Executive Summary for K-12 Health

Mission

Easton, Redding, and Region 9 students will understand the behaviors that constitute a healthy life-style in order to lead healthy lives physically, emotionally, and socially.

Purpose of Health Curriculum 

Coordinated school health programs represent one effective way of providing students with the knowledge and skills to prevent health-impairing behaviors. Schools have at least a two-fold role to play in promoting the health of students.  First, schools have an obligation to be sure that their students have the basic health status that will enable them to learn.  Second, schools can help to improve health status by providing the skills and knowledge students need to participate fully in society. The foundation for improving the environment of the school is the recognition that the health of all those learning and working at the school is vital to the educational process. 

Here are the components of a coordinated health education program:

Safe and Healthy School Environment

Building and grounds that are well maintained, space that is well designed and optimally used, and policies that support environments that are safe and aesthetically pleasing enhance learning.

Health Promotion for Staff

All adults working with students are encouraged to pursue a healthy lifestyle and participate in voluntary health assessments, educational opportunities, and supportive or fitness related activities.

Parent and Community Involvement

Parents, teachers, and other school staff work with community members and community-based organizations for the well being of the child.

Nutritional Services

Students are provided with nutritionally balanced meals prepared according to United States dietary guidelines for foods that are high in fiber and low in salt, sugar, and fat.

Counseling and Psychological Services

Counselors and psychologist work in partnership with other school and community personnel to respond to student mental-emotional needs.

Health Education *

Students learn to maintain and improve their own wellness through instruction to develop life-long skills to promote health, prevent disease, and reduce risk.  In addition, students develop self-esteem, strengthen their social and communication skills, and learn positive decision making techniques.

Physical Education

Programs include six board goals: physical activity, fitness and wellness, movement skills and knowledge, social development and interaction, self-image and self-realization, and individual excellence.

Health Services

These services include preventive services, education, emergency care, referrals, and management of acute and chronic health conditions designed to promote the health of students, identify and prevent health problems and injuries, and ensure care for students.

* The ER9 Health Curriculum provides this component of a coordinated school program.

The research in the field of health supports the premise that the healthy child is more likely to be academically motivated, alert, and successful in school and more likely to establish habits of behavior that will foster good health throughout life, thereby enhancing the quality of life.

Health behaviors, the most important predictors of current and future health status, are influenced by a variety of factors that include awareness and knowledge of health issues, skills necessary to develop healthy behaviors, and opportunities to practice behaviors.  Because health behaviors are learned, they can be shaped and changed.  Changing human behavior involves sustaining and repeating an intelligent message, reinforcing it through peer pressure and approval, and establishing clearly perceived rewards that materialize in a timely fashion.

Schools are vital sources for public health; ideally, students will graduate into adult roles as productive members of society.  A safe and healthy school environment is an essential ingredient in making it possible for schools to fulfill their roles as contributors to the nation’s health.

Approach

Many attempts to address challenges and health issues of today’s children and youth have been fragmented, uncoordinated, and driven by problem-specific legislation and regulations at the federal, state, and local levels (Fetro, 1998). The schools responded to the health problems thrust upon them by crisis school planning and crisis curriculum development.  Frequently, the result is the purchase or development of a package of lessons and related classroom materials that are injected into an already crowded curriculum. The results are that students never have the benefit of sustained learning for reducing health-risk behaviors and enhancing health-promoting behaviors.

Those schools that had in place a K-12 health curriculum traditionally organized the curriculum around broad content areas.  The content areas included personal health, family health, community health, environmental health, injury prevention and safety, human growth and development/sexuality, mental and emotional health, nutrition, prevention and control of disease, and prevention of substance use and abuse. This type of curriculum typically contained independent instructional units, addressing one of the big content areas. A disadvantage with this approach is that the curriculum is based on knowledge and little emphasis is placed on process or skill development.  Research has shown that knowledge alone is not sufficient for adolescents to make healthy choices. The current knowledge base is growing so rapidly that schools cannot cover all aspects of it. Preventive efforts that use comprehensive approaches involving multiple issues may be more effective than traditional single-issue, single-focus approaches (U.S. Congress, 1991).

The ER9 Health Curriculum Committee has focused its curriculum work on three areas:  health promotion (overall purpose), disease prevention (source of much of the content), and wellness (skills that lead to healthy choices and behaviors).  What does each of these terms mean?

Health promotion is a broader term than health education. Green, Kreuter, Deeds, and Partridge’s (1980, p.7) definition of health promotion is "the combination of educational and environmental supports for actions and conditions of living conducive to health." Health education is clearly an important attribute of health promotion and it is one of the components of a coordinated school health program.

Disease prevention is a health-protecting behavior that uses a defensive posture to prevent specific illnesses/ diseases or their sequence that may threaten the health and longevity of the individual. This approach to health is based on the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) six categories of risk- taking behaviors: behaviors that lead to intentional and unintentional injuries; smoking; alcohol and other drug use; sexual behaviors leading to sexually transmitted diseases, HIV infection, and unintended pregnancy; poor nutrition; and lack of physical activity.

Wellness has been defined as an approach to personal health that emphasizes individual responsibility for maintaining good health through the practice of health-promoting lifestyle behavior (Edlin, Golanty, & Brown, 1999).  Wellness also means engaging in attitudes and behaviors that enhance quality of life and maximize personal potential (Anspaugh, Hamrick, & Rosato, 1991).

Wellness is multidimensional, involving the whole person’s relation to the total environment.  Wellness emphasizes the need to take responsibility for engaging in behaviors that develop optimal health.  Health is affected by human behavior, and the responsibility for engaging in health-promoting behavior rests with each individual.  The dynamic on-going process of wellness requires daily decision-making in the areas of nutrition, stress management, physical fitness, preventive health care, emotional health, and other aspects. 

Guiding Principles

In designing this curriculum the committee examined the recent changes in how health curriculum is taught. Research has identified that well-designed health curriculum can positively affect a student's health related behaviors (Lohrmann, Wooley, 1998). The following curricular principles support the research and represent the committee's beliefs on what constitutes an effective health curriculum:

Ø      Include core concepts that are developmentally appropriate

Ø      Introduce content and skills in the early grades and reinforce them in later grades

Ø      Provide students an opportunity to model and practice essential health skills

Ø      Integrate content and skills into other subject areas

Ø      Strengthen individual values and group norms that support health-enhancing behaviors

Ø      Address social or media influences on behavior

Ø      Use interactive activities that actively engage students

Ø      Provide sufficient time to allow students to gain the needed knowledge and skill

Ø      Implement content, activities and assessments that are research-based and theory-driven

Standards

A comprehensive curriculum based on the concepts of disease prevention and wellness behaviors caused the K-12 Health Committee's decision to adopt the National Health Standards (See Section III of this document) instead of the Connecticut Department of Education's Health Standards.  The Connecticut Trace Map for Health provides more detailed information by grade level.  The Connecticut State Department of Education's Health and Safety Education Curriculum Framework (See Appendix C) is organized around the CDC's six categories of risk-taking behaviors and is a disease prevention curriculum.  The National Health Education standards provide a useful model for integrating the traditional health content areas with the CDC priority youth risk behaviors into the first of the seven national standards. The other six standards are important health skills. The relationship among knowledge, skills and behavior has important implications for education and attitudes about health.  Instruction must be concerned not only with knowledge, but also with skills and behaviors that lead to the development of healthy attitudes (Kane1993).

The national standards were also developed to support the coordinated school health model. The seven standards can be used to link the efforts of the student, the family, the school, and the community to focus on behaviors that interfere with health and learning.

In addition, the committee recognizes that there are certain foundational skills that are reinforced in all curriculum areas that are essential to the student’s interaction with the health curriculum.  They are:

Critical Thinker and Problem Solver

Health literate individuals are critical thinkers and problem solvers who identify and creatively address health problems and issues at multiple levels, ranging from personal to international.  They utilize a variety of sources to access the current, credible, and applicable information required to make sound health-related decisions.  Furthermore, they understand and apply principles of creative thinking along with models of decision making and goal setting in a health promotion context.

Responsible, Productive Citizen

Health-literate individuals are responsible, productive citizens who recognize their obligation to ensure that their community is kept healthy, safe, and secure so that all citizens can experience a high quality of life.  They also recognize that this obligation begins with self.  That is, they are responsible individuals who avoid behaviors that pose a health or safety threat to themselves and/or others or create an undue burden on society. Finally, they apply democratic and organizational principles in collaboration with others to maintain and improve individual, family, and community health.

Self-Directed Learner

Health-literate individuals are self-directed learners who have a command of the dynamic health promotion and disease prevention knowledge base.  They use literacy, numerical skills, and critical thinking skills to gather, analyze, and apply health information as their needs and priorities change throughout life.  They also apply interpersonal and social skills in relationships to learn about and from others and, as a consequence, grow and mature toward high-level health status.

Effective Communicator

Health-literate individuals are effective communicators who organize and convey beliefs, ideas, and information about health through oral, written, artistic, graphic, and technologic mediums.  They create a climate of understanding and concern for others by listening carefully, responding thoughtfully, and presenting a supportive demeanor that encourages others to express themselves. They conscientiously advocate for positions, policies, and programs that are in the best interest of society and intended to enhance personal, family, and community health.

The seven national standards used in a complementary capacity with the foundational skills described above provide a comprehensive set of expectations that challenge all students to become healthy individuals, living healthy lives.

Curriculum

The curriculum sections of this document are divided into three grade level sequences: K-4, 5-8 and, 9-12. Each section contains the performance indicators for each standard, a scope and sequence chart of the content areas and skills, and a grade level chart of the curriculum.   The curriculum chart includes:

Ø      Standards and key indicators

Ø      Objectives

Ø      Health skill

Ø      Specific content

Ø      Activities

Ø      Assessments (K-4 only)

The curriculum framework contains important documents that demonstrate close alignment of the instructional material with the seven health standards.  In Section III of the framework, the committee has included grade level specific Core Concept Alignment Charts that match the core concepts of the curriculum with the appropriate skill standards.  In addition, the charts suggest what skills are most important to develop with each core concept and at each grade level.  You can access these grids by clicking on the up button at the top of this page.

In Section IV, the framework contains Scope and Sequence Grids that lead off each of the three grade level sections.  You can also access these grids by clicking on the up button at the top of this page.  The K-4 grids are presented in more detail to provide the elementary teacher with more specific information about what to teach at what grade level.  The certified health teachers at the middle schools and high school have a clear understanding of what to present at what grade level as indicated in the less specific grade level Scope and Sequence Grids for the middle and high school grades.

The curriculum grids presented for each grade level demonstrate the efforts of the committee to combine the knowledge and skills in appropriate combination for each grade. The development of the knowledge and skills is supported with age appropriate objectives, instructional strategies, and activities that address all learning styles.  The K-4 documents include a column for assessment because the regular elementary teacher delivers the curriculum as part of an integrated approach combining the content and skills with lessons using core literature books, related social studies topics, etc.  Except for the year-end assessments, the elementary teachers do much of their evaluation of students through daily observation or in assessing other elements of the elementary curriculum.  At the middle and high school levels the PE/Health teachers implement the curriculum and use assessments that are clearly part of a health course or a specific health lesson design.

The district's previous health curriculum was developed around the state recommended content areas.  The new emphasis on skill development created a time crunch and forced a reexamination of the health content. In order to achieve standard one, which represents the core concepts in the eight content areas, teachers were required to eliminate current health content and only include the essential concepts in each content area. Our past assessments in health have confirmed that essential, usable knowledge cannot be constructed from brief exposures to information.  Therefore, in some content areas, there was a need to be repetitious. To assure that students understood the essential concepts of health promotion and disease prevention the curriculum plan had to provide numerous opportunities for application of the concepts.  The committee will continue to examine the placement of core concepts in this document to ensure that students are able to make the connection between prior and future learning. An exam covering the core content in all nine content areas will be administered as students enter the high school.

Physical activity, one of the primary content areas mentioned as important for developing healthy students, is not included in this document, but can be found in the K-12 physical education curriculum.  The other eight content areas: mental health, personal and consumer health, family and sexual health, nutrition, community and environmental health, alcohol and other drugs, tobacco, and injury prevention are taught by a certified health educator in the required and elective health course for grades 6-12.  At the elementary level, including Grade 5, the classroom teachers present the health curriculum, integrating the content and skills in other disciplines whenever possible.

There are clear connections between the expectations in health and those in other subject areas, such as guidance career education, physical education, science, and the humanities. For example, all of these subject areas share the goals of developing life management skills, identifying social realities, interacting positively, working independently and collaboratively, and examining social issues.  

This curriculum is a working document and will need to be revised for any number of reasons: new health issues, changes in legislative mandates, research, and student performance.  It is recommended that the health curriculum be evaluated on a yearly basis.

Instruction

The elementary school teacher’s main focus at each grade level is to teach one or two health skills. The teacher will introduce the skill, present the steps for developing the skill, model the skill, practice and rehearse the skill, assess the skill, and provide feedback and reinforcement. The teacher understands that health skills are acquired through extended practice, not in short, discrete lessons.  Therefore, these skills will be used throughout the year and assessed toward the end of the school year.

At the secondary level the curriculum builds on the skills and knowledge attained at the elementary school.  There is less emphasis on teaching the steps of each skill and more focus on using the skills to prevent risk-taking behaviors. The lessons integrate concepts from one or more content areas with the health skills to address a health behavior. Using a wide range of hands-on activities, the students are given the opportunity to examine the attitudes and beliefs influencing the health behavior.  Suggested activities are listed in the Curriculum Grids for each of the grade levels.

Assessment

For students to achieve health literacy as described in the standards, it is imperative that they extend beyond acquiring knowledge to behaving in health-enhancing ways.  For practical purposes, however, the schools must develop assessments that are measurable and reasonable within the context of the school setting.  Our goals as educators, parents, and community members call for our children to achieve physical fitness; eat a nutritious and balanced diet; refuse tobacco, alcohol and other drugs; refrain from engaging in other health-compromising high risk activities; develop healthy relationships; and play an active role to protect and improve the environment.  However, it is not reasonable to base student assessment or grades on these actual behaviors. Therefore, the health assessments emphasize the knowledge, understanding, and skills that can be measured in the classroom.

The committee developed a variety of assessment strategies to determine what the students know and what they can do. There is ongoing monitoring of student understanding using anchor assessments at grades K-4, 5, 8, 9, and 12.  The results of the anchor assessments will be passed on to the teachers at subsequent grades so they can plan their curriculum according to the student needs.

At the K-4 level, the suggestions for informal assessments are provided on the Curriculum Grids.  The committee is in the process of developing summative assessments for health at Grades 5, 8, 9, and 12.  Rubrics with specific criteria for assessing student performance in health exist as the means for teachers to properly evaluate student progress on these summative assessments. 

At the high school the health teachers will work closely with the guidance department on an exit project.  The student will produce exhibits throughout their high school career in the guidance and wellness portfolios, which will be needed to complete the senior exit project. The portfolio features teacher and student selected work completed as part of the regular curriculum and will provide a more complete picture of the student’s achievement. The wellness portfolio will:

 Ø      present a broad representation of their performance for evaluation

Ø      exhibit depth of conceptual health knowledge

Ø      demonstrate health skills through a variety of quality work

Ø      demonstrate progress toward becoming health-literate adults

 To ensure consistency in assessment and reporting across the schools, the K-12 health committee will collect student work and develop benchmarks that will be available to teachers, students and parents.  The committee will continue to look for ways to better assess student achievement and program effectiveness. The authors of the national standards have turned over the assessment portion of the curriculum frameworks to the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).  

The State Collaborative on Assessment and Standards (SCASS) under the supervision of the CCSSO’s Health Education Assessment Project has developed a variety of projects to assist the states in assessing student performance in health education. The project has identified new assessment strategies that are powerful tools for aligning curricula, instruction and assessment (CCSSO, 1999).  The committee has borrowed from these assessments in order to provide our teachers with strategies that compare with what other schools are doing throughout the nation.  The committee will monitor the project and evaluate whether the national assessments provide high quality evidence that our students are attaining the national standards.

Bibliography

An extensive bibliography of resources available to students in our media centers is under development by Paula Knudson, Director of Learning Resources and Technology at Redding Elementary School and Deirdre Preis, health teacher at Joel Barlow High School.  This serves as a valuable and usable tool for teachers at all grade levels.  An initial draft of this document is included with the curriculum materials.

Summary

This executive summary provides an overview of the Easton, Redding, and Region 9 Health Curriculum.  It clearly states the purpose of the curriculum, the approach the committee has taken, the standards the committee chose, and the mechanisms for implementing the curriculum framework and related instructional and assessment strategies.  For those reading this executive summary on the Web-site, please click on the hot links in the text to find more specific information about the health curriculum.

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