Vermont Business Magazine Wednesday night the school board voted in favor of the adoption of a new wellness policy for the Maple Run Unified School District in St Albans, impacting thousands of students. This policy was developed by a broad group of stakeholders who served on a district-wide wellness committee and it was reviewed by the administrators and staff in all of the schools (three pre-K-8th grade and one high school).
Some of highlights of the committee’s improvements include:
- Offering nutrition education at every grade level and recognizing the importance that Farm to School offers for additional physical activity and nutrition education
- Providing at least 30 minutes of varied physical activity to all students in addition to physical education classes
- Limiting food and beverage marketing to the promotion of only those foods and beverages that meet the USDA Smart Snacks.
The wellness committee was organized in 2017 after the current Vermont School Board Association required policy was passed. The policy adopted in June 2017 scores a 33% (up from 17%) on the WELSAT assessment tool (a national tool used by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention to rate wellness policies). The wellness committee was tasked with improving the score in order to create healthier school environments for the district’s children.
Thanks to the diligence of the committee, the new policy scores an impressive 82%.
The committee used the Whole School, Whole Child, Whole Community Framework (WSCC) to organize their process and included school staff, parents, community members, teachers, food service professionals, and administrators in the discussions. They also relied on the School Health Index and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation’s model wellness policy.
“I have been fortunate to witness the ongoing and deliberate work of the wellness committee over the past two years and have watched as multiple parties wrestled over language, intent, unintended impacts, and the ability of each school to follow the new policy,” remarks Denise Smith, Program Manager of RiseVT-Franklin & Grand Isle Counties, “This new policy will create the conditions in these schools for the children to succeed in making healthier choices for their nutrition and their physical activity.”
RiseVT is a primary prevention strategy of OneCare Vermont currently expanding statewide to improve the health of Vermonters where they live, work, learn, and play. OneCare Vermont is the Accountable Care Organization for the state, working with providers to improve patient health and lower healthcare costs. Embracing healthy lifestyles is key to reducing chronic illness and RiseVT works to create the environments where people spend their days conducive to making the healthy choice easy, or even the default.
Schools are a crucial partner for the mission of RiseVT and this new wellness policy in St. Albans is a perfect sample policy for RiseVT program staff to bring to other school districts in the region and state.
Superintendent of Schools for the Maple Run Unified School District, Kevin Dirth remarked, "The policy provides guidelines for our schools to ease into and we are lucky to have partners like RiseVT and Northwestern Medical Center who can offer support to our administrators, staff, and teachers as they phase in the recommendations and improve student health and well-being. A core value created by the Maple Run Unified District School Board when they merged is, ‘Children First and Foremost’. When making a decision, we must always ask, ‘is this what is best for our children?’ Last night's unanimous vote reflects that value."
To read the new wellness policy, visit the Maple Run School District website here.
About RiseVT: RiseVT helps make the healthy choice the easy choice for Vermonters, improving health and reducing healthcare costs. RiseVT utilizes an evidence-based model that engages public-private partnerships, community campaigns, and a scientific advisory board to achieve measurable and sustainable improvement in population health. RiseVT was created in Franklin & Grand Isle Counties out of a collaboration with Northwestern Medical Center and the Vermont Department for Health. RiseVT is now the leading primary prevention strategy for OneCare Vermont and is expanding to every county in Vermont by the end of 2019. Learn more at risevt.org.
Source: RiseVT 6.6.2019