Background Information
IntroductionIn November, after input for several changes, the FWSU Board approved the “Federal Child Nutrition Act - Wellness Policy” as presented by the Director of Curriculum. In addition to the input from the FWSU Board, the policy was drafted through collaboration among the Director of Curriculum, the FWSU Prevention and Wellness Coordinator, and the WSCC Leadership Team, which is comprised of representation from each school and the following community partners: The Vermont Department of Health, RiseVT, The Abbey Group, United Way, and Franklin County Caring Communities. The WSCC has met four times this year, as stated in the policy, and has aligned initial implementation of the Wellness Policy with the implementation of these overarching goals: Innovative Approaches to Health Education; Strengthening and Sharing Approaches to Building Strong Social and Emotional School Capacity; Employee Wellness that Models Healthy Approaches.
Goals for Nutrition Promotion and Education
This year the WSCC worked to encourage all schools to participate in nutrition promotion programs. Our partnership with The Abbey Group highlighted the availability of the Harvest of the Month program, which includes taste-testings (Fletcher and BFA are currently participating in this program) as well as opportunities to integrate nutrition promotion into school-based curriculum (Fletcher and Georgia currently). In our final meeting, schools were presented with the Shape Standards Curriculum Goals for Nutrition. We are currently auditing our school-based programs to determine current status of the implementation of these Vermont-adopted standards and indicators before articulating a required curriculum framework in Nutrition Education. We have one vending machine in the high school lobby that we will check to ensure it meets the Smart Snacks Nutrition Standards for beverages. Based on the current contents, we believe we are in compliance.
Goals for Nutrition Services
Our food service vendor, The Abbey Group, is compliant with implementing the goals of this section.
Goals for Nutrition Guidelines
Schools are annually reminded of these guidelines through their administrators. The WSCC Leadership Team indicated this year they would like to be more actively involved in both understanding and promoting these guidelines within their schools for the 2018-2019 school year.
Goals for Physical Education and Physical Activity
Vermont’s Education Quality Standards require that each school provide students in grades K-8 with at least two physical education classes per week. Each school shall provide students in grades 9-12 with one and one-half years of physical education or the equivalent thereof. The implementation of physical education is different in each of our three schools due to scheduling and capacity. At this time we have not done a formal audit of PE time in each school. It is the responsibility of school administration to build schedules that support the implementation of the Vermont Education Quality Standards, and administrators take this directive very seriously, working hard to create schedules to accommodate competing needs. In September, when new schedules are implemented, the Board will receive updated information on this goal. Our schools provide ample recess time for students, and our schools have worked to incorporate movement-based brain breaks into classroom learning time. In addition, FWSU schools have robust outdoor education programs, as well as classroom yoga, nature walks, walking paths, and even a labyrinth. Our partnership with RiseVT has really improved our efforts in this area. It is the responsibility of school administration to ensure that physical activity during the school day will not be withheld as punishment for any reason. The WSCC Leadership Team has recommended that we increase our communication about this policy objective to ensure that all teachers understand its importance.
Goals for Other School Based Activities that Promote Student Wellness
The FWSU focus in this area is to create a multi-tiered system of social and emotional supports for students. This is an area that is addressed in the FWSU Continuous Improvement Plan as well as all school-based Continuous Improvement Plans. Every school has received extensive training from Dr.Joelle van Lent and new teachers are trained annually. Schools are in various phases of implementation of the tiered system: all schools have adopted PBIS; all schools integrate team problem solving concerning trauma in their Educational Support Team Meetings; all school have participated in Ross Greene training to support the development of plans for students experiencing developmental trauma; one school has a plan to implement universal instruction in executive functioning; one school will participate in Conscious Discipline training for preschool and plans to expand to grade 3; and one school uses an evidence-based curriculum for social/emotional learning (Second Step) delivered through the guidance program. Our goal in year two of this section of policy implementation is to address the potential for implementing Second Step through guidance in all elementary schools.
Policy Assessment
see background Information section
Policy Implementation
After reviewing our initial implementation of the policy, this section of the policy will become an area of focus for the WSCC Team for 2018-19. Although most of the stakeholders represented below participate in our WSCC Leadership Team, we believe it would be helpful conduct a survey to receive input from other stakeholders as part of our annual summary and 3-year review. In addition, although we communicate our celebrations and successes via The FWSU Story, we don’t have an information and input vehicle to engage stakeholders in the Wellness Policy. Natasha Wheel has created a website for the WSCC to promote and report our progress on Wellness and allow us to update the community on the implementation of the policy and our compliance, as well as post surveys that encourage their input. That website will be populated this summer and will be linked from each school’s home page. Our monitoring of programs and curricula has been addressed in previous summary sections.
For more information: Federal Child Nutrition Act
- Fall 2017 Policy was revised and adopted
- 2017-2018 Board receives first summary of implementation as part of Safe and Healthy Schools Continuous Improvement Plan reporting at final board meeting of the year
- 2018-2019 Board receives second summary of implementation as part of Safe and Healthy Schools Continuous Improvement Plan reporting at final board meeting of the year
- 2019-2020 Board receives formal policy assessment (meeting date to be determined): FWSU will conduct an assessment of the Wellness Policy every 3 years. This assessment will determine: compliance with the Wellness Policy, how the Wellness Policy compares to model wellness policies, and progress made in attaining the goals of the Wellness Policy.
IntroductionIn November, after input for several changes, the FWSU Board approved the “Federal Child Nutrition Act - Wellness Policy” as presented by the Director of Curriculum. In addition to the input from the FWSU Board, the policy was drafted through collaboration among the Director of Curriculum, the FWSU Prevention and Wellness Coordinator, and the WSCC Leadership Team, which is comprised of representation from each school and the following community partners: The Vermont Department of Health, RiseVT, The Abbey Group, United Way, and Franklin County Caring Communities. The WSCC has met four times this year, as stated in the policy, and has aligned initial implementation of the Wellness Policy with the implementation of these overarching goals: Innovative Approaches to Health Education; Strengthening and Sharing Approaches to Building Strong Social and Emotional School Capacity; Employee Wellness that Models Healthy Approaches.
Goals for Nutrition Promotion and Education
This year the WSCC worked to encourage all schools to participate in nutrition promotion programs. Our partnership with The Abbey Group highlighted the availability of the Harvest of the Month program, which includes taste-testings (Fletcher and BFA are currently participating in this program) as well as opportunities to integrate nutrition promotion into school-based curriculum (Fletcher and Georgia currently). In our final meeting, schools were presented with the Shape Standards Curriculum Goals for Nutrition. We are currently auditing our school-based programs to determine current status of the implementation of these Vermont-adopted standards and indicators before articulating a required curriculum framework in Nutrition Education. We have one vending machine in the high school lobby that we will check to ensure it meets the Smart Snacks Nutrition Standards for beverages. Based on the current contents, we believe we are in compliance.
Goals for Nutrition Services
Our food service vendor, The Abbey Group, is compliant with implementing the goals of this section.
Goals for Nutrition Guidelines
Schools are annually reminded of these guidelines through their administrators. The WSCC Leadership Team indicated this year they would like to be more actively involved in both understanding and promoting these guidelines within their schools for the 2018-2019 school year.
Goals for Physical Education and Physical Activity
Vermont’s Education Quality Standards require that each school provide students in grades K-8 with at least two physical education classes per week. Each school shall provide students in grades 9-12 with one and one-half years of physical education or the equivalent thereof. The implementation of physical education is different in each of our three schools due to scheduling and capacity. At this time we have not done a formal audit of PE time in each school. It is the responsibility of school administration to build schedules that support the implementation of the Vermont Education Quality Standards, and administrators take this directive very seriously, working hard to create schedules to accommodate competing needs. In September, when new schedules are implemented, the Board will receive updated information on this goal. Our schools provide ample recess time for students, and our schools have worked to incorporate movement-based brain breaks into classroom learning time. In addition, FWSU schools have robust outdoor education programs, as well as classroom yoga, nature walks, walking paths, and even a labyrinth. Our partnership with RiseVT has really improved our efforts in this area. It is the responsibility of school administration to ensure that physical activity during the school day will not be withheld as punishment for any reason. The WSCC Leadership Team has recommended that we increase our communication about this policy objective to ensure that all teachers understand its importance.
Goals for Other School Based Activities that Promote Student Wellness
The FWSU focus in this area is to create a multi-tiered system of social and emotional supports for students. This is an area that is addressed in the FWSU Continuous Improvement Plan as well as all school-based Continuous Improvement Plans. Every school has received extensive training from Dr.Joelle van Lent and new teachers are trained annually. Schools are in various phases of implementation of the tiered system: all schools have adopted PBIS; all schools integrate team problem solving concerning trauma in their Educational Support Team Meetings; all school have participated in Ross Greene training to support the development of plans for students experiencing developmental trauma; one school has a plan to implement universal instruction in executive functioning; one school will participate in Conscious Discipline training for preschool and plans to expand to grade 3; and one school uses an evidence-based curriculum for social/emotional learning (Second Step) delivered through the guidance program. Our goal in year two of this section of policy implementation is to address the potential for implementing Second Step through guidance in all elementary schools.
Policy Assessment
see background Information section
Policy Implementation
After reviewing our initial implementation of the policy, this section of the policy will become an area of focus for the WSCC Team for 2018-19. Although most of the stakeholders represented below participate in our WSCC Leadership Team, we believe it would be helpful conduct a survey to receive input from other stakeholders as part of our annual summary and 3-year review. In addition, although we communicate our celebrations and successes via The FWSU Story, we don’t have an information and input vehicle to engage stakeholders in the Wellness Policy. Natasha Wheel has created a website for the WSCC to promote and report our progress on Wellness and allow us to update the community on the implementation of the policy and our compliance, as well as post surveys that encourage their input. That website will be populated this summer and will be linked from each school’s home page. Our monitoring of programs and curricula has been addressed in previous summary sections.
For more information: Federal Child Nutrition Act
