Elmbrook Schools is a top-tier school district in Wisconsin. Their academic outcomes are consistently some of the best in the country, but like most districts, their MTSS data was showing a growing number of students struggling with anxiety, depression and motivation at Tier 2.

The Elmbrook MTSS team had developed a robust tiered-wellness pyramid with strong solution partners at Tier 1 and Tier 3. In early 2020, they began their search for a wellness partner that could expand their capacity to support struggling students at Tier 2 – a partner that would help students integrate resilience strategies into daily practice to improve wellbeing and academic engagement.

Their selection criteria required that this new Tier 2 partner have a proven track record and a history of using data to show student progress and outcomes.

Elmbrook began their initial Tier 2 partnership with EmpowerU in 2020 with a vision of utilizing the program’s digital skill-building lessons with embedded 1:1 student coaching to support both educators and secondary student wellbeing.

By spring 2022, Elmbrook had expanded EmpowerU programming to elementary students. The data was clear: EmpowerU was driving improved student outcomes in persistence, resilience and academics