Health and Social Inhibitory Factors to Academic Achievement – A survey of school principals

Objective: To assess school principals' perceptions on health and social factors which impact academic achievement and specific challenges to addressing students' social and emotional needs. Background: Nationally, minority students' school graduation rates lag behind rates for non-Hispanic whites. Factors outside classroom, specifically health and social factors have significant impact on school attendance and academic performance. With limited budgets, schools must balance accountability mandates with meeting students' social and emotional needs. Outside agencies offer potential to address needs; with positive correlations reported between school-based health centers (SBHC) use and improved academic achievement and decreased absence rates. Data on principals' perspective has not been reported. Methods: A 16-question survey tool was developed, and distributed to school principals. Data from 100 completed surveys was analyzed; PASW Statistics software. Results: Social factors ranked higher than specific health factors as inhibitors to academic achievement: lack of parental involvement (72%), lack of student motivation (71%) and school absence (67%) were ranked highest. Parental resistance, lack of staff training and accountability mandates were ranked as the greatest challenges to addressing social and emotional needs. Health and social factors are best addressed by outside agencies. Conclusions: Study offers valuable perspective on parental involvement as key social factor with important implications for academic achievement. Outside agencies including SBHCs offer potential in working with schools. Results highlight the importance of dialog and collaboration among educators, health professionals, community agencies and community members to successfully address academic achievement gap. Significance: importance of social factors in academic achievement.