Welcome to SchoolBridge Health: A Message from the Founder
Welcome to SchoolBridge Health: A Message from Jessica Silon-Vowell, Founder
As we head into the 2026–2027 academic year, K–12 school districts are up against significant challenges. The teams working to solve those challenges show up every day, often early mornings to evenings, weekend school events, summer planning, and more. Every school staff member brings their energy to school to support students in learning, growing, and succeeding, amid the ever-changing world we're all navigating.
For the last 10 years, I've dedicated my life to supporting community health. After teaching hundreds of health education lessons to students of all ages in urban and rural communities, coordinating a districtwide wellness program serving 16,000 students and 1,500+ staff, and creating partnerships with 50+ school districts nationwide to expand access to youth mental health therapy in schools, I've learned an immense amount about the needs of students, schools, and the staff who hold it all together.
One common thread ran through each of these experiences: school staff give so much to students, and often, their own health and wellness falls to the bottom of the priority list. When staff health suffers, schools see more sick days and fatigued educators, a ripple effect that moves through the entire school community.
The data backs up what I observed throughout my career. According to recent and ongoing research , educators often experience lower job satisfaction, poor sleep quality, and diminished overall wellbeing. And educator wellness doesn't exist in a silo — when teachers' mental and physical health suffer, student academic outcomes are impacted as well. This connection points to a critical missing link in education: a dedicated wellness and health promotion model for school staff, running in parallel to existing student support services, to address the whole school system holistically.
That's what SchoolBridge Health is here to do - bring proactive, collaborative, preventative & research-backed wellness programming to K–12 schools.
I appreciate your support on this journey and look forward to bringing meaningful support to school staff.
In Health,
Jessica Silon-Vowell, MPH
Founder, SchoolBridge Health
