“…Unfortunately, the funding and infrastructure required for these centers are tenuous (Horton & Lima‐Negron, 2012) and not sustainable without adequate buy‐in, resources, and system‐wide support (Moore et al, 2017). Independent SMH programs, however, are effective interventions for behavioral challenges (Fefer et al, 2022), internalizing symptoms, depression, and anxiety (Das et al, 2016; Dray et al, 2017), and reduce and inappropriate diagnoses and referrals (Sun et al, 2022). Indeed, SMH services that are designed and managed by school‐districts rather than community health personnel improved school grades and engagement (Kase et al, 2017; Olubiyi et al, 2019) and mental health outcomes (Franklin et al, 2017; Sanchez et al, 2018).…”