Feature Story

Educating the Whole Child

Donna Lloyd-Kolkin, Ph.D., Health Communication Specialist

There's an emerging emphasis on health and wellness underfoot today as schools increasingly realize that good health makes children more ready to learn. Take a look at some current initiatives that support educating the whole child.

Student Wellness Policies

All school districts who participate in the federal school lunch program are required to have student wellness policies in place by the start of the current school year. This mandate opened the door for schools to examine how they can address and improve the nutrition, physical activity, and other health-related concerns of their students. The process of crafting local policies has been a catalyst for parents, teachers, administrators, and school boards to focus on the health-related needs of students.

The National Alliance for Nutrition and Activity www.schoolwellnesspolicies.org provides model policies for school districts, developed by a workgroup of professionals from across the nation.

Read more about the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 and its school wellness policy requirement.

Action for Healthy Kids www.actionforhealthykids.org, an organization dedicated to the issue of childhood obesity, provides a wealth of information about school wellness policies, including reports on their fall 2006 Campaign for School Wellness.

Healthy Schools Program

At the same time, the Alliance for a Healthier Generation-a partnership of the American Heart Association, the (Bill) Clinton Foundation, and Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas-focused national attention on the importance of improved nutrition for students as it brokered agreements with the beverage industry regarding soft drinks and vending machines in schools.

In February 2006, the alliance launched the Healthy Schools Program, with financial support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Healthy Schools Program focuses on nutrition, physical activity, and staff wellness. Any school may register to become part of the Healthy Schools Program and receive tools, online and telephone technical support, and recognition for their work. In addition, 285 schools in 13 states are receiving face-to-face technical assistance as part of a Phase One pilot project. These schools are located in Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

You can link directly to the Healthy Schools Builder and register online to become part of the Healthy Schools Program.

Healthy School Communities

Also in 2006, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) announced a new initiative "to shift public dialogue about education from an academic focus to a whole child approach that encompasses all factors required for successful learning."

ASCD's Healthy School Communities program is an effort to "recast the definition of a successful learner from one whose achievement is measured solely by academic tests, to one who is knowledgeable, emotionally and physically healthy, civically engaged, prepared for economic self-sufficiency, and ready for the world beyond formal schooling."

This month, ASCD will bring together schools from around the country who applied to be part of the Healthy School Communities pilot program. Each school has agreed to do the following:

• Put together a Healthy School Communities team to coordinate the school's efforts
• Develop and monitor a school improvement plan in response to priorities set through an internal assessment process using the ASCD Action Tool: Creating a Healthy School Using the Healthy School Report Card
• Participate in reflective self-assessment and pilot-wide evaluation

The Healthy School Communities program emerged from a series of deliberations by ASCD's Commission on the Whole Child. Background information is provided in a report on the whole child, All Together Now, which explains why schools and communities must work together to help all young people succeed. ASCD will release a final report on the commission's work in March 2007 at the annual ASCD conference. Learn more about their deliberations and recommendations at the ASCD Education Update, Whole Child Initiative.

Find more information about the Healthy School Communities program and the action tool at Creating a Healthy School Using the Healthy School Report Card. http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd/menuitem.187f5eeabf5d4a29a62c2d69e3108a0c/

Be sure to read the ideas shared by a teacher in Florida on developing a health and fitness program at your own school in our Teacher Talk article, How to Start a Community School-Based Fitness Program.