Administrators

The magnitude of healthy change can be so much greater when it starts At the Top!
And it doesn’t require a significant time or money commitment!

The Surgeon General and many others call on schools and communities to recognize the health and educational benefits of healthy eating and the importance of making it a priority in every school.

The National School Boards Association (NASBE) states “Health and success in school are interrelated. Schools cannot achieve their primary mission of education if students and staff are not healthy and fit physically, mentally, and socially.”

Research shows that students who eat breakfast at school have increased standardized achievement test scores, improved attendance, reduced tardiness, and improved behavioral and emotional functioning.

Additional Benefits of Wellness
Maintaining a balanced budget, answering staff and community concerns, and ensuring that educational outcome standards are being met are so time consuming, that one might wonder just how there is time to add one more thing! However, the benefits of healthy change are significant and change can be created with small steps.

Taking the Challenge places your school in the position of being a leader in the field with making wellness policies actionable and with a focus on staff wellness comes improved staff morale and health care savings!

Wellness becomes more appealing to staff with support and increased opportunities. Health care cost savings is not the only benefit of staff wellness.
>> Staff members who practice healthy choices become good role models for students.
>> Participation in wellness programs gives staff an opportunity to support and encourage     each other.

Take the Challenge Tips – Getting Started
Small steps can still make a huge difference! Create awareness by setting a good example:

• Incorporate healthy messages and movement in staff meetings, at school board meetings, and within the community.
  Provide a “stretch break” and/or healthy snack options at meetings to show support without a significant investment in time or money.
  
• Model healthy choices.
  Showing by example is simple and effective. Spending time with kids talking about healthy choices can be done in the school cafeteria, the classroom, or any time!
  Show support. Support staff with words of encouragement.
  
• Recognize, reward, and celebrate the changes staff members are making.
  Motivating people to take actions themselves is a very important role! A flattering word about the school meal program, classroom activities, or physical education makes a huge difference.
  
• Model healthy choices
  Initiate a Walk with the Principal. Model a physically active lifestyle and show student support by walking together at recess, sharing ideas, and listening to needs. As one principal stated,“I find out more this way in a few minutes than in all the formal meetings held all year!”
  
• Plan staff inservices and meetings that include a demonstration of a simple classroom idea staff can use.
  If you have a teacher who is integrating healthy eating messages and/or physical movement in the classroom, invite them to make a presentation!
  
• Make material resources available for staff.
  Provide information to teachers about the benefits of healthy eating and classroom movement along with ideas that don’t require taking time from core subjects. Apply outcome standards to learning activities to increase their use.
  
• Review, discuss, and revise school policies that relate to healthy eating and physical activity practices.
  • Written or “unwritten” polices are a way to ensure that changes are sustained.
  • Healthy options don’t have to mean a huge departure from tradition.
  • Involving kids with others in decision making increases acceptance! Policies regarding vending machines, “competitive foods”, classroom snacks, and the amount of time spent for meals and PE all play a role in creating opportunities for healthy choices.
    
• Provide support and opportunities to enhance the school meal program.
  • Support ranges from helping to create a pleasant, bright, and colorful eating environment where kids don’t have to wait in line too long, to making equipment purchases possible to prepare healthy foods.
  • Let everyone hear about school meal program guidelines for menu planning.
  • To dispel misconceptions, invite the food service director to share meals guidelines at a staff meeting.
  • Give support to purchase equipment or work with different food budgets. When investments result in more students eating healthy meals everyone wins in the areas of health and finances!

Take the Challenge to bring healthy actions to life. In doing so, kids win, staff wins, and you win!