1. The Whole School Whole Community Whole Child Model: New Opportunities to Promote Health and Learning
Sarah Sliwa, PhD.
Health Scientist, School Health Branch
Division of Population Health
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Division of Population Health | School Health Branch

2. Whole School
Whole Community
Whole Child

3. WSCC and Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)
New block grant provides formula funding to states: Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants (SSAEG) (Title IV)
Focus on “well-rounded” education, includes health education and physical education
Needs assessment required for districts allocated >$30K.
Districts required to allocate 20% of Title IV funds to programs that support safe and healthy students (mental health, health services, nutrition, physical education, bullying, crisis management, and others.)
Requires state-developed accountability systems that include a nonacademic indicator.
* Many of you may be familiar with the “Core subjects” phrasing. In ESSA, the focus is on a “well-rounded” education. This broadening is exciting as health education and physical education are conceptualized as pieces of a well rounded education

4. ESSA: Safe and healthy students includes nutrition
Framework for a well-rounded education:
Whole School
Whole Community
Whole Child
ESSA: Promote PE/PA
ESSA: Promote the involvement of parents in the activity or program
ESSA: Safe and healthy students includes nutrition
The Whole School Whole Commty, WC model focuses additional attention on the effect of the Social and Emotional Climate in addition to the Physical Environment. Family and community involvement is divided into two separate components to emphasize the role of community agencies, businesses, and organizations as well as the critical role of Family Engagement. This change marks the need for greater emphasis on both the psychosocial and physical environments as well as the ever-expanding roles that community agencies and families must play. Finally, this new model also addresses the need to engage students as active participants in their learning and health.

5. Meet Needs Assessment Requirements: CDC’s School Health Index
ESSA Connection:
Needs Assessment for Districts Allocated > $30k
The School Health Team should assess current policies and practices. An assessment allows schools to identify science-based school health policies and determine strengths and weaknesses in school policies and practices related to nutrition, physical activity, and other important health topics.47,48
CDC’s School Health Index is a self-assessment and planning guide schools may use to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their health and safety policies and practices (
After the assessment is completed, schools can develop a plan for improving health and safety policies and practices.
Here is the link to the School Health Index (SHI). The tool is easy to use and completely confidential. The SHI has two activities that are to be completed by teams from your school: a self-assessment process and a planning for improvement process. The SHI is available for elementary schools and middle and high schools. The SHI is completed online through an interactive and customizable system.

6. Tools and Resources to Support the Nutrition Environment
The LWP Workgroup developed and disseminated a call for nominations which asked schools and districts to share steps for successful LWP development and implementation, community and school staff involvement, school demographics, challenges, and future plans. The LWP Workgroup worked with a number of school health professional organizations to disseminate the call for nominations to their members, and it also distributed the call for nominations to those schools that have received the USDA’s HealthierUS School Challenge Gold Award of Distinction.
Stories were collected between March 2012 and February The LWP Interagency Workgroup sought nominations that exhibited implementation success in different key areas of LWPs (e.g., school meals, physical activity). The LWP Interagency Workgroup also considered the school or district’s setting (urban, suburban, or rural) and percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price school meals to ensure a diverse collection of success stories. The information included in each story is self-reported and based on interviews with the key contact(s) from the school or district.
The resulting 11 stories focus on the steps taken to implement various aspects of the policy with special attention to how wellness activities are designed to accomplish specific LWP goals. They identify the key supporters, wellness champions, partners, and resources that led to successful LWP implementation. The success stories provide best practices that other schools and districts can duplicate and adapt when implementing their own LWP.
Common themes:
Importance of a wellness champion to kick start LWP development
School nurse / physician/superintendent
Development & implementation
Kick start
Positive momentum
Establishing wellness councils to guide LWP implementation, monitoring, and evaluation
District and school-level
Stakeholders
Leadership/accountability/infrastructure
Support for challenges
Partnerships with community organizations to provide additional resources and expertise
Resource challenges
Community organizations
Engaged community in active role
Incorporating parents and students into planning wellness goals and activities
Students: excited; active role; buy-in (taste tests)
Parents: increased acceptance and support; brought healthy strategies home
A need for more quantitative evaluation and monitoring of wellness policy goals
Have anecdotal and qualitative evidence
Lack of quantitative evidence
Need to demonstrate results
Need TA on monitoring/evaluation
Id success and need for improvement

7. Tools to Promote Physical Education and Physical Activity
While CDC recommends daily PE as the cornerstone for a CSPAP, not the opportunities for PA are throughout the school day. PA is important not only for student fitness and health but a
close look at the evidence shows specific physical activity practices are linked to different aspects of academic achievement.
Students who are physically active tend to have better grades, school attendance, cognitive performance (e.g., memory), and classroom behaviors (e.g., on-task behavior).
Higher physical activity and physical fitness levels are associated with improved cognitive performance (e.g., concentration and memory) among students.34-39
More participation in physical education class has been associated with better grades, standardized test scores, and classroom behavior (e.g., on-task behavior) among students.
Time spent in recess has been shown to positively affect students’ cognitive performance (e.g., attention, concentration) and classroom behaviors (e.g., not misbehaving).
Brief classroom physical activity breaks (i.e., 5-10 minutes) are associated with improved cognitive performance (e.g., attention and concentration), classroom behavior (e.g., on-task behavior), and educational outcomes (e.g., standardized test scores, reading literacy scores, math fluency scores) among students.32,49-54
Participation in extracurricular physical activities such as interscholastic sports has been associated with higher GPAs, lower drop-out rates, and fewer disciplinary problems among students.
Elementary school: daily recess period
Physical activity throughout the school day
Extra-curricular physical activity programs
Inclusive, intramural programs and physical activity clubs
High school: Interscholastic athletics
Walk/bike to school program (“safe routes”)
Staff wellness program

8. Parents for Healthy Schools
NARRATIVE:
Welcome! This presentation shares why schools are an important place to support the health of students, highlights what is currently happening in schools, and explains best practices and actions that parents can advocate for and do, respectively, to improve the school health environment and support healthy and successful students. Although there are many aspects of a healthy school environment, this presentation focuses on school nutrition, physical activity, and managing chronic health conditions. These three areas are particularly important because of the effect they have on the health of students now and throughout their lives. We want students to eat healthy, be active, and take care of their health by getting the health care they need. Parents can help schools identify and implement concrete practices that will help students make the healthy choice at home and in school.
NOTES FOR PRESENTER:
Presenters can personalize this presentation by adding local policy and activity references to the slides, where appropriate. Places for personalization will also be noted in the “NOTES FOR PRESENTER” section. Depending on audience interaction and questions, allow 15 to 20 minutes to present the information provided in this presentation.

9. Use Data to Support Decision-making: CDC School-based Surveillance Systems
The CDC has three school-based surveillance systems that provide different layers of information about policies, practices, and student behavior.
The School Health Policies and Practices Study includes elementary, middle, and high schools and is nationally representative. The viewpoint changes between years. In 2012 it was a the district level.
2014 SHPPS offers a nationally representative view of practices and policies at the school level.
School Health Profiles focuses on data from secondary schools and is representative at the state level . Profiles also includes data that is representative of specific large urban school districts.
Profiles runs on even years.
The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System presents data about individual level behavior. This includes national, state, and large urban school district data.
The YRBS runs on odd years. The 2015 YRBS data will be released in early Summer.
Elementary, middle, and high schools
National data
Secondary schools
State and large urban school district data
High school students
National, state, and large urban school district data