School Health Advisory Councils

Reinforcing the Connection between Health and Learning

There is mounting evidence that when schools take action to address the health needs of students, they can also meet performance goals and alleviate financial constraints.

District School Health Advisory Councils (SHACs) play an important role in communicating the connection between health and learning to school administrators, parents and community stakeholders.

As primary partners for establishing healthy behaviors in children, SHACs can help parents and community stakeholders reinforce knowledge and skills children need to be healthy for a lifetime.

The health of our children doesn’t depend on major medical breakthroughs, but on everyday practice of good health habits.

School District Health Advisory Councils

A SHAC is a group of individuals representing segments of the community, appointed by the school district to serve at the district level, to provide advice to the district on coordinated school health programming and its impact on student health and learning.

SHACs provide an efficient, effective structure for creating and implementing age-appropriate, sequential health education programs, and early intervention and prevention strategies that can easily be supported by local families and community stakeholders.

To find out if your school district has a SHAC and how you can help, contact the district’s main administrative office and schedule a time to meet with the staff person that has oversight for the SHAC.

The School Health Program of the Department of State Health Services produced this helpful School Health Advisory Councils Guide for Texas School Districts (237K, pdf) to help you get started as you build a successful SHAC. The guide has just been updated with the most current information available in support of your efforts to provide school health education and services through your district’s SHAC. Remember to contact your School Health Specialist as mentioned above to receive training to complement the information you will find in the guide.