EVERFI Content Team

During the 2023-2024 school year, 41% of California’s school districts used EVERFI’s free resources to teach critical life skills. While priorities differ from district to district, many California districts partner with EVERFI in order to:

• Fulfill California’s Melanie’s Law mandate around fentanyl instruction
• Achieve their school board’s goal of ensuring financially literate students
• Ensure their district’s Other Means of Corrections Policy is in alignment with the California 48900 Behavior Code

Read on to see how Fresno, Glendale, and Irvine Unified Schools districts partnered with EVERFI to achieve their goals.

Melanie’s Law: Fentanyl Prevention in Fresno Unified

Upon learning about the passage of Melanie’s Law, which focused on fentanyl Instruction in the classroom, Fresno Unified’s Michele Pacheco (PE/Comprehensive Sexual Health Education Manager) reached out to EVERFI to explore the resources and support that EVERFI is able provide her district at no cost. 

After meeting with EVERFI’s District Support Lead, Andee Hugenberg, Fresno Unified created a plan that: 

• Aligned EVERFI’s free prevention resources to district PE & Health curriculum maps for grades 7-10 
• Led to the training of 80 secondary teachers within the first month of school 
• Ensured continued support for teachers & administrators throughout the school year 

“To say I have been pleased with the EVERFI Team is an understatement. We are appreciative of the standards-based curriculum modules, the ease of teachers being able to assign the lessons to their students, and the aspect of them being self-graded. I look forward to continuing to work with Andee and the EVERFI [Team] in the future.” -Michele Paceco, PE/Comprehensive Sexual Health Education Manager, Fresno Unified 

Michele meets with Andee regularly to review data and teacher feedback, learn about scholarship opportunities and more.  

Last year, Fresno reached over 41,000 student enrollments (just shy of the seating capacity for the San Diego Padres’ stadium) in EVERFI’s prevention resources covering vaping, mental health, prescription drug abuse, and alcohol abuse.  

Fresno Unified was so pleased with EVERFI’s resources and support that they are expanding their partnership to impact even more students in the ‘24-’25 school year. 

Prioritizing Financial Literacy in Glendale Unified

In 2018, long before California mandated financial literacy in high school, Glendale Unified’s School Board made financial education a priority.  

When assessing resources to use in the classroom, Executive Director of Secondary Education, Felix Melendez, asked six questions: 

1. How does it impact teachers? 
2. Does it add to the teacher’s day? 
3. Can we track it?
4. Can we scale it? 
5. Can we afford it? 
6. Is it valuable and viable? 

At the end of the review process, Felix states that “EVERFI hit all of those marks.”  

Through group and 1-on-1 training sessions, regular communication, and 24/7 support, district leaders and EVERFI ensured that educators were empowered with a suite of turnkey, standards-aligned financial literacy resources to reach all 5th, 7th, and 9th graders, respectively.  

Glendale’s scaffolded approach led to almost 7,000 students becoming more financially literate in the 2023-2024 school year.  

“[EVERFI’s] got a multiplier effect. Some of our families are listening and looking over kids’ shoulders and learning.” – Felix Melendez, Executive Director of Secondary Education, Glendale Unified 

Aligning District Policy to California’s Behavior Code

Beginning in 2022-2023, Irvine Unified School District Student Services partnered with EVERFI to support their Other Means of Corrections in alignment with the California 48900 Behavior Code.  

Their goal was to provide easy to implement digital lessons to drive a positive change in student behavior.  

To get started, the EVERFI team aligned their supplemental resources to the 48900-behavior code and included turnkey, digital lessons covering topics such as prescription drug safety, vaping, alcohol, healthy relationships, compassion, and more.   

Since assistant principals are responsible for managing and supporting student behavior in their schools and already have a lot of responsibilities on their plate, it was vital that each leader was comfortable with the EVERFI platform. EVERFI lead trainings that covered best practices for sharing the resources with students, setting up cohorts, and exploring scenarios for which resource to implement based on the behavior and code violation. By the end of the trainings, leaders were confident with the platform and saw this lightened their workload while positively impacting student behavior. 

EVERFI’s support of Irvine Unified continues with regular updates to review impact data, reevaluate alignment to district goals, and identify other areas of need for resources.

“[EVERFI] has been a game changer for us and our main intervention for student discipline infractions.” – District Administrator, Irvine Unified School District

Meet Your District’s Goals with EVERFI

The same resources and support that EVERFI provides California’s school districts is available to all districts in North American at no cost. This is due to EVERFI’s network of local and national organizations passionate about providing schools with the resources they need to teach life skills. EVERFI’s partners cover all the costs, so districts don’t have to. Learn more about how EVERFI supports districts then schedule time with your district’s dedicated support team to multiply your district’s impact.