The Healthy Schools Builder® is an easy online tool that helps schools identify their status as a healthy school and to develop customized action plans to make positive and healthy changes. Any school that enrolls in the Healthy Schools Builder® and completes the Builder inventory can apply for the National Recognition Award.
Read More
Every geographic region presents its own advantages and challenges when it comes to improving the health of its citizens. For this school in the south, removing the sweet tea could have been a very controversial action. To solve that problem the lunchroom manager, Wanda Keene, the district dietician and the school nutrition area supervisor got together to create a new no-calorie sweet tea recipe which helped them come into compliance with the Alliance Beverage Guidelines while maintaining peace in the lunchroom.
Keene has also been instrumental in providing leadership to the newly formed Nutrition Advisory Council. The mission of the club is to use the Alliance Guidelines as a tool to create a healthier school environment through student involvement. A group of 25 students meets once a month to learn about and discuss nutrition topics, and to talk about how to share these lessons with the rest of the student body. They also learn healthy cooking skills. Keen said, “Seeing students positively influence their peers is so cool! No adult can influence teenagers’ decision patterns like their friends.”
The school wellness council also invited faculty, staff and parents to join a friendly exercise competition called “Walk Across Georgia.” Twenty-four people signed up to compete in six teams of four. They logged their exercise and converted it into miles, while tracking it on a map of Georgia. The teams were able to see their mileage as well as the other teams’ progress which helped keep motivation levels high. The teams walked over 1600 miles in less than eight weeks. Northside High Principal Mark Scott said, “This program gave teachers a chance to share and develop friendships that we so desperately needed beyond the everyday pressure of classroom instruction.”
Resources & Tools | Contact Us | Site Map | Privacy Policy | Web Linking Policy
© 2010 Alliance for a Healthier Generation