Policy and Communication Resources
School Health Policy
Policies—including laws, mandates, regulations, standards, resolutions,
and guidelines—provide a foundation for school district practices and
procedures. Sound policies reassure families, students, and school staff;
provide legal protection for schools; and support and direct individuals
throughout the school system. Well-drafted and administered policies can
also help contain or prevent controversy.
CDC and its funded partners provide information, tools, and resources to
support school policy and program development, implementation, and
evaluation.
Federal Resources
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of
Adolescent and School Health (DASH)
Local
Wellness Policies Tools and Resources site provides links to both
federal and non-federal resources on developing, implementing, and
evaluating local wellness policies.
The February 2008 issue of the Journal of School Health, "A
CDC Review of School Laws and Policies Concerning Child and Adolescent
Health,"* gives educators and public health professionals new access to
information on laws and policies important to the health of children and
adolescents in schools. It is intended to help practitioners and
policymakers in public health and education at the federal, state, and local
levels enhance their knowledge of relevant laws and policies.
CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity provides a
searchable database of state legislation related to nutrition and physical
activity topics. The
Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity Legislative Database allows
users to search for topics including food service, marketing, and safe
routes to school.
The Team
Nutrition: Local Wellness Policy clearinghouse created by U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA), in collaboration with CDC, contains
reference materials to assist school districts with developing local
wellness policies for physical activity and nutrition, tools and resources
for implementation, and un-reviewed sample policies.
The asthma policy page,
sponsored by the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health, features
links to many federal and state government agencies as well as nonprofit
organizations, commissions, and networks involved in policy issues such as
pending legislation and children’s rights at school.
CDC’s Office of Smoking and Health hosts the
State Tobacco Activities
Tracking and Evaluation Systems, an electronic data warehouse containing
up-to-date and historical state-level data on tobacco use prevention and
control. The site allows user to generate reports for a particular state, to
compare states, or to look at trends over time.
Select Federal Legislation
The Child Nutrition
and Women Infants and Children (WIC) Reauthorization Act of 2004 (Sec. 204
of P.L. 108-205) [PDF – 240K] required that all local education agencies
participating in the National School Lunch Program create local wellness
policies no later than June 2006. In response to this mandate, both federal
and nonfederal agencies have responded with
tools
and resources for schools to assist with developing local wellness
policies.
The No Child Left Behind Act
of 2001 (NCLB) reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
and is the authorizing legislation for Title I, under which federal funding
is provided to states to help disadvantaged children achieve academic
success. The focus of NCLB is on providing increased accountability for
states, school districts, and schools; greater choice for parents and
students; and a stronger emphasis on reading.
The
Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA)
aligns closely to the No Child Left Behind Act, helping to ensure equity,
accountability, and excellence in education for children with disabilities.
Non-Federal Resources*
The National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) provides a
State-Level School Health Policies Database that allows users to search
state education laws and practices on issues such as staff education
requirements, crisis management and emergency response, and curriculum and
instruction. The database also provides access to federal laws.
NASBE’s Fit, Healthy, and Ready to Learn: A School Health Policy Guide
provides direction to states, school districts, and individual schools on
establishing an overall policy framework for school health programs. Topics
covered in the series include but are not limited to: tobacco-use
prevention, asthma management, physical activity, health eating, preventing
skin cancer, and creating a healthy school environment. These chapters,
along with other NASBE publications, are available from the
Policy Guides page of the NASBE website.
Also available from NASBE,
Someone at School has AIDS: A Complete Guide to Education Policies
Concerning HIV Infection offers guidance on developing policies that
address important issues related to HIV/AIDS in schools.
The Council of State Governments’
Healthy States Initiative’s School Health page provides resources
targeted to state elected and appointed officials. Topics include but are
not limited to: alcohol and other drug use, injury and violence, smoking,
physical activity and nutrition, and sexual behaviors that contribute to
unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
The National Conference of State Legislatures, an organization serving
state legislators and their staff, provides some resources on their
Youth website. In
addition to adolescent health, the site also provides links to information
on youth violence, teen pregnancy, and juvenile justice programs.
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Links to non-Federal organizations are provided solely as a service to our users. Links do not constitute an endorsement of any organization by CDC or the Federal Government, and none should be inferred. The CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization Web pages found at this link.
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