Children’s Dental Services
Relieving Toothaches, Raising Graduation Rates
Sometimes data leads to surprising places — like the connection between better dental care and the likelihood of graduating high school.
The evidence tells a clear story: A child free of chronic dental pain reads better. Better reading proficiency by third grade predicts a higher chance of graduating high school. High school graduation predicts higher lifetime income and better lifelong health. It’s a chain of impact Constellation traces carefully, using peer-reviewed research.
A child cannot focus on a spelling test with a toothache. That simple truth sits at the center of why Children’s Dental Services is one of the Constellation Fund’s high-performing investments.
School-Based Dental Care to Treat the Most Painful Cases
Children’s Dental Services is one of Minnesota’s largest providers of emergency dental care and a nonprofit dedicated exclusively to the oral health of low-income children. They bring full dental setups directly into schools.
Mobile vans and portable equipment turn a gymnasium or a classroom into an exam room, removing the barriers that keep so many families from care: time and transportation. Parents don’t have to miss work. Children don’t have to miss a day of learning.
Sedation, root canals, silver diamine fluoride for arrested decay — Children’s Dental Services takes on the complex, painful cases that come with serving children who have little access to dental care. A staff of more than 100, including providers who speak Hmong, Somali, and Spanish, serves roughly 35,000 children a year.
For these children, the return on investment starts with something simple: a school day without pain, and the chance to just be a kid learning to read.
