Does your school district have a wellness program for employees? If yes, consider applying for the School Employee Wellness Awards Program, created by the Directors of Health Promotion and Education (DHPE). If your school district does not have a wellness program, check out the DHPE's nine-step program for establishing one.
Employee wellness plans help control health care costs and, more importantly, they help teachers become positive role models for students and shape an overall healthy school environment.
The results can be astonishing and positive for all, according to case studies provided by the DHPE:
In a 10-week health-promotion program for Dallas Independent School District employees that focused on exercise and physical fitness, 44% of teachers said they changed their overall lifestyle, 68% changed their diet, 26% who were initially sedentary started a regular program of vigorous exercise, and 18% quit smoking. Other benefits of the program for the school district included a reduction in absenteeism – exercising teachers had an average of 1.25 days less absenteeism than nonexercising teachers – which led to a savings of $149,578 for the district in costs for substitute teachers.
Learn more about the award for school employee wellness programs (application deadline: December 1), or download a free copy of the DHPE's School Employee Wellness guide and other useful materials that can make your school a healthier, happier, more productive work environment.
The Through Your Lens Exhibit opens on Capitol Hill today! The photos in the exhibit, all taken by students, teachers and community members around the US, tell a powerful story about the condition of our nation's school buildings.
The exhibit is opening as Congress considers legislation to fund the repair, renovation and construction of safe, healthy, and green school buildings.
Please help us spread the word about the exhibit and ensure that our legislators know how important it is to take a look at the images. Please take a moment to invite your senators and representatives to view the exhibit on Capitol Hill and to join us for the opening reception on Monday, Oct. 5 from 5-7 pm! (In the DC area? Come out and join us yourself! And bring a friend!) You can view the exhibit:
We're thrilled announce that photos and stories from our Through Your Lens contest (which we've been bloggingabout over the last few weeks) will be shown in a special exhibit on Capitol Hill next week! The Through Your Lens exhibit will be on display from Oct. 5-9 in the Russell Rotunda of the Senate office building on Capitol Hill.
The exhibit will open as Congress is considering legislation to fund the repair, renovation and construction of safe, healthy schools.
The
photos and stories in the exhibit were submitted by students,
teachers and community members across the country. The exhibit provides
an honest window into our public school facilities: the parts that are
inspiring and the parts we need to change.
Despite the importance of
school buildings to teaching, learning, health, environment and
community vibrancy, many of our nation’s public school buildings remain
in poor condition. With legislation to provide federal support for
school construction, modernization, and renovation moving through both
the House and Senate, the time to act is now.
Help us by getting involved. There are three things you can do:
Join us at the exhibit! If you're in the DC area next week, come and see the exhibit. Or come to our exhibit opening event on
Monday, Oct. 5 from 5:00 - 7:00 pm to meet some of the student
photographers and hear from advocates for safe, healthy schools. (Click here to RSVP.) If you can't make it, you can always view the photos online.
Invite your legislators to the exhibit!Send a message to your legislators
telling them to stop by the rotunda and view the exhibit. We want to
make sure they see the reality of our nation's school building
conditions.
Help spread the word about the exhibit!Click here for links or sample messages to share Through Your Lens with your friends.
We're excited for the opportunity to bring these images to DC -- and we hope to see you at the exhibit next week!
Students from across the US have been answering that question with more clarity than we could have imagined when we launched the Through Your Lens Photo & Essay Contest several weeks ago.
With powerful images and vivid stories, students are giving us all a window into what our nation’s school buildings really look like. As the contest comes to a close, we’re working to bring many of these images to Congress, with an upcoming exhibit at the US Capitol and a book documenting the remarkable pictures and stories as our elected leaders debate legislation for school building maintenance and repair.
Here, we’ve excerpted a few of the many entries. You can find all of the photos and stories online at the Through Your Lens gallery.
If you would like to share any of these photos or stories with your Congressional leaders, be sure to visit the Through Your Lens action center to send a letter and link to the image!
When one thinks of healthy, high performing schools, the last thing that comes to mind are the portable classrooms that so many schools use to address school overcrowding. Health problems that emerged for individuals who were housed in portable housing units after Hurricane Katrina highlighted the dangers -- not just for the portable housing units but also for the portable classrooms.
These guidelines [PDF] include enhanced daylighting, energy-efficient lighting, energy-efficient, low-noise HVAC systems, an efficient building envelope and interior material with low emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC). And, they provide a database of product manufacturers that meet their guidelines.
So, if your school needs to resort to these portable classrooms, be sure to following CHPS’ recommendations.
Here's a good article about green schools and why they make sense. Nothing really new, but it's put together well. In short, it offers three primary reasons for building green schools:
Improve academic performance
Save money
Develop the next generation of environmental leaders
I just have to clarify one important point. The article states:
But in this economy can schools afford to go green? Experts like Dufault think we can and that too much is at stake not to, especially with government stimulus funding available to local communities to make such improvements. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed in February 2009 to help boost the country out of the economic crisis, allocated $53.6 billion to school modernization.
Technically, this is correct. The stimulus package did pass, and it did make available money for school modernization. However, the missing piece is that this money was made available to schools primarily so they can plug budget gaps and prevent teacher layoffs -- the modernization money was part of a compromise that in the end, merely allowed this money to be used in this manner.
In fact, less than one percent of this funding is being used for modernization. And it's not because this isn't an important issue or because the need isn't there. The money isn't being used for modernization because schools need to plug their budget holes and keep their teachers teaching.
However, the story doesn't end there. Congress recognized that the facility investment piece is lacking so they submitted a stand-alone bill to specifically fund school modernization. This bill, the School Buildings Fairness Act of 2009 (S.1121), passed in the House and will be brought up in the Senate in the fall. (Check out Rochelle's recent blog for more details on this and a related bill.)
This legislation is important, and we need to see it pass so we can get these schools fixed, modernized, made green -- so they are safe, healthy places for our kids to spend their days.
To raise awareness of school building conditions, we're asking you to share stories and photos of your schools in the Through Your Lens photo and essay contest. Entries will inform the national debate around school building repair and will be shown at a special exhibit in Washington, DC (currently planned for the US Capitol building) while Congress considers this tremendously important legislation.
By Rochelle Davis, HSC Founding Executive Director
Tarkington School
We recently had the opportunity to tour Tarkington School of Excellence
with Peter Grevatt, head of the U.S. EPA Office of Children’s Health;
Kate
Tomford, Director of Sustainability for Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn; and
Suzanne Carlson, Director of Environmental Affairs for Chicago Public
Schools. Tarkington is the first green school in Chicago to be
certified by
the US Green Building Council under their
LEED program. (You can check out photos of the tour here.)
After hearing from Tarkington principal and HSC board member Vincent Iturralde and our student docents, it became even more clear what a positive impact
a green school can have on student performance and the environment.
Unfortunately, most children do not have an
opportunity to learn in such a healthy environment.
That is why I was so pleased to see both the
U.S. House and Senate take action to provide school districts with funds to support
green, energy efficient schools, focusing on schools that serve under-resourced
communities.
On the Senate side, Senator Harkin (D-IA) has introduced the School Buildings
Fairness Act of 2009 (S1121), which would provide $6 billion in grants for renovation, repair, and
construction of schools in 2010, and additional funds, as needed, through 2014.
These grants focus specifically on high-need schools and aim to encourage
the use of green, energy efficient practices.
On the House side, Rep. Miller (D-Ca) introduced a bill
which would make $4.1 billion in grants available over two years for school modernization, renovation, and
repair. This bill also establishes an Advisory Council on Green,
High-Performing Schools.
Both of these bills would commit federal dollars to the
repair, renovation and maintenance of our nation’s existing school buildings as
well as to the construction of the next generation of healthy, high-performing
schools. In addition, the funds would be tied to the use of proven strategies for
energy efficiency and environmental sustainability – providing a healthier
environment for our students and teachers, as well as their wider communities.
This legislation is a vital next step for healthier school
environments, and HSC urges our legislators to sign on as cosponsors of these
bills.
You can be part of the national movement for green, healthy with Through Your Lens, HSC's effort with our partners to show Congress why safe, healthy school buildings are so important. You can submit a photo or story about your school (winners will be exhibited in Washington, DC during the policy debate) or use the Through Your Lens Action Center to contact your elected officials and to the media.
The truth is, it depends on what school you’re walking into. In some schools, you may see peeling paint or a broken window. In others, you may see a well-maintained classroom flooded with natural light. In some schools, you’ll see broken water fountains; in others, bright mosaics and murals.
In nearly every school, you’ll see things that make you proud and things you want to change.
Now, we’re asking you to help us show Congress – and the world – what our school buildings really look like.
Your photos and stories will help inform a national debate as Congress considers legislation for school building repair, modernization and construction.
Photos and stories will be shown at a special exhibition in Washington, DC (currently planned in the US Capitol Building) and many more entries will be published in a Through Your Lens book and in an online gallery. Five student winners will also receive a Vado pocket video camcorder from Creative Labs.
Please take a moment to show the world what you see at school every day.
Last week, Governor Quinn announced that the state of Illinois has awarded $3.6 million in Federal Recovery Funds to improve school cafeterias. The grants have been awarded to 254 schools across the state. The Illinois State Board of Education reported that funding priority was given to schools with plans to purchase equipment that:
Lends itself to improving the quality of nutrition to meet dietary guidelines;
Improves the safety of food served;
Improves the overall energy efficiency of the school nutrition operations;
Allows schools to support expanded participation in a school meal program.
We applaud the words of State Superintendent of Education Christopher A. Koch:
"Good nutrition gives children a better chance to succeed in the classroom... These funds will help schools improve their cafeteria equipment and the quality of the meals served for some of our neediest children across the state."
What if I told you how to promote efficient energy
use, become a
responsible environmental steward and reduce your risk of school
facility damage - while earning extra money? It seems too good to be
true. But this year we decided
to pilot a program with our
energy curtailment partner, ClearChoice Energy, that does exactly this
for schools in northern Illinois.
The program we're piloting, known as Demand Response,
is designed to encourage large
consumers (in this case, schools) to reduce energy use during days of
peak
energy demand. (For example, a school may be asked to cut back on their
energy use on a particularly hot summer day when the energy grid is
strained by lots of consumers running their air conditioners.) By doing
so, the school will help reduce the need to build
additional energy transmission lines and power plants, increase energy
reliability in their community and develop plans to reduce risk from
periods of
sudden energy loss. And did I mention that schools get paid to do this?
The first test of the 2009 program was last week:
one of the schools involved in our Demand Response program was asked to
cut back on energy use. So I
decided to head out to Nippersink School District #2 to speak to Dr.
Paul Hain, the district's business manager, to get a
feel for what it’s like to shut down a school's power on a day when
it’s 100 degrees
outside.
Check out a video of the school and Paul's comments on the experience:
A couple of things stood out to me: First, it
wasn’t
hard at all. This school is an older building that didn’t have
automated controls,
so they turned off the AC and the lights manually – not a big deal.
They just
needed someone to be in charge. That was Paul. As he told me, it just
required a little coordination and communication. And if you have a new
building with automatic controls,
it’s even easier.
Second, the element of coordination was key, particularly
with the IT staff. It became clear that the IT manager had to be in the loop
because they shut down all their computers – even their servers. But the IT
manager thought it was great to be part of the team that was saving money and
helping the community. And he’d rather be part of the planning process for this
type of program than be taken by surprise by an energy
brownout or blackout.
Third, the combination of incentives does make this a
compelling program. While no single incentive drives this program alone, the
combination of receiving cash rebates, reducing energy use, being a responsible community
partner, promoting environmental stewardship and reducing risk to property damage
all make it an interesting and compelling program. I’m sure any school
that participates will list the benefits in a different order of priority but,
taken as a whole, the program can appeal to a broad range of school
stakeholders.
I was glad to be part of Paul’s successful test of the
program and hope that next year we’ll be able to expand this program to more
schools. In the meantime, if you think your school may be interested in this,
take a moment to learn more about Demand Response. It’s not for everyone, but it
may play a complementary role to other green programs or money-saving efforts at your school.
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