolidation of school- and neighborhood-centered activities has helped administrators and faculty think and act holistically through the interwoven factors of school and community life. Since its 2014 inception, the WSCC has been implemented widely across the US, engaging many districts and states, often in concert with community partners like YMCAs, with leadership support from the CDC’s Healthy Schools Branch. Whole Health Learning Alignment The Whole Health Learning approach re-imagines the “Health Education” component of the WSCC: by emphasizing the considerable value that has been shown from students’ own direct, hands on, engaged learning in activities like the school garden that are now emerging from their historically ancillary roles. They are intentionally designed for direct engagement by children themselves who, literally, can put their hands on the levers of their own learning (i.e.: garden trowels, salad tongs, gym climbing walls). The collaborative, social, creative, and engaged qualities of these activities have been shown to reinforce WSCC goals to improve student social skills and self-awareness, improve mental, emotional, and behavioral health, and most importantly perhaps present added ways for students to achieve success, as individuals and in classmate teams. By 2023 each of the individual whole health learning activities has long since proven its contribution to academic outcomes. By emphasizing personal whole health learning starting in the earliest grades, schools can create the circumstances in which students can forge for themselves “…the connections between health and academic achievement,” and set the foundations for long-term health and wellbeing as they grow and mature. While Whole Health Learning concepts are still early in formation as unified multi-activity models (See “Whole Health Learning in the Era of COVID” for a middle school principal’s account of the inaugural pilot), the efficacy of the constituent domains has long since been established. Schools supporting the WSCC which also offer a school garden or mindfulness program can now see their coherent alignment and shared purpose: strengthening the wellbeing of each student. And continue to add related activities that reinforce that goal. Such a focus can augment the primary behavior-improvement emphasis of K-12 health education curricula. The Other “C” ? Whole Culture In the fall of 2022, Sean Slade [FN-2] an original member of the CDC-ASCD team that established the WSCC, (and led its coordination for several years while at ASCD) offered an insight – and caution — regarding WSCC implementations. While a well-crafted strategy is critical to introducing a new program like the WSCC into a school’s culture, he notes: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” “The original WSCC Model brought the (education and health) sectors closer together, but … too many initiatives fail to make an impact because the model and culture do not match.” And culture, he points out, is in the hands and heart of the school leader. Those leaders and program innovators now work within a culture battered by an unprecedented array of challenges undermining the happiness, self-confidence and mental health of their charges and their families, and their own teaching colleagues. The culture is changing. But so are the opportunities. Re-imagining the Culture? COVID has spawned an era of ingenious innovation among educators and program developers across the country. Initiatives like these below seem to be re-shaping the K-12 culture in ways that continue to draw education and health closer together: Teachers and faculty in schools across the country have created an outdoor learning movement, whose rapid growth is supercharging green schoolyards and reinforcing the research showing the health value of Nature-based Learning. Some states are acting on the outcomes. In July 2022 Maine established the Maine Outdoor Learning Initiative which “will give middle and high school students the opportunity to participate in marine and coastal ecology learning programs, including marine research and exploration” during the summer. [FN-3] In Michigan the firm Inner Explorer is working with state partners on the project “Mindful Michigan,” now in its second year, to bring mindfulness to all the state’s school districts as a means to offset the impact of stressors that continue to imperil students’ mental health. The advances in food and nutrition can be too rapid to keep up with, but are highlighting the intersection of student learning and a school’s food quality program. Wellness in the Schools (WITS) has delivered teaching kitchen learning to schools for years. In 2022 it co-launched Scratchworks.org with a network of Food Service Directors devoted to scratch cooking to improve dramatically the quality of school meals. How do these and similar programs impact the school and WSCC programming? From the Whole Health Learning perspective they expand the cultural space in ways that respond directly to the upheaval of COVID: more deeply engaging students in the learning on subjects of significant personal and community consequence, which emphasizes an outcome that becomes more importance with each passing semester: purposefully strengthening the wellbeing and resilience of their students. [FN-1] CDC Healthy Schools Branch and WSCC [FN-2] Sean Slade is Head of Education at BTS Spark (North America) and has been an advisor for WholeHealthED [FN-3] “The Pandemic Brought Many Maine Classrooms Outside; Now Educators Want to Keep it That Way”