About the Initiative
About the Initiative
The Washington Youth Mental Health & Public School Promise Initiative is a public‑interest effort led by the Center for Inspired Learning, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN 82‑4387189) focused on advancing science‑aligned, student‑centered approaches within public education.
Across Washington and the nation, publicly reported data show persistent patterns of student distress, disengagement, and unmet learning needs, despite decades of reform efforts and increased investment. A growing consensus across education, health, and developmental science recognizes that these outcomes are not the result of individual failure by students, families, or educators, but of a school model designed for compliance rather than for how young people actually grow, learn, and thrive.
This initiative exists to support system‑level redesign, not incremental reform. It focuses on addressing root causes by helping districts move beyond layering new requirements onto an outdated structure and toward learning environments intentionally organized around relationships, belonging, safety, autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
What the Initiative Does
The Initiative’s work centers on:
Grounding decisions in authoritative science and publicly reported data
Supporting districts interested in piloting science‑aligned learning environments
Demonstrating that redesign is feasible within existing facilities, staffing, and funding structures
Generating transparent, public evidence that redesign improves both student well‑being and learning
The Washington Youth Mental Health & Public School Promise Initiative prioritizes collaboration, voluntary participation, and good‑faith partnership with educators, districts, families, and community leaders. Its purpose is not to assign blame or promote a single program, but to support public education in fulfilling its responsibility to provide safe, developmentally aligned, high‑quality learning environments for every student.