Volume 42

January, 2012

Afterschool Program Teaches Tacos and Tamales MAYBURY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL | DETROIT, MICHIGAN

Ever since she attended the first Alliance for a Healthier Generation’s Healthy Schools Program Forum in 2006, Elizabethe Mack and her wellness council have been leading Maybury Elementary on a journey to become a healthy school. They focused on using the Alliance’s tools and resources to grow and sustain their wellness efforts and have been very successful in forming com-munity partnerships, applying for grants to support their efforts and bringing their school community together. Located in the economically depressed city of Detroit, with more than 95 percent of their students receiving free or reduced lunch, Maybury Elementary is proof that any school can become a healthy school. Over the past five years, Maybury has been featured by the Alliance for their work in adding active afterschool options and a walking school bus program. More recent-ly, the school is focused on making sure that its families have what they need to eat healthy foods at home. May-bury hosts “Market Days” where students can purchase fresh produce to take home. “Apples, mangoes, pears- just name it, we have all kinds of stuff,” said Mack. Local currency is not real money but “Classroom Dollars” that students earn by turning in homework on time and dis-playing good behavior. “An added benefit,” Mack contin-ues, “is that this program helps kids develop their math skills as they have to create a budget and figure out what they can afford to buy before they go to the mar-ket.” To supplement the food that students are bringing home, the school offers an afterschool cooking and nu-trition class for students and families. Cathy Neal, a vol-unteer registered dietician, travels to Maybury several times a week to teach these classes. A church next door donates its kitchen to use for the class. Neal is af-fectionately known by the students as, “The Food Lady.” She became a volunteer at Maybury after Mack ap-proached her about joining the school’s wellness team. Neal is passionate about cooking healthy, delicious meals and teaching others to do the same.

With a mostly Hispanic student population, Neal focus-es on taking traditional Latino dishes and giving them a healthy makeover. Some of the dishes they made in-clude a vegetable chili, fresh salsa, tamales (made without the lard), turkey tacos and healthy foods for Cinco de Mayo celebrations. She checks in with her students and asks if their families enjoyed the new ver-sions. They share feedback and she incorporates it for future recipes. Although Neal does not speak Spanish, the school has recruited volunteer translators that attend every class. They hand out copies of the recipes in both English and Spanish. Other volunteers provide babysitting services so all mothers can attend and be fully engaged. The local Farm Bureau donates produce for her to use in the class. At times, the items donated are not in tradi-tional Latino dishes, but she walks through ways that the participants can include them. Recently, the Farm Bureau donated collard greens and the class discussed different ways they could use it in their favorite recipes. In addition to using translators in her classes, Neal works to decrease any language barriers by making her lessons and presentations as visual as possible. Continued on Next Page

Maybury students use classroom dollars to purchase fresh produce to take home.

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Afterschool Program Teaches Tacos, Tamales, Continued from Page 1 For example, she will create a demonstration that physically shows peo-ple the amount of sugar in sweetened drinks, so they can see how much sugar they are consuming in one drink. She also does a demon-stration that shows how many bags of chips, candy and other sweets you can get for ten dollars in compar-ison to the number of health-ier snacks you can buy for the same amount. Adults and children alike are sur-prised that the difference in quantity is small. Neal provides separate les-sons for the students at May-bury. They learn how to make healthy meals and snacks but she incorporates lessons on safety as well as using math when reading recipes. “The kids want to cook,” she said, “they don’t want to do math after school but I try to make it interesting and fun and weave those skills in.” When the kids are done making their meals, many of them take them home to have for dinner or share with their family members. A big factor in the success at Maybury over the years is the supportive school environment. “Our principal is very supportive,” said Mack. “She allows the school wellness council to be very creative.” The staff is also very supportive and appreciates that the wellness council has worked hard to find ways for staff to participate in activities without adding extra work for them. The students also love all the changes that have been made at the school. “The kids are very excited about the Healthy Schools Program and are always willing to try new things and engage in new activities,” said Mack.

“Wellness Councils a Catalyst for the Vision of a Healthy School” MAYWOOD MELROSE BROADVIEW DISTRICT 89 | COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS

The Cook County Department of Public Health (CCDPH) and its part-ner, The Public Health Institute of Metropolitan Chicago (PHIMC), were awarded $16 million from the Communities Putting Prevention to Work grant program to promote changes in policy and to the environment in school, workplace and community settings that make it easier for indi-viduals and families to make healthy choices and live active lives. To implement their school strategy, they hired four school health coordina-tors who worked closely with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation’s Healthy Schools Program to focus on building strong and sustainable school wellness councils, completing the Healthy Schools Program In-ventory to assess the current health environment and developing an action plan to outline areas for improvement. Schools in the Maywood Melrose Broadview District 89 decided to re-purpose an existing “safety council” and make these the school well-ness council. Schools began recruiting new council members last spring and attended Healthy Schools Program workshops, where staff take schools through the Six Steps to a Healthier School Environment pro-cess. Now, with the help of their school health coordinator, Josh Prudowsky, schools are finishing up their Action Plans and getting ready to move ahead. Prudowsky feels that the school wellness coun-cils really are more than just another meeting. “The wellness councils are a catalyst for the vision of a healthy school. We are seeing in-creased engagement and buy-in from teachers, administrators and nurses at the school. There is a greater sense of shared responsibility.” “The Healthy Schools Program is what got these schools moving,” said Prudowsky. “This process really helped them think about all of the com-ponents that help make a healthy school and realized how much they could do without spending any money! That was big. Thinking about new ways of doing fundraisers- they realized that this was something they could do. Some administrators thought that teachers wouldn’t be interested in this, in one more thing to do, but it turns out that lots are. Many teachers have already realized that physical activity breaks in the classroom helps with classroom management and teachers are speak-ing up and sharing their experiences.” Continued on Page 5

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A Second Chance Breakfast Keeps Students Focused WAYNE COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL | WAYNE COUNTY, KENTUCKY

“In spite of growing evidence that a healthy breakfast positively affects overall nutrient intake, maintenance of a healthy weight and academic achievement in students, many school nutrition professionals have found it challenging to get high school students to participate in school breakfast programs. Barriers include insufficient time to eat at school due to bus and academic schedules, teenagers’ increased need for sleep leaving inadequate time to eat breakfast at home, and not feeling hungry when waking or on first arrival at school.”

-Kim Kengor, National School Nutrition Manager, Alliance for a Healthier Generation

In order to overcome these barriers and to increase breakfast participa-tion, Wayne County School District launched its universal breakfast pro-gram back in 2006 and had roughly a 35 percent participation rate. “The bottom line,” said Food Service Director Karen Gibson, “even with free meals you can’t always assume that the students will flock to it. That didn’t happen.” So key staff members met and developed a more acces-sible plan with more menu variety, healthier items and a “second chance” option. “Participating in the Healthy Schools Program created a platform for nutritional criteria of a higher ground,” Gibson shared. “Once we joined we added a fresh fruit to the breakfast program. Apples and bananas are favorites at the high school- healthy and fast!” They have a kiosk called the “Cardinal Grab n Go Student Express Breakfast,” that is open before school and after the second block of class time. When they started the second chance breakfast they had a 15 minute time frame for service. Despite the fact that participation rates started to rise, the time in the schedule was reduced to 10 minutes. “That was our biggest challenge,” said Gibson. “To conquer this we add-ed another serving bar with a wireless laptop for check-out. Now we can get 200 students through the second chance lines in 10 minutes and they can take the food back to their classrooms to eat.”

Now the school is proud to say it has nearly a 70 percent participation rate. One food service staff member said, “If they don’t have breakfast they have to wait until lunch and that can be almost 1:00 PM for some students. Knowing there is a second chance is a comfort and can help them stay more focused in the classroom if they don’t have to think about hunger.” To make all of this work, Gibson said, “It takes a worka-ble, passionate team of food service staff that can balance the second chance breakfast and then still meet the lunch deadlines a short time later.”

“Knowing there is a second chance is a comfort and can help them stay more focused in the classroom if they don’t have to think about hunger.”

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Spotlight on Physical Education in Oregon: When school funding starts to decline, it is often the physical education program that is first on the chopping block. Teachers are let go, sched-ules are rearranged and then it becomes very difficult for schools to add that time back to the day. However, two Oregon schools that participate in the Alliance for a Healthier Generation’s Healthy Schools Program are trying to make the most out of limited time and resources so that their students can get what they need to stay active and to develop life-long healthy behaviors. NELLIE MUIR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL | WOODBURN, OREGON

Upon joining the Healthy Schools Program, the school wellness council at Nellie Muir began the process of identifying which areas they were doing well in and where they needed to improve. Additional time for physical activity proved to be one area that quickly rose to the top. With new rules in Oregon mandating more physical education minutes, it was the perfect time to tackle the issue. Without the funding needed to add more physical education teachers, the wellness council took advantage of resources provided by the Healthy Schools Program to build out a strategy for adding physical ed-ucation instruction time in the classroom. They learned about North Carolina’s Take Ten program and decided it was the right fit for their school. The Take Ten program works for Nellie Muir because it addresses some of its biggest challenges in this area: space and time. Princi-pal Sherrilyn Rawson noted that this program optimizes the school space since the exercises can be done in the classrooms and they don’t have to work around weather, which is known for hindering outdoor activities. They can also

easily fit the “Take Ten” program into any part of the day. “Ten minutes doesn’t seem like much when you’re doing it, but it adds an extra 50 minutes a week,” said Rawson. “Those minutes really add up.” This program also works for Nellie Muir because of the dedication of the staff. “They work very well together and are a real team,” Rawson shared. “My staff does a fabulous job of using all they’ve got.” Not only has the staff embraced the Take Ten program into their curriculum, they have also embraced physical activity and wellness in their own lives. Approximately 25 staff members at Nellie Muir are enrolled in Weight Watchers at Work, a course that encourages nutrition and physical ac-tivity with peer support. These staff members have already lost close to 1000 pounds. Rawson is particularly excited about this accomplishment because of the effect it will have on the students. “When the grown-ups get more physical activity, the kids will follow.” BEAVERCREEK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL | BEAVERCREEK, OREGON

The outlook for physical education was rather bleak over at Beaver-creek Elementary. Because of budget cuts three years ago, Beaver-creek could no longer afford physical education teachers. The responsi-bility of planning physical education and activity time then transferred to the classroom teachers, who, at times, found it very difficult to incorpo-rate it into their full schedules. This was a top priority for the school well-ness council to address when Beavercreek joined the Alliance for a Healthier Generation’s Healthy Schools Program last year. Principal Scott Curtis noted that not only did the wellness council have the challenge of adding more physical education time; they also had to ensure that they were sensitive to their teacher’s time. “We wanted to increase our physical education time to 60 minutes a week, but we did not want to add too much work for our teachers,” he said. The wellness council proposed scheduling two 30-minute periods per week of physical education for each class. “The first day is a traditional physical education class,” said Curtis. “The kids play games and partici-pate in sports like soccer and basketball.” For the second class each week Curtis wanted to make sure the students would stay active for the entire period. Continued on Page 5

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Spotlight on Physical Education in Oregon, Continued from Page 4 A former physical education teacher himself, Curtis felt that while play-ing games was a lot of fun, it wasn’t the most effective use of their lim-ited time. “You spend approximately 10 minutes on directions when you do that kind of activity so you really are not getting a full 30 minutes of fitness.” To address this, the second physical education day each week is now called “Fitness Day.” This class period is completely dedicated to run-ning, jogging or walking for the full 30-minute class period. Of course, there are not many elementary school students that would find this solu-tion particularly exciting. The wellness council knew they needed to add a “fun factor” to make this work. They figured the students would like the fitness day more if they felt they were running toward something more tangible, so they measured laps around various areas of the school including the gym, cafeteria and track. At the beginning of the year, each class chose a destination they wanted to visit. One class chose the beach (about 60 miles away) and another is running a portion of the Oregon Trail, a topic they have been studying in class. The teachers are asked to keep track of laps and monitor progress towards reaching their goal. The fitness day is great for a school like Beavercreek because it does not involve much additional planning time on the teacher’s part, it en-sures that their students are getting the most out of their time to be ac-tive and it teaches kids the value and importance of physical activity at a young age. An added benefit- the kids love it!

“Wellness Councils a Catalyst,” Continued from Page 2 Although the Communities Putting Prevention to Work grant is ending in February, it seems like many of the schools have realized that they do not need funding to continue. Prudowsky said, “They see that the well-ness council is the key to sustainability. They understand this process and they feel like they have what they need to keep going.” In order to support the individual schools, the district is working on “lunch-line redesign” strategies that will help encourage students to make healthier choices. Increasing physical activity during and after school is a top priority for the district. They have worked closely with Loyola University’s School Based Health Center to create a dynamic set of training and activity materials for all classroom teachers, called “Brain Boosters.” The district has trained classroom teachers and they have begun implementing daily physical activity breaks.

Several teachers have noted the positive social and emotional impact the physical activity has had on students’ behavior. A number of schools are also working with the nearby Veterans Park District to integrate physical activity into academic afterschool programs. Through the Mod-el Communities grant, park district staff have been trained on methods to boost physical activity during the afterschool program.