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 Goals for Other School-Based Activities

Setting Goals for Other School-Based Activities
Designed to Promote Student Wellness

The goal is to create a total school environment that is conducive to healthy eating and being physically active.

The following are examples of policy language for school districts to consider while drafting policy for Other School-Based Activities. They are adapted from the USDA's Changing the Scene and the National Association of School Boards of Education's Fit, Healthy and Ready to Learn. Each can be used as an item in a wellness policy or to help you as you think about policy language for developing your own policy. Feel free to expand them or make them more specific, quantifiable, and/or stringent to meet your district's needs.

Sample Policy Language

- Dining Environment

• The school district provides a clean, safe, enjoyable meal environment for students.
• The school district provides enough space and serving areas to ensure all students have access to school meals with minimum wait time.
• The school district makes drinking fountains available in all schools, so that students can get water at meals and throughout the day.
• The school district encourages all students participate in school meals program and protect the identity of students who eat free and reduced price meals.

- Time to Eat

• The school district will ensure an adequate time for students to enjoy eating healthy foods with friends in schools.
• The school district will schedule lunch time as near the middle of the school day as possible.
• The school district will schedule recess for elementary schools before lunch so that children will come to lunch less distracted and ready to eat.

- Food or Physical Activity as a Reward or Punishment

• The school district will prohibit the use of food as a reward or punishment in schools.
• The school district will not deny student participation in recess or other physical activities as a form of discipline or for classroom make-up time.

- Consistent School Activities and Environment

• The school district will ensure that all schools' fundraising efforts are supportive of healthy eating.
• The school district will provide opportunities for on-going professional training and development for foodservice staff and teachers in the areas of nutrition and physical education.
• The school district will make efforts to keep school or district-owned physical activity facilities open for use by students outside school hours.
• The school district encourages parents, teachers, school administrators, students, foodservice professionals, and community members to serve as role models in practicing healthy eating and being physically active, both in school and at home.
• The school district encourages and provides opportunities for students, teachers, and community volunteers to practice health eating and serve as role models in school dining areas.
• The school district will provide information and outreach materials about other FNS programs such as Food Stamps, and Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to students and parents.
• The school district encourages all students to participate in school meals program, i.e. the National School Lunch, including snacks for After School Program, and School Breakfast programs.

Examples of Existing State and School District Policies
Regarding School-Based Activities

• The School District of Marshfield in Wisconsin [PDF] has policies in place to address school-based activities that support nutrition and physical activities.

More examples of policies will be posted as we identify them.

Resources and Implementation Tools

The following links are resources, programs, and curricula related to other school-based activities.

- Resources from Government Agencies

USDA

• Team Nutrition's Making it Happen: School Nutrition Success Stories, a joint publication released by USDA's Team Nutrition and CDC, shares innovative changes that have improved the nutritional quality of all foods and beverages offered on school campuses. The stories offer a variety of approaches from 32 schools and districts.

• Changing the Scene: Improving the School Nutrition Environment is designed to assist parents, school administrators, teachers, school foodservice employees, and other concerned members of the community examine their school's nutrition environment, develop a plan for improvement, and put the plan into action.

  CDC
  

• Comprehensive Health Education provides a brief description of the CDC's 8 components of comprehensive health education.

• The CDC provides information on exemplary student health programs. Extensive resources, implementation tools, projects that work, and scientific background are available on HIV Prevention and Tobacco Prevention programs.

• Improving the Health of Adolescents & Young Adults: A Guide for States and Communities, published by the CDC, gives background information on a range of health issues, along with strategies for improving the health of adolescents and young adults.

  The Department of Education
  

• The Department of Education maintains a listing of exemplary programs and educational activities to promote drug-free schools.