A School Leaders Guide to Collaboration and Community Engagement
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A School Leaders Guide to Collaboration and Community Engagement This project was made possible by a grant from the Vitamin Cases Consumer Settlement Fund. Created as a result of an antitrust class action, one of the purposes of the Fund is to improve the health and nutrition of California consumers. A School Leader’s Guide to Collaboration and Community Engagement Produced by: California School Boards Association and Cities Counties Schools Partnership 2009 This project was made possible by a grant from the Vitamin Cases Consumer Settlement Fund. Created as a result of an antitrust class action, one of the purposes of the Fund is to improve the health and nutrition of California consumers. © 2009, California School Boards Association | 3100 Beacon Blvd., West Sacramento, CA 95691 800.266.3382 | www.csba.org | www.csba.org/wellness.aspx This material may not be reproduced or disseminated without prior written permission from the California School Boards Association. I CSBA 2009 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Paula Campbell, President Frank Pugh, President-elect Martha Fluor, Vice President Paul Chatman, Immediate Past President Scott P. Plotkin, Executive Director CALIFORNIA SCHOOL BOARDS ASSOCIATION PROJECT STAFF Martin Gonzalez, Deputy Executive Director Diane Greene, Principal Consultant Betsy McNeil, Student Wellness Consultant Katie Santos-Coy, Marketing Specialist Kerry Macklin, Senior Graphic Designer CITIES COUNTIES SCHOOLS PARTNERSHIP PROJECT STAFF Connie Busse, Executive Director Luan Burman Rivera, Director Special Projects Francesca Wright, Special Projects Consultant II BUILDING HEALTHY COMMUNITIES TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE _______________________________________ VII California School Boards Association VII Cities Counties Schools Partnership VIII Purpose of a Collaboration Guide X Acknowledgments XII 1. INTRODUCTION _________________________________1 Extent of the Problem 1 Impact on Schools 2 Schools at the Forefront 3 2. FOUNDATIONS OF COLLABORATION _____________5 Why Collaborate? 5 Keys to Collaboration 6 Behaviors That Support Collaboration 8 Attitudes That Support Collaboration 10 TABLE OF CONTENTS III 3. STEPS IN CREATING A COLLABORATIVE _______ 13 Step 1 Setting the Stage and Creating the Vision 13 Initiating the Process 13 Creating a Vision, Guiding Principles and Common Values 16 Determining Priorities and Outcomes 16 Step 2 Designing the Essential Building Blocks 18 Step 3 Implementing the Strategies 19 Step 4 Sustaining and Continuing the Collaboration 21 Lessons Learned 22 Continuum of Collaboration 24 Information Exchange/Relationship Building 25 Joint Projects 26 Changing Rules 28 Systems Change 29 4. COLLABORATING FOR STUDENT WELLNESS ____ 31 Collaboration for Nutrition 31 Empower Food Services Staff to Seek Opportunities 31 Utilize Available Resources 32 Create Public Awareness 33 Connect at the County Level 33 Engage Youth in Finding and Implementing Solutions 33 Encourage Cities to Adopt Nutrition Policies 34 Collaboration for Physical Activity 35 Conduct Walkability, Bikeability and Park Condition Audits 35 Establish Safe Routes to School (SRTS and SR2S) 36 Participate in Land Use Planning 37 IV BUILDING HEALTHY COMMUNITIES Make School Siting Decisions That Promote Physical Activity 37 Collaborate on Joint Financing and Joint Use of Facilities and Equipment 38 Establish Other Physical Activity Programs 39 Collaboration for Overweight Screening 42 Comprehensive Collaboration for Obesity Prevention 43 Countywide 43 Citywide 43 Districtwide 43 5. CASE STUDIES _______________________________ 45 Earlimart School District: Onsite Women’s, Infants and Children Nutrition Program and Farmers Market Tulare County 46 Oakland Schoolyards Initiative: Collaborative Planning Play Yards Alameda County 51 Creating a Healthier La Mesa: La Mesa-Spring Valley School District and the City of La Mesa San Diego County 56 Julian Pathways: A Backcountry Healthy Start Model San Diego County 60 Healthy Shasta: New Millennium Health and Fitness Council Northern California Shasta County 64 Healthy Chino Coalition San Diego County 71 TABLE OF CONTENTS V 6. SUMMARY: CHECKLIST FOR STARTING A COLLABORATIVE _____________ 77 7. RESOURCES _________________________________ 83 8. AppENDIX ___________________________________ 93 Appendix A 94 Sample Guiding Principles 94 Appendix B 95 1. Fact Sheet for Joint Use Agreements: NPLAN 95 2. Checklist for Developing Joint Use Agreements 98 3. Model Joint Use Agreements: NPLAN 104 4. Sample Joint Use Agreement: City of Roseville and Dry Creek Elementary School District 105 Appendix C 112 Sample resolutions and district motions 112 Appendix D 123 Call to Action | Childhood Obesity Action Plan 123 Appendix E 131 Sample School Board Policies 131 Endnotes 161 VI BUILDING HEALTHY COMMUNITIES PREFACE The California School Boards Association and the Cities Counties Schools Partnership are undertaking a joint effort to support and encourage school board members and other school leaders to take a leadership role in developing community approaches to addressing the nutritional and physical activity needs of children. This three-year project, Healthy Communities—Healthy Students, will equip school board members with the knowledge, resources and tools needed to garner community support and take collaborative action towards making community-wide changes supporting a healthier society. CALIFORNIA SCHOOL BOARDS ASSOCIATION CSBA is a collaborative of virtually all of the state’s more than 1,000 school districts and county offices of education. CSBA is a member-driven association that supports the governance team—school board members and superintendents—in its complex leadership role. CSBA envisions a state where the futures of all children are driven by their aspirations, not bounded by their circumstances. These potentially binding circumstances include the physical, mental and environmental health of each child. By supporting school leaders in addressing these binding circumstances, CSBA seeks to build sustainable healthy learning environments that positively impact student learning and achievement. Since 2000, CSBA has been assisting school board members in fulfilling their role and responsibilities in creating healthy school environments. In partnership with California Project LEAN (Leaders Encouraging Activity and Nutrition), CSBA created the Successful Students Through Healthy Food and Fitness Policies Campaign that seeks to educate school board members on the critical link between nutrition, physical activity, health and academic achievement, and to provide districts/COEs and school board members with tools and sample policies to support a healthy school environment. This highly successful, multi-year partnership employed an intervention strategy that included policy tools, community mobilization, advertisements and trainings. PREFACE VII Building upon this work, CSBA and CPL commissioned a national research project in 2006 on school wellness policy development, implementation and evaluation, with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and developed three research briefs for school board members, state public health nutrition directors and school wellness advocates, and state school boards association leaders.1 CSBA conducted a statewide research project in 2007, with funding from The California Endowment, to gauge the perceptions, challenges and needs of school district leaders in providing school health services.2 In early 2009, CSBA, again in partnership with CPL, surveyed school board members in California to identify barriers and opportunities to strengthening physical education and physical activity in schools. Together these research projects provide CSBA with guidance and direction in this work, and help inform the development of resources, materials and trainings for school leaders. In addition, CSBA has developed numerous policy briefs, fact sheets, articles, Webinars and workshops on issues such as nutrition standards, physical education exemptions, food safety requirements, wellness policies, oral health, indoor air quality, asthma management, influenza, mental health and diabetes. These materials can be found at www.csba.org/wellness.aspx. In 2007, CSBA, in partnership with the California Department of Education and California Department of Public Health, co-hosted the inaugural School Wellness Conference that brought together a uniquely diverse group of stakeholders (school board members, superintendents, principals, teachers, nutrition directors and food service staff, nutritionists, physical education staff, district administrators, researchers, nonprofits, parents, students, school nurses, public health staff and other school and community stakeholders) to share best practices, resources and strategies for creating sustainable healthy learning environments. The second School Wellness Conference will be held in the fall of 2009. CITIES COUNTIES SCHOOLS PARTNERSHIP The CCS Partnership, incorporated in 1997, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan collaboration of associations of local elected officials. The partners in the CCS Partnership are the League of California Cities, the California State Association of Counties, and CSBA. Together the associations represent 7,935 local elected officials including 2,503 city council members and mayors from California’s 480 cities, 296 supervisors of the 58 counties, and 5,136 school board members from the 1,029 school districts and county offices of education. The goal of the CCS Partnership is to promote the development of public policies that build