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Healthy School Environment

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Healthy students are better learners, and academic achievement bears a lifetime of benefits for health. Schools are an ideal setting to teach and provide students with opportunities to improve their dietary and physical activity behaviors and manage their chronic health conditions. When school health policies and practices are put in place, healthy students can grow to be healthy and successful adults.

Healthy School Resources

​The Oregon Smart Snacks Standards, or other nutrition standards set by the district, should extend to all foods offered on the school campus including celebrations, rewards, and snacks.

Classroom Celebrations & Rewards

Good nutrition and the ability to learn are intrinsically linked. Providing access to healthy foods at school - through foods offered or sold during the school day - not only supports students’ nutrition and develops lifelong eating habits, but also reinforces the nutrition education they receive in class.

CDC Healthy School Resources​
Fostering the physical and mental health of school employees also helps to support students’ health and academic success. Every school employee, no matter the role they play, contributes to a school’s mission. School staff can give their best when they feel their best. School employee wellness programs can help.

Schools can provide an employee wellness program for staff that includes healthy eating and physical activity services. When staff model these healthy behaviors, they can reinforce them with students.

Additionally, supporting school employee wellness programs can

• Improve staff retention and productivity.
• Decrease employee absenteeism.
• Decrease employee health care costs.

Physical activity during the school day helps students concentrate, pay attention, and improve classroom behavior. Schools, where most of the students engage in physical activity every week, show bigger gains in test scores than other schools. Comprehensive physical activity programs include physical education and before, during, and afterschool opportunities for students to be physically active.

The organizations listed below help support school wellness through grant funding and technical assistance. 

OEA Choice Trust 
The mission of OEA Choice Trust is to provide expertise and resources to help Oregon public school employees create comprehensive and flexible wellness programs to build a culture of wellness that becomes the norm in school workplaces. This page provides grant opportunities and awards to help schools to support this school employee wellness. 

Action for Healthy Kids 
Schools need resources to implement health and wellness practices that help students eat better and be physically active. Thanks to our partners, Action for Healthy Kids has provided $6.6 million in grants to schools since 2009. Our School Grants for Healthy Kids can help your school health team achieve its goal of making every kid healthy and ready to learn. 

Oregon Child Nutrition Programs 
This page is dedicated to assisting sponsors with grant opportunities for their school nutrition programs. 

Most schools engage in four to five fundraisers per year. School fundraisers can promote student, family, and community involvement and activity, part that promotes family and community involvement. Healthy fundraisers can be fun while keeping in step with health messages that students are learning in school. Below are a list of resources that include healthy fundraising ideas.

Local School Wellness Policy

What is a Local School Wellness Policy?

A local school wellness policy (“wellness policy”) is a written document that guides a local educational agency’s (LEA) or school district’s efforts to establish a school environment that promotes students’ health, well-being, and ability to learn.

Every local educational agency (LEA) participating in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP) must conduct an assessment of their wellness policy every three years, at a minimum.

​Local Wellness Policies
Local Wellness Policies are an important vehicle for enhancing and sustaining school wellness efforts. Each local educational agency that participates in the National School Lunch Program or other federal Child Nutrition programs is required by federal law to establish a local school wellness policy for all schools under its jurisdiction.

We encourage you to view this Ted Talk by Sam Kass, this video describes the intent behind school wellness policies.

Engage school staff and parents in school wellness using these ready-to-go communication tools. Sharing news about your local school wellness policy is easy with these flyers, presentations, newsletter articles, and social media posts. Your school can personalize them to make them specific to your local school wellness policy activities.

Wellness Policy Resources
To request a copy of the newest model local wellness policy, please contact staff at the Oregon School Boards Association policy services department or call 800-578-6722 or 503-588-2800 

The word data essentially means information. Data provides information to on how well interventions work. Gathering data over time or from different sources allows you to see patterns, gaps, and determine where to put your efforts. Data collection should occur at the local (school and district) level. Include school and district-level data into grant applications. The sites listed below will provide a balcony view of the data – providing information at the state and national level. Data visualization helps the user effectively communicate data analysis to others. 

Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Weight
Data visualization 
Oregon Specific Data
  • Oregon Healthy Teens (OHT) is Oregon's effort to monitor the health and well-being of adolescents. An anonymous and voluntary research-based survey, OHT is conducted among 8th and 11th graders statewide. The OHT survey incorporates two youth surveys that preceded it, the YRBS and the Student Drug Use Survey. (OHT) is Oregon's effort to monitor the health and well-being of adolescents. An anonymous and voluntary research-based survey, OHT is conducted among 8th and 11th graders statewide. The OHT survey incorporates two youth surveys that preceded it, the YRBS and the Student Drug Use Survey. 
  •  Student Health Survey Results 
Food Insecurity Data