National Affiliate Spotlight: Sweetwater County focuses on wellness
02/08 -- Virtually every school board has some kind of policy promoting “wellness.” After all, such policies are mandated by the Child Nutrition Act. But few districts have taken this mandate to heart as extensively as Sweetwater County School District #2 in Green River, Wyo.
The district’s wellness policy includes the usual language about eliminating junk food and encouraging students to make healthy choices.
But Sweetwater’s policy also stresses “the importance of body-size acceptance,” urges students to “receive consistent nutrition messages throughout the school, classroom, and cafeteria”; and calls for the cafeteria to offer a “learning laboratory” to link the lessons learned in class with the practice of making healthy choices.
And at a time when many districts are cutting back on physical education and recess to focus more on instruction aimed at raising test scores, Sweetwater County District #2 requires all elementary students to have a daily recess of at least 40 minutes plus 90 minutes of PE every week.
Middle school students must have at least 200 minutes of PE every week throughout the school year. High school students must earn one credit of PE and one-half credit of health education.
School board President Steve Core says his support for promoting a strong wellness policy was inspired by former President Bill Clinton’s speech at the NSBA Annual Conference last April, which called for schools to tackle the childhood obesity crisis.
“The board was a little skeptical at first,” Core says. “We were talking about sweeping changes that affect not only students and staff, but patrons at athletic events. But we recognized that we have an obesity problem in this country, and as public policymakers, we have an obligation to deal with this problem.”
The district held a “wellness day celebration” during homecoming this year, says Nancy Eklund, a physical education teacher at Monroe Intermediate School, who oversees the district’s wellness initiatives. After the homecoming parade in the morning, students were offered a healthy lunch at the stadium, and several wellness activities were held in the afternoon, including dance classes, hiking, bench stepping, and cross country skiing.
Last year, the district focused on wellness for students. The district purchased a large-sized Dance Dance Revolution video game stage and 30 mountain bikes, upgraded its weight rooms, and gave every student a high-quality pedometer.
The focus this year is on staff wellness, Eklund says, with several activities scheduled, including monthly jogs.
“The teachers told us they don’t want a weight loss competition, but they do want activities to help them lose weight,” Eklund says. A point system has been set up so staff members can earn T-shirts or other rewards for every 100 miles logged.
All sodas and junk food have been eliminated from school vending machines, and sports drinks are only available in the vending machines near the gyms, Eklund says. Students are taught that “if you’re not an athlete, you shouldn’t be drinking Gatorade.”
A proposal to sell only healthy snacks at after-school athletic events proved most controversial. Candy and low-nutrient snacks are being replaced with healthier items like peanuts and low-fat chips. “People thought we were taking their hot dogs away. We’re not,” Eklund says. “We switched to low-fat hot dogs and people didn’t even notice.”
When the athletic director and community members expressed concern about the potential loss of revenue, the board agreed to provide additional funding.
The board also agreed to back away from its proposal to eliminate soft drinks from the concession stands after hearing complaints from adults who “didn’t want to be told what they could or couldn’t drink,” Core says.
To accommodate those concerns, the district still sells diet sodas, but raised the price -- a 12-ounce soda now costs as much as a 20-ounce bottle of water -- to encourage healthier choices.
Core says he expects the district will lose some revenue, but he believes it’s a fair trade-off if the result is healthier children.
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