Components of WSCC

Health education

Structured health education consists of any combination of planned learning experiences that offer students the skills to make quality health decisions. When provided by qualified, trained teachers, health education helps students acquire the knowledge and skills they need for:

• Making health-enhancing decisions and adopting behaviors accordingly.
• Achieving health literacy.
• Promoting the health of others.

Comprehensive school health education includes curricula for students in pre-K through grade 12. The curricula should address a variety of topics such as:

• Alcohol and other drug use and abuse.
• Healthy eating/nutrition.
• Mental and emotional health.
• Personal health and wellness.
• Physical activity.
• Safety, and injury prevention.
• Sexual health.
• Tobacco use.
• Violence prevention.

Health education curricula and instruction should address the National Health Education Standards (NHES) and incorporate the characteristics of an effective health education curriculum. Health education should be based on an assessment of student health needs and planned in collaboration with the community. This type of health education ensures reinforcement of health messages that are relevant for students and meet community needs. Students might also receive health information from a school nurse, posters or public service announcements, or conversations with family and peers.

Nutrition environment and services

The school nutrition environment provides students with ways to learn about and practice healthy eating through:

• Nutrition education.
• Available foods and beverages.
• Messages about food in the cafeteria and throughout the school campus.

Students may have access to foods and beverages in a variety of venues at school, including the cafeteria. Other options for students are vending machines, grab 'n' go kiosks, school stores, concession stands, classroom rewards, class/school celebrations, and fundraisers.

School nutrition services provide meals that:

• Meet federal nutrition standards for the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs.
• Meet the health and nutrition needs of all students.
• Help ensure that foods and beverages sold outside of the school meal programs meet Smart Snacks in School nutrition standards.

School nutrition professionals should meet minimum education requirements and receive annual professional development and training. This ensures that they have the knowledge and skills to support student health. Everyone in the school can support a healthy school nutrition environment by:

• Marketing and promoting healthier foods and beverages.
• Encouraging participation in the school meal programs.
• Being a role model for healthy eating behaviors.
• Ensuring that students have access to free drinking water throughout the school day.

Studies show that healthy eating is linked to improved learning outcomes and helps ensure that students can reach their potential.

Employee wellness

Schools are not only places of learning, but they are also worksites. Fostering school employees’ physical and mental health protects school staff. In addition, it helps support students’ health and academic success. Healthy employees—teachers, administrators, bus drivers, cafeteria and custodial staff, and contractors—are more productive and less likely to be absent. They serve as powerful role models for students and may increase their attention to students’ health. Schools can create work environments that:

• Support healthy eating.
• Adopt active lifestyles.
• Are tobacco free.
• Manage stress.
• Avoid injury and exposure to hazards (such as mold, asbestos).

A comprehensive school employee wellness approach is a coordinated set of programs, policies, benefits, and environmental supports. This wellness approach is designed to address multiple risk factors (lack of physical activity, tobacco use) and health conditions (diabetes, depression). As a result, this wellness approach can meet the health and safety needs of all employees.

Partnerships between school districts and their health insurance providers can help offer resources, including personalized health assessments and flu vaccinations. In addition, employee wellness programs and healthy work environments can improve a district’s bottom line. This is achieved by decreasing employee health insurance premiums and reducing employee turnover.

Social and emotional climate

Social and emotional climate refers to the psychosocial aspects of students’ educational experience, which influence students' social and emotional development. A school's social and emotional climate can affect a student's:

• Engagement in school activities.
• Relationships with other students, staff, family, and community.
• Academic performance.

A positive social and emotional climate is conducive to effective teaching and learning. Such climates promote health, growth, and development by providing a safe and supportive learning environment.

Physical environment

A healthy and safe physical school environment promotes learning by ensuring the health and safety of students and staff. The physical school environment includes the school building and its contents, the land on which the school is located, and the area surrounding it. A healthy school environment:

• Addresses a school’s physical condition during normal operation and during renovation—such as ventilation, moisture, temperature, noise, natural and artificial lighting.
• Protects occupants from physical threats—such crime, violence, traffic, and injuries.
• Protects occupants from biological and chemical agents:
  • In the air, water, or soil—such as pollution or mold.
  • Brought into the school—such as hazardous materials, pesticides, and cleaning agents.

Health services

School health services intervene with actual and potential health problems. Examples include: offering first aid; doing emergency care and assessment; and planning to manage chronic conditions (such as asthma, diabetes). Health services also include wellness promotion, preventive services, and student and parent education. Such services are also designed to ensure access and referrals to health care providers.

Health services connect many people—school staff, students, families, community, and health care providers—to promote students' health, and a healthy, safe school environment. School health services work with school and community support services to increase students' and families' ability to:

• Adapt to health and social stressors, such as chronic health conditions.
• Overcome social and economic barriers to health.
• Manage these stressors and advocate for their own health and learning needs.

Also involved are professionals providing health services: school nurses, nurse practitioners, dentists, health educators, physicians, physician assistants, and allied health personnel.

Counseling, psychological, and social services

These prevention and intervention services support the mental, behavioral, and social-emotional health of students and assist in the learning process. Services include:

• Psychological, psychoeducational, and psychosocial assessments.
• Direct and indirect interventions—such as individual or group counseling and consultation—to address psychological, academic, and social barriers to learning.
• Referrals to school and community support services as needed.

Also important are systems-level assessment, prevention, intervention, and program design—by school-employed mental health professionals. Among these professionals may be certified school counselors, school psychologists, and school social workers. Their efforts contribute to the mental and behavioral health of students as well as to the health of the school environment. Mental health professionals might offer: resource identification and needs assessments; school-community-family collaboration; and ongoing school safety and crisis response efforts.

School-employed professionals can also provide skilled consultation with other school staff, and community resources and providers. School-employed mental health professionals ensure that:

• Their in-school services reinforce learning.
• Interventions from community providers align with the school environment.

Community involvement

Community groups, organizations, and local businesses partner with schools, share resources, and volunteer to support student learning, development, and health-related activities. The school, its students, and their families benefit when leaders and staff at the district or school solicit and coordinate community-provided information, resources, and services. These community-based organizations may include businesses, cultural and civic organizations, social service agencies, faith-based organizations, health clinics, colleges and universities, etc. In turn, schools, students, and their families can contribute to the community through:

• Service-learning opportunities.
• Sharing school facilities with community members (perhaps school-based community health centers and fitness facilities).

Family engagement

Families and school staff work together to support and improve students' learning, development, and health. School staff are committed to making families feel welcomed, engaging families in a variety of meaningful ways, and sustaining family involvement. This relationship between school staff and families cuts across and reinforces student health and learning in multiple settings—home, school, out-of-school programs, and the community. Family engagement should be an ongoing commitment, extending for the entirety of a child’s life.

Physical education and physical activity

Schools can create an environment that offers many opportunities for students to be physically active throughout the school day. A comprehensive school physical activity program (CSPAP) is the national framework for physical education and youth physical activity. A CSPAP coordinates five components: physical education, physical activity during school, physical activity before and after school, staff involvement, and family and community engagement.

Physical education serves as the foundation of a CSPAP. Physical education as an academic subject is a planned, sequential K–12 curriculum based on the national standards for physical education. Physical education is designed to develop motor skills, knowledge, and behaviors—supporting healthy living, physical fitness, sportsmanship, self-efficacy, and emotional intelligence.

A well-designed physical education program provides options for students to:

• Learn key concepts.
• Practice critical skills needed to establish and maintain physically active lifestyles during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

Teachers should be certified or licensed, as well as endorsed by the state to teach physical education.