Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

New NASBE Database Tracks State School Health Policies Related to Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) Model

  • 01/31/19

Alexandria, Va. — The National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) is pleased to announce the redesign of its popular online resource, the Healthy Schools Database. The new version, now called the NASBE State Policy Database on School Health, aligns all existing state statutory and regulatory language on student health to the components of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s framework for school health promotion, known as the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model.

The WSCC model defines 10 important areas of a healthy school: health education; physical education and physical activity; nutrition environment and services; health services; counseling, psychological, and social services; social and emotional climate; physical environment; employee wellness; family engagement; and community involvement. Combined, these elements provide a road map for comprehensive policymaking that fully supports students’ well-being.

The NASBE State Policy Database on School Health is a product of NASBE’s partnership with Child Trends, the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and EMT Associates, Inc. The database documents state education policies and analyzes their alignment with WSCC. Made possible by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Together for Healthy and Successful Schools Initiative, the database encompasses policies enacted as of September 2017 for 136 variables across the 10 WSCC domains, as well as a category capturing references to the WSCC model itself. Further information on methodology, a summary of findings, and profiles for each state can be found on Child Trends’s website. As state boards of education and others consider adoption of policies and processes that support the whole child, these resources will supply important information on existing statutes and best practices.

“NASBE first designed its health database over 10 years ago to help state policymakers learn from each other’s policies on student health and wellness,” says Robert Hull, NASBE’s president and CEO. “Over the years, researchers, advocates, health professionals, and the media have also depended on the database as a source for the latest information on health policy in the states. We are thrilled to revitalize this database in such a robust and timely way to help all policy actors—be it the state board, education agency, legislature, or governor—find ways to ensure that the policies they adopt fully address all children’s physical, social, emotional, and academic needs.”

Visit NASBE’s State Policy Database on School Health at statepolicies.nasbe.org/health.

Featured

  • Chartwells Launches Campus Dining Evaluation Framework

    Contract food-service management provider Chartwells Higher Education recently announced the launch of BLUEPRINT, according to a news release. The evaluation framework was designed to provide a data-driven and customizable roadmap towards optimizing campus dining services and, by extension, the student experience.

  • school building with glowing circuit board patterns

    AI Is Coming to Schools — But Most School Buildings Still Run on Institutional Memory

    As school districts race to introduce AI into classrooms, administration, and curriculum planning, another conversation is happening behind the scenes: How prepared are school facilities themselves for the operational demands AI will create?

  • Rethinking K-12 Schools as a Continuous Learning Experience

    Most students move through three or more separate facilities during their K-12 journey, yet the built environments they encounter at each stage have traditionally been designed in isolation, with little continuity in spatial language, learning philosophy, or physical resources. Each new school is a reset with different layouts, learning models, expectations, and ways of moving through a building. The next generation of school design is making the case that the first day of kindergarten and the last day of high school can and should feel connected through common support systems and infrastructure in the physical environment.

  • Minnesota District Converts Middle School into Community Hub

    White Bear Lake Area Schools in White Bear Lake, Minn., recently announced the end of a major renovation project that converted a former middle school into a new centralized district and community hub, according to a news release.