Implementing the School Health Index in Elementary Schools Utilizing College of Charleston Health Promotion Class
Goals/Objectives/ Target Audience:
Our goal for this project became two-fold. The first goal was to bring the concept of Coordinated School Health into the Charleston County School District and the second goal was to provide hands on lesson in Health Promotion to the College of Charleston students.
Our objectives were to:
- Identify site coordinators for 4 elementary schools
- Assemble a Health Team at each site
- Complete all 8 modules of the CDC’s School Health Index
- Develop an improvement plan for each site, based on identified strengths and weaknesses
- Implement each site’s improvement plan
Our target audience for the improvement plan will ultimately be the students in each school but will also include faculty, staff, parents and community members since a Coordinated School Health program includes all of these participants.
Collaboration with the Community:
At this time the collaboration includes the Region 7 Public Health Office, Charleston County School District and the College of Charleston. Each school is unique in the organization of their Health Teams. One school has included parents and one school has included a Mental Health Worker. Eventually, all of the sites will be collaborating with the community according to the resources needed to implement their improvement plans. In the beginning the Charleston Medical Society had been part of the collaboration, however, due to time constraints, the physicians were unable to be part of the Health Teams. Plans are to include them in the planning and implementation stages.
Summary of Project/Activity and Potential Impact:
Jennings Austin, Team Associate for Charleston County School District approached the principals of Dunston, Ladson, Minnie Hughes, and Midland Park Elementary Schools as to their willingness to be participants in the SHI. All agreed and with Jennings, identified the site coordinators. Dr. Deborah Miller with the College of Charleston, assigned the implementation of the SHI to her Health Promotion Class as their term project. Debbie Cockrell, Health Educator, gave an overview of the SHI to the class, students were divided into four teams and assigned modules to complete. Students and site coordinators met together for a brief introduction and overview of the process. Students’ responsibilities were to meet with the School Health Teams, complete the modules, complete the overall scorecard to identify strengths and weaknesses and meet with the Teams to devise an Improvement Plan.
Students are to use their expertise and knowledge of resources in the development of the Improvement Plan. Schools are to plan to begin the implementation of the improvement plan in the fall and to continue to meet as a team.
If successful, Dr. Miller has expressed an interest to expand to more schools in spring of 2004. Some of the other district schools are showing an interest in the project. Jennings and Debbie will plan a workshop in the fall to introduce the project to potential school sites. The ultimate goal is to have every school in Charleston County complete the SHI and work towards having a true Coordinated School Health approach. Theoretically, we should see an overall improvement in children’s health (increased physical activity, better nutrition habits, less obesity, etc.) and an increase in standardized test scores in those schools participating in the project.
Challenges/Lessons Learned:
Time constraints, have been the greatest challenge. Teachers in the classrooms are overwhelmed with additional documentation requirements to fulfill the academic challenges/requirements of the “No Child Left Behind Act” and the School Report Card. While the importance of health is acknowledged within the school system, a project such as SHI and Coordinated School Health becomes one more thing added to their long list of “things to do.” Since the School Report Card does not include Health and there are no health-specific questions on the PACT exam, a Coordinated School Health Project becomes a lesser or non-priority. Pulling together a team of interested persons and organizing meetings around everyone’s schedules is an overwhelming task.
Ideally, if we continue with this project, there will be a workshop in the fall to inform interested schools of the project. This would give them time to identify participants for their Health Teams. Using previously established groups, such as PTA committees or the School Improvement Councils, that already meet regularly may simplify this process.
Simplify, simplify, simplify is the greatest lesson learned. The SHI is bulky and overwhelming when first presented. It seems like an enormous amount of work when it really should only take, at most, 5 hours to complete in entirety. However, one must read through the entire manual before realizing the simplicity. Presentation to potential participants should be kept as simple as possible. Sharing only the bare necessities with the schools would build confidence in their abilities to complete the SHI and would provide for greater “buy-in.”
Flexibility in completion of the modules provides greater success. The current participating schools have used creative ways to complete the modules. Ideally, completion of the modules in groups will allow for greater accuracy, but pooling individual ratings should provide enough evidence to determine strengths and weaknesses. It may be helpful to the schools to determine which modules really need to be completed by a group (such as the one on policies) and which ones could be competently completed by an individual. This would reduce the amount of time spent in meetings and could move them closer to the development of the improvement plan.
Other challenges will surely be revealed at the end of this pilot period.
Evaluation Methods:
Evaluation of the project will be to monitor the progress of the Improvement Plan as recommended in the School Health Index Planning Guide. The teams should have some short term and long term goals, create a timeline and set implementation milestones either monthly or quarterly. Each team will develop their own mechanism for reporting progress and the Team Associate for Health at the School District will plan to meet with teams on a regular basis. Schools will be encouraged to complete an assessment annually and measure progress and accomplishments of the previous year.
Additionally, comparison of students’ test scores from year to year may provide a level of evaluation. Certainly the SHI cannot be held solely responsible for any improvement in scores, but could be listed as a contributing factor.
Contact Person:
Debbie Cockrell, Health Educator
Region 7 Public Health Office
843-720-2998