Chapter 4: Making Hard Work Count: Building Rural Schools That Meet Students' Mental and Behavioral Health Needs to Address Rural Achievement Gaps

Effective and comprehensive school improvement efforts require attention to the whole student and the whole school, as students who are struggling academically frequently face additional non-academic challenges and disadvantages. In fact, it is well-documented that behavioral and mental health issues often co-occur with poor academic functioning and low school connectedness (Bradshaw, Buckley, et al., 2008; Fröjd et al., 2008; Jaycox et al., 2009). Yet, too often school improvement efforts focus solely on improving factors like leadership, teaching quality, and academic supports, with limited attention to social-emotional, mental health, and behavioral health issues (Heissel & Ladd, 2018). This is not surprising, given that schools in improvement are often focused on and held accountable for academics, with limited consideration of indicators of student mental health or well-being. Moreover, school leaders typically have less familiarity with mental health as an educational issue, or understanding how to address mental health through schools (Daly et al., 2006). Such efforts are particularly salient in rural schools, where the behavioral and mental health concerns are exacerbated by limited access to training for school staff, limited funding for schools, and high demands on rural schools and communities to address unmet health and mental health needs.