Welcome to the School Health Index: A Self-Assessment and Planning Guide course of the "Training Tools for Healthy Schools" e-learning series. In this self-paced course, you can access the training material in several ways. You may select a specific chapter or chapter section by clicking on a title. You may view the course in its entirety by simply clicking on the "play" button in the video window and then clicking "next" to proceed to the next video. Click "back" to view the previous video.
An "Active Child" icon will appear on the screen periodically to alert you to a tip for more information. You may access more information by clicking on questions or resource titles in the Go Further section. Complementary materials and a full-course download are also available.
At the end of the course, you will have the opportunity to evaluate it and download a certificate of completion.
The School Health Index: Self-Assessment and Planning Guide is a tool that you can use to improve your school’s health and safety policies and programs.
The School Health Index was developed by CDC in partnership with school administrators and staff, school health experts, parents, and national nongovernmental health and education agencies. It is informed by both CDC’s School Health Guidelines to Promote Healthy Eating and Physical Activity and the Coordinated School Health approach. It aligns with the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child model.
Discussion questions in the School Health Index are derived from CDC’s research-based guidelines and strategies for school health programs, which identify the policies and practices most likely to be effective in improving healthy behaviors among students.
The purpose of this training is to introduce you to CDC’s School Health Index: Self-Assessment and Planning Guide. After this training, you will be ready to conduct or participate in a self-assessment and create a plan to improve the health of students in your school or district.
The course objectives are for you to:
Today’s youth face a variety of health issues. As school health advocates, we have an opportunity and responsibility to improve the lives of young people.
The fundamental mission of schools is to help young people acquire the knowledge and skills to become productive and healthy adults. Promotion of healthy behaviors and creation of healthy environments are critical parts of the mission.
Schools can contribute to the physical health of students. Healthy students perform better in school and have fewer absences.
The School Health Index offers a team approach to improving school health and safety policies and programs. It is a simple, straightforward tool that gives administrators, staff, parents, and students an opportunity to get involved and work together to create a healthier school.
The purpose of the School Health Index is to:
The School Health Index is designed for use at the school level. However, with appropriate adaptation, it can be used at the district level also.
The School Health Index identifies low-cost or no-cost improvements to a school environment. The self-assessment process is a focused, reasonable, and a user-friendly experience.
The School Health Index is not a research or evaluation tool. It should not be used to audit or punish school staff.
Completing the School Health Index is an important first step toward improving your school's health promotion policies and practices. Your school can then act to implement a School Health Improvement Plan and develop an ongoing process for monitoring progress and reviewing your recommendations for change.
The School Health Index consists of two activities:
The self-assessment focuses on eight modules and involves members of your school community coming together to discuss what your school is already doing to promote good health and to identify strengths and weaknesses.
Planning for improvement enables you to identify actions your school can take to improve its performance in areas that received low scores. It guides you through a simple process for prioritizing the various recommendations. This step will help you decide on a handful of actions to implement in the coming year. Finally, you will complete a School Health Improvement Plan to list the steps you will take to implement your actions.
The School Health Index is a free, customizable tool available online. You can create your own team's profile and conduct the assessment online using CDC's interactive tool, or you can download the print version to use.
To access the online version, click on the "Enter SHI" button at the bottom of the Web page. The online version of the School Health Index records your entries and generates score cards for specific topic areas.
Print versions for elementary or middle and high schools can be downloaded at this site. There are a few differences between the elementary version and the middle and high school version, although the majority of the items in the two versions are identical.
Once you decide on the online or print format, select the version that is most appropriate for your program.
The School Health Index addresses these health topics:
Questions are grouped and labeled by topic area. Grouping questions allows schools to choose to address some, but not all, of the health topics if needed. Cross-cutting questions address issues that are relevant to all health topics.
Now that we have developed an understanding of what the School Health Index is, let's review.
Habits and practices related to health and safety are influenced by the entire school environment. The School Health Index is composed of eight different modules that are structured around CDC's Coordinated School Health approach and aligned with the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child model.
The first step to being able to complete the School Health Index is to understand these eight modules. This course will provide an overview of the modules and exercises to complete one module.
The School Health Index will guide you through completing each module to assess how well your school is meeting the opportunities available in that area.
A healthy and safe school environment includes the physical and visual surroundings and the psychosocial climate and culture of the school.
Developing and maintaining a supportive school environment can improve the sustainability of healthy eating and physical activity policies and practices that support healthy lifestyles.
Health education provides students with opportunities to acquire useful knowledge, attitudes, and skills.
They are necessary for making healthy decisions, achieving health literacy, adopting healthy behaviors, and promoting the health of others.
Health education programs should address the National Health Education Standards and incorporate the characteristics of an effective health education curriculum. Health education assists students in living healthier lives. Qualified, trained teachers should teach health education.
Physical education is characterized by a planned, sequential prekindergarten through grade 12 curriculum that provides learning as well as doing in a variety of activity areas. Quality physical education programs assist students in achieving the national standards for prekindergarten through grade 12 physical education. Qualified, trained teachers should teach physical education.
Additionally, the school setting can offer multiple opportunities for students to enjoy physical activity outside of physical education class and increase daily amounts of total physical activity through recess, sports, and intramural activities.
Schools are in a unique position to promote healthy eating and help ensure appropriate food and nutrient intake among students. Schools provide students with opportunities to consume an array of foods and beverages throughout the school day and enable students to learn about and practice healthy eating behaviors.
Schools should ensure that only nutritious and appealing foods and beverages are provided in school cafeterias, vending machines, snack bars, school stores, and other venues that offer food and beverages to students.
Schools are responsible for students' physical health, mental health, and safety during the school day.
Health services ensure access and referrals; promote use of primary health care services; prevent and control communicable diseases; provide emergency care; promote sanitary conditions; and provide educational and counseling opportunities.
Qualified professionals such as physicians, nurses, health educators, and other allied health personnel should provide these services.
These services are provided to improve students' mental, emotional, and social health and include individual and group assessments, interventions, and referrals.
By providing services to address the needs of the whole child, the student is more likely to perform better academically as well as emotionally.
Professionals such as certified school counselors, psychologists, and social workers provide these services.
Schools can provide opportunities for staff members to improve their health status through activities such as health assessments, health education, and health-related fitness activities.
These opportunities encourage staff members to pursue a healthy lifestyle that contributes to their improved health status, improved morale, and a greater personal commitment to the school's overall coordinated health program. This personal commitment often transfers into greater commitment to the health of students and creates positive role modeling.
An integrated school, parent, and community approach can enhance the health and well-being of students. School health advisory councils and teams can build support for school health program efforts.
Schools actively solicit parent involvement and engage community resources and services to respond more effectively to the health-related needs of students.
Each of the eight modules relate to a Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child strategy. The next step in the process is to implement the School Health Index.
There is no single way to implement the School Health Index. Schools have developed many approaches, and you can use the approach that best meets your school's needs.
Here are steps that you can use or modify when implementing the School Health Index at your school:
Your first step is to identify a team of people who will be responsible for completing the School Health Index. A school health team is a group of individuals representing different segments of the school and community. The team should consist of a cross-section of school representatives and community members. Representation of as many segments of the community as possible can enrich the level of discussion and acceptance of proposed activities.
You may choose to create a new team or use an existing team, such as the school health council or team. The number of members on your team will vary, based on staffing, resources, and roles. However, a group effort is very important to capture a diversity of opinions and experiences for meaningful assessment and successful planning and implementation.
Getting support from school administrators greatly improves overall commitment to completing the School Health Index and implementing the School Health Improvement Plan. School and district-level administrators can give teams the power to implement identified changes.
Identify a coordinator for the team
The identity of the School Health Index coordinator varies from school to school. Many schools have found that it is best to have individuals from outside the school facilitate the process. These individuals are removed from school politics and can be neutral in helping staff deal with internal conflicts. The School Health Index coordinator is responsible for keeping the team motivated and focused on its goals. Team members may have other priorities, so it is important for the coordinator to maintain the team's cohesiveness and encourage the team members to implement their proposed actions. A strong coordinator can be pivotal to the success of the School Health Index.
Functions of the School Health Index coordinator include to:
During the first School Health Index team meeting, the coordinator will explain the process. There are a host of resources available on CDC's website that can be used to illustrate the process and purpose of the School Health Index.
During this meeting, the team will also decide how the School Health Index should be implemented in their school. Some teams decide to complete all eight modules together in one sitting. Typically, smaller groups are created for each of the eight modules.
It is very important to have at least two people work on each module because it will help increase accuracy and diversity of creative insights for improving school health policies and programs. Each team member should be assigned to a module based on his or her area of interest and expertise. The person most knowledgeable about the module topic can serve as that module's coordinator.
When ready to complete the self-assessment, read through the discussion questions for each module carefully and select the answer that best describes your school.
The School Health Index uses a 4-point scale, assigning 3, 2, 1, or 0 points to each question.
For each question, a score of 3 points means that the school is achieving the "gold standard." A score of 2 points means that the school is doing very well but falls somewhat short of the gold standard. A score of 1 point means that the school is doing something in this area but falls far short of the gold standard. Finally, 0 points indicates that the school is doing very little or nothing to meet the gold standard. Later, these scores will be used to identify strengths and weaknesses.
If a question does not apply to your school, you can designate it as "not applicable." If you are not sure or need more information before you can answer the question, you can skip it and return to it at another time. You do not have to answer all the questions in a module.
Module Score Card
Circle or input all of the discussion question answers into the Module Score Card, and calculate each module score.
To determine the module score:
You will later use these percentage scores to prioritize which areas need the most attention.
Planning Questions
Each module ends with three planning questions that will result in a list of recommendations.
The first planning question asks the group to list the strengths and weaknesses found in the module based on the scores earned for each item. In general, strengths will be those questions that were scored as 3s or 2s, and weaknesses will be those scored as 1s or 0s.
The second question asks the group to create actions to improve each weakness identified in the first planning question. These are meant to be simple statements converting the items that were weaknesses into actions.
The third planning question asks the group to rate from 1 to 5 each proposed action in terms of five dimensions. This enables actions to be prioritized for implementation.
The five dimensions ask the following questions:
After rating each action along the five dimensions, the top scores should reflect those actions that need to be addressed first.
Let's practice going through the self-assessment process for one module.
The planning for improvement process follows the self-assessment process. All members of the School Health Index team meet to participate in the planning process.
This is the time to:
Overall Score Card
After conducting the self-assessment, collect the Module Score Cards, and transfer the scores to the Overall Score Card.
You can place an X to indicate the range or enter the actual module score in the appropriate column for each module on the Overall Score Card.
The completed Overall Score Card will help you determine which areas covered by the School Health Index are in need of most improvement.
Priority Actions
During the planning meeting, each module group presents its two or three priority actions. If the entire team completed all the modules together, the team reflects on the priority actions they selected for each of the modules.
Then, the team decides on several actions for the coming school year. It is very important to select a manageable number of recommendations. Most schools choose between three and five actions. Also, consider mixing both short- and long-term goals.
Finally, the team completes the School Health Improvement Plan. The Plan helps the team identify priority actions, list specific steps that need to be taken to implement each action, and designate who will be responsible for each step.
Let's work through answering the final planning question for one module to develop the School Health Improvement Plan.
After the School Health Improvement Plan has been developed, the next steps are to secure approval, implement the recommendations, and monitor progress.
Establish an annual School Health Index assessment. Take the time to measure and recognize the progress and accomplishments of the previous school year. Report annually to the principal, superintendent, and school board on progress made during the previous year and plans set for the upcoming year.
The School Health Index is a simple, straightforward tool that gives administrators, staff, parents, and students a chance to get involved and work together to create a healthier school environment and student population. Schools across the county have already made dramatic improvements based on the School Health Index.
A small investment of time can pay big dividends in improving students' well-being, readiness to learn, and prospects for a healthier life.
Now that you have completed the School Health Index: A Self-Assessment and Planning Guide course, you should be ready to participate in a self-assessment and create a plan for improvement for your school or district.
Thank you for participating in the School Health Index: A Self-Assessment and Planning Guide course.
Please take a few moments to let us know about your experience by clicking on the evaluation link in the video summary.
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Finally, you can print a Certificate of Completion by clicking on the certificate link in the video summary.
We hope you have enjoyed participating in the School Health Index: A Self-Assessment and Planning Guide course in the Training Tools for Healthy Schools e-learning series.