Thursday, January 10, 2008
The Orlando schools will be promoting health and wellness to its students this year. As part of the Orange County Schools, the Orlando schools will implement a new wellness policy that was just approved this month.
The new policy is in response to a federal mandate, under the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004. All schools that receive federal funding for school lunch programs must have a wellness policy in place.
The wellness program for the Orlando schools is designed to promote better health to their students. Healthy eating and physical activity will play a big part in the Orlando schools' policy. The hope is to completely change the Orlando schools' environments to healthier ones.
With the new wellness program effective on the first day of school, each of the Orlando schools is challenged to be creative and innovative in implementing wellness activities and promotions.
Each of the Orlando schools will create a Healthy School Team (HST). The organization of each team is based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Coordinated School Health Model. There will be a member on each HST to represent each of the following areas of health:
? Health education,
? Counseling.
? Psychological and social services,
? School health services,
? Nutrition services,
? Physical education,
? The healthy school environment,
? Health promotion for Orlando schools' staff, and
? Family and community.
Under the belief that healthy children is a community-wide concern, each of the Orlando schools will enlist the involvement of parents, families, teachers, counselors, school administrators, healthcare professionals, businesses, and community groups and organizations.
The Orange County schools already have experimented with the wellness program, which will benefit the Orlando schools. For almost three years, the program has been used in 13 schools within the county. The HSTs have been found to be quite effective in promoting health and wellness, not only for the students but their families and school staff, as well. The Orlando schools will use much of the information and experiences from these schools, when implementing their own wellness program this year.
The experimental HSTs have sponsored walking and running clubs for students, school staff, and parents. Another example of creative thinking by the HSTs is ?wellness Wednesdays?, whereby students are rewarded for being involved in healthy activities, such as eating nutritious lunches, drinking water versus soda, or participating in a physical activity. Each HST at the Orlando schools will be charged with developing activities that meet the specific needs of each school and its students. The HST members are limited only by their own imaginations to develop creative promotions, events and activities.
The new wellness program at the Orlando schools is all about health and wellness for children, and helping everyone concerned to understand the importance of good health and its effect upon a child's ability to learn. From the federal mandate to the Orlando schools' implementation of the wellness program, the sole purpose is to improve the health of students in order for them to be better able to learn and achieve ? now and in the future.
285 Philadelphia Schools' Students Awarded $800,000 in Scholarships
The Philadelphia Education Fund has been in operation for 20 years. A nonprofit organization, the Fund partners with school districts (including the Philadelphia schools), other nonprofit organizations, businesses and individuals to provide scholarships for students in the Philadelphia schools system. Its purpose is to initiate and implement innovative educational programs, of which they have several. They work to improve the quality of teachers in the Philadelphia schools, conduct educational research, and engage the community in school reform. The Fund is one of the largest of 86 education funds that are affiliated with the national Public Education Network.
One of the programs that are sponsored by the Fund is the Philadelphia Scholars Program that awards Last Dollar Scholarships to Philadelphia schools students. In June 2006, they awarded $800,000 in scholarships to 285 schools students.
Over the last 16 years, the Fund has awarded more than $5 million to students, who attend 15 high schools of the Philadelphia schools system ? many of these youth were the first in their families to attend college. Scholarships range from $200 to $4,000, helping to fill the gap between a student's financial aid package and actual college costs. Scholarships cover tuition, fees, books and transportation. They are renewable for a maximum of six years for students attending accredited, degree-granting colleges and universities across the nation.
Scholarship funding is from Philadelphia donors (many of which are the city's most prominent philanthropists in the financial industry), but includes hundreds of individuals, businesses, and organizations. The most active donor is John C. Bogle, chairman of the National Constitution Center and former chairman and founder of the Vanguard Group. Besides wanting to make college a reality for Philadelphia schools students, Bogle hopes that these same children will one day invest in Philadelphia's next generation.
Once such group, which raises funds for the Last Dollar Scholarship program, is the Scholars Advisory Committee. To date, they have raised $16 million. A. Morris Williams, Jr. chairs the committee, is the president of Williams and Company, and was formerly an executive of Morgan Stanley. He and John Neff, a committee member and former managing partner of Wellington Management Company, are the two driving forces behind the Philadelphia Scholars Program. Together, they provided the seed money for the program's launch.
Williams wants to help the Philadelphia schools students reach their goals, hoping to inspire others to support higher education in Philadelphia. Neff wants to give something back to the community that has been so good to him, and sees supporting education as a way to give students an opportunity for a better life.
Most investors in the scholarship program for Philadelphia schools students recognize the something must be done to help the city's youth succeed. Without the opportunity of a higher education for today's students, Philadelphia will be left wanting for an educated workforce in the future. The donors' generosity helps the Philadelphia schools students have a better future, as well as helping the city succeed tomorrow.
Phoenix Schools Providing Healthier Food Choices for 2006-2007 School Year
Much attention has been paid over the last few years to the weight (or maybe I should say overweight) condition of Americans. There have and continue to be many articles in the media, televisions shows devoted to the subject, and now even a reality show. The attention has not just been on adult Americans. Much attention is being paid to our overweight children and the health risks posed for them by the time they are adults.
The federal government already had set limits on the amount of fat and calories that schools could offer to children on their main menus. Many community groups have lobbied their schools to rid the facilities of soda and snack machines ? and won!
Soda contains large amounts of high fructose. Just one soda daily can add several pounds each year to anyone's weight, regardless of age. Fat, of course, adds high amounts of bad cholesterol, which eventually clogs arteries to the heart and causes strokes.
Because of the federal limits and community opinion, many Phoenix schools already had taken fried foods off their menus and soda out of their schools. Some Phoenix schools, however, continued to offer French fries as a side item, in order to get around the federal restrictions. They believed that asking Phoenix schools' students to give up the staple they loved was asking too much.
Now, all Phoenix schools are required to eliminate certain foods from all of their menus. A new state law that is stricter than the federal limits now bans all junk foods, soft drinks, and fried foods from kindergarten through eighth-grade schools during the school day. All food sold on school premises during the school day must meet certain nutrition standards, making French fries completely off limits. There is no way to get around the restrictions this time.
Nutritionists in some of the Phoenix schools have gotten very creative in finding and providing substitutes. These Phoenix schools' nutritionists have sampled many different varieties of substitutes for French fries over the summer months. They even have enlisted Phoenix schools employees as taste testers. Their decisive factors for the new substitute fries were: (1) they must bake quickly, (2) they do not become soggy under the warming lights, and most important, (3) they must taste good.
The new fries offered at many of the Phoenix schools this school year have many different names. Some are oven wedges, oven fries, and potato sticks. Whatever the Phoenix schools call them, they meet the criteria of the nutritionists and the new state law.
The Phoenix schools' substitute fries are baked (not deep fried), have fewer calories (some are 25 percent less than fried), and half the fat. They are lighter in color than the original French fries, and lack the old familiar crunch and oily taste.
Most Phoenix schools' students say they like the new fries ? a little mushier than the old ones, but not bad. Others can deal with the new fries but prefer the originals.
As long as the Phoenix schools' students eat them, as well as the other foods mandated by state law, parents at least know their children are getting one healthy meal each school day.
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