Course Goals

(As provided by American University course HLTH 525 Health in the School Environment)

• Examine the health and nutritional issues among K-12 and college students, and the role that schools play in either promoting or hindering good health among students.

• Explain the concept of health equity and be able to describe the role that the social determinants of health play in health and academic outcomes.

• Summarize the role of academic standards and standardized assessments in guiding what is taught in K-12.

• Examine school health policies and describe the various levels of policy (federal, state, district) that impact the school health environment.

• Identify the components of a healthy school and analyze programmatic strategies to improve school health environments.

 

Artifact

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Interview With an Expert

 

 

Local School Wellness Policy

 

 

 

Reflection

Here are three questions our professor wanted us to think about as we wrote our course reflection: 1. How might this course impact your future career goals?, 2. What are your biggest takeaways?  and 3. In what ways will you apply the lessons you have learned?

After having completed this course, I have a deeper understanding of how very difficult it is to advocate for strong policy and that it takes time, a lot of time, patience and resilience.  I do not have a background in policy, or anything politically based for that matter, so navigating through portions of the course challenged me but as time went on the pieces started to go together more easily.

Being a teacher helped to put many things into perspective as to how programs are implemented in the schools themselves and the chain of command that follows.  The local wellness policy that I reviewed for my county and the model provided form the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, gave me assurance that the county has a lot more in place than I expected. I am eager, when I can go back to work, to use many of the tools to evaluate the wellness team and the initiatives in my school and improve upon what we have in place to provide an environment that supports all faculty and students nutrition and well-being, promoting great success school-wide, possibly taking me outside of the classroom to provide support and training in the area of wellness policy.

Like with most things in education, we are given things to do with no real explanation as to why we are doing them, we do them because we want to support what is beneficial for our students.   I feel that more communication and collaboration between ALL stakeholders would allow for more investment in programs actively moving forward.