1. Office of Healthy Schools Vicky Lacey, Retired Teacher
FITNESSGRAM
Rick Deem, Coordinator
Office of Healthy Schools
WVDE
Vicky Lacey, Retired Teacher
Wood County Schools

2. House Bill 2816
The State Board shall prescribe a standardized health education assessment to be administered within health education classes to measure student health knowledge and program effectiveness.

3. Policy 2520.5: Next Generation Health Education 5-12
Content Standards and Objectives
Note 1: In accordance with West Virginia Code §18-2-9, the West Virginia Department of Education shall provide a standardized health education assessment to be administered in sixth grade health education classes in order to measure student health knowledge and program effectiveness.
Note 1: In accordance with West Virginia Code §18-2-9, the West Virginia Department of Education shall provide a standardized health education assessment to be administered in eighth grade health education classes in order to measure student health knowledge and program effectiveness.
Note 1: In accordance with West Virginia Code §18-2-9, the West Virginia Department of Education shall provide a standardized health education assessment to be administered in high school health education classes in order to measure student health knowledge and program effectiveness.

4. Mission of the HEAP in West Virginia Schools
The Health Education Assessment Project has as its mission to improve student health literacy through improved health instruction. The HEAP is a consortium of education agencies comprised of program specialists from state departments of education, representatives from school districts and higher education, private sector consultants, and federal agencies.
Goals of the Health Education Assessment Project
Ensure that our nation’s children acquire the knowledge and skills they need to maintain and enhance health
Foster a standards-based system of health education that aligns curriculum, instruction, and assessment
Improve teaching and learning in health education
Ensuring Health Literacy
While it’s important for students to know health facts, it is essential that students acquire the skills they will need to handle real-life situations. In other words, students need to develop health literacy. That’s why the HEAP uses the National Health Education Standards (NHES), which emphasize skill acquisition, as one of the foundations for all its work. In skills-based health education, students learn how to obtain, interpret, and understand basic health information and services. Through practice, students also develop the competence to use such information in ways that enhance health. For example, not only do students learn that tobacco is the number one cause of preventable disease in the United States, they also learn how advertising tries to influence their behavior; how to handle peer pressure; how to set realistic, health-enhancing goals; and how to manage stress. In addition to the NHES, the HEAP resources address the adolescent risk factors identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and traditional health education topics for a comprehensive approach to sequential, age-appropriate health education.
Changing the Way Teachers Teach
Applying a “backward” approach to teaching, the HEAP helps teachers use assessment to inform instruction. When teachers understand that standards-based assessment provides the framework for delivering appropriate health curriculum and instruction, they can then continuously adjust and improve instruction to ensure students develop—and apply—the knowledge and skills most likely to lead to lifelong healthy behaviors.
Aligning the System
Education agencies are accountable for ensuring that students acquire the knowledge and skills set forth in educational standards. The assessment items the HEAP has developed provide a way for states, districts, and teachers to show that students have, indeed, acquired the knowledge and skills addressed in the NHES. In an aligned system of standards-based health education, standards, curriculum, instruction, and assessment fit together like the pieces of a puzzle and form the basis for continuous improvement. Moreover, the HEAP helps states comply with the requirements for accountability, high-quality teachers, and character education stipulated in the No Child Left Behind Act. The HEAP assessment system supports accountability by providing both the means to align curriculum and instruction with standards and the ability to gauge how well students are achieving set goals. The HEAP professional development resources and training activities help prepare highly qualified teachers by providing them with the tools and opportunities they need to develop their skills in standardsbased instruction and assessment. The skills taught in the NHES and supported by the HEAP promote character education by encouraging students to think critically, solve complex problems, and communicate effectively. The following graphic illustrates the steps to an accountable system of health education that is aligned with standards and promotes health literacy.
Providing Innovative Tools
The HEAP has developed a variety of innovative resources to enhance students’health literacy, to promote professional development in assessment, and to improve accountability at the state, district, and local levels. Chief among those tools is a pool of approximately 2,000 assessment items (questions or tasks) that are matched to the NHES. The HEAP assessment items underwent a rigorous development process and were pilot tested in approximately 1,600 elementary, middle school, and high school classrooms. Most of the HEAP assessment items are performance based. That is, performance-based assessment items elicit responses that demonstrate both what students know (health knowledge) and what students can do (health skills), as opposed to indicating the health facts students have retained. Participating education agencies use the HEAP assessment items in a variety of ways, such as:
Classroom Instruction and Assessment
District-based Assessment
Large-scale Assessment
Professional Development
Program Evaluation
Alignment of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
Examples of other HEAP resources include step-by-step guides to apply the NHES and align them with assessment, primers for scoring student work, classroom posters that describe scoring criteria in language students can easily understand, and indepth training activities on a range of health education assessment topics. A searchable database of the entire bank of assessment items allows instructors to create skills-based health education tests based on national standards.

5. Improve student health literacy through improved health instruction

6. Health Education begins with Assesment using the HEAP.
Skills-based Instruction and Assessment
Health Education begins with Assesment using the HEAP.

7. Examples of Questions taken from SCASS-HEAP
SCASS – State Collaborative on Assessment and Student Standards
CCSSO-SCASS’s test item bank that have been juried and tested to be valid was purchased by the WVDE in 2005
Health Concept: Alcohol and Other Drugs
Grade Level: Middle School
Health Concept: Nutrition
Grade Level: Middle School

8. HEAP Average Scores

9. HEAP History 2002-2003 - Initiated 1st Statewide HEAP
Paper/Pencil
Spring, Initiated HEAP Pilot Online
Office of Technology, Desire2Learn
December, May, 2007
August, June, 2011
TheSmartTrack.com
August, present
WVEIS

11. The Testing Procedure
1. Students will need to open the following website:
2. The User ID is: “HEAP” (upper or lower case)
3. The password is: “student” (lower case)
4. Click on “Sign In”
5. The next screen is District (county) selection

12. 6. Select the correct district from the list, then click “Submit”
7. The next screen is School selection

13. 8. Select the correct school from the list, then click “Submit”
9. Students need to enter their “9” digit WVEIS Identification Number, then click “Validate”
a. Students will only be able to access if they select the correct
county and school.
b. Students must use their “9” digit WVEIS number.
WESTERN GREENBRIER MIDDLE SCHOOL

14. Students will not be able to retake the HEAP.
10. If the WVEIS number is correct, the assessment will appear. Students need to follow instructions.
GREENBRIER COUNTY SCHOOLS
WESTERN GREENBRIER MIDDLE SCHOOL
Additional Notes:
Students will not be able to retake the HEAP.
Students will not be able to go back once they turn a page on the assessment.
If students do not finish, they may continue later but will only be permitted to complete those questions they have not answered. They will not be able to go back.
Teachers will be able to access student scores immediately. (see Teacher Reports instructions)

15. FitnessGram
Note: In accordance with W. Va. Code §18-2-7a, the FITNESSGRAM®
shall be administered to all students, grades 4-HS.

16. FitnessGram PSA

17. WV Standards

18. WV Standards

20. Office of Healthy Schools FitnessGram Page

21. That’s it. Any Questions? Healthy Schools Website
Rick Deem
Vicky Lacey