5: A Healthy School Environment

This chapter discusses the important role a healthy school environment plays in a coordinated school health program. The environment helps set the tone for the attitudes, activities, and importance a school is going to place on its overall health. A healthy environment contributes to students learning by: minimizing distractions, physical, psychological, and social hazards, creating a climate in which students and school staff do their best work, expecting all students to succeed, and implementing supportive policies. All of these create the best safe and supportive environment that is needed for all the students to reach their learning potentials. To create a healthy environment, like everything else in school health, you need leadership. A person or group of people who are willing to push and make the learning process fit the students, and staffs needs. To implement the environment, you need more than just one leader, but virtually everyone involved in the school system, including: students, administrators, teachers, custodians, maintenance, counselors, nurses, nutrition services; as well as family involvement and outside public health agencies. All involved work to complete an environment that is suitable and obtainable for everyone. Once there is a group or committee, the next step is to create an action for the school. The first step should be to develop and use data collection system for assessing and monitoring the school environment. Providing leadership and administration support for creating and sustaining a healthy school environment would be next. The plan should than be developed and implemented for sustaining a healthy school environment. Lastly, the implementation of the plan as well as the school environment should be monitored.
I believe that other than leadership, the environment is the most crucial aspect to the success of a coordinated school health program. It sets the tone of how much importance the school is going to place on health. The schools philosophy should be represented by the rules and set up of the school; if it emphasizes all the components of health, than the environment will reflect it, as well as all the members within that environment. Before students are even willing to learn, they must feel safe, intellectually stimulated, and the classroom must meet their basic needs mentally and physically. Creating a healthy environment helps solve this problem. It’s much easier to learn and work in a district that places the overall-wellness of the individuals first, rather than creating an atmosphere that restricts learning and working relationships. If everyone can buy into the environment that has been created, than it’s not only going to improve students and staff members abilities in the school, but it will also expand outside of the school in to the community.