EDUCATION AND HEALTH: PARTNERS IN SCHOOL REFORM Doryn Davis Chervin, Dr.P.H. and Daphne Northrop, B.A. 1994 Contents   Acknowledgments Foreword Partners in Reform Capitalizing on Points of Commonality Aims of this Report Lessons from Exemplary Southern Districts A Compelling Vision Creating a Vision Community Support Using Data to Frame the Vision Turning a "Vision" into Action A New Concept of leadership A New Approach to Resources Financing New Forms of Professional Participation Staff and Teacher Commitment School Structure and Environment A Partnership Between Schools and Communities Collaboration with Community Service Agencies Task Forces and Advisory Boards State-Local Collaboration Persistence in Sustaining the Effort Continuing Advocacy Collecting Data to Show Impact Opposition Ongoing Professional Development Opportunities for the Future To School Leaders To State Health and Education Professionals. . To Philanthropies . . Expert Consultation Endnotes     ACKNOWLEDGMENTS   Education and Health: Partners in School Reform is the result of a partnership among many -- each who believes that education reform can best be achieved when students come to school healthy and secure. This report synthesizes the wisdom shared by 65 education, health, and human service professionals from 12 communities in nine Southern states, convened in an expert consultation November 16-18, 1993 in Miami, Florida. These Southern leaders are devoted to the notion that comprehensive school health and services, addressing the full range of human needs, foster the conditions for students to be ready and able to learn. We want to thank especially the BellSouth Foundation staff for their insight and desire to understand how Southern school districts and communities respond to the range of human needs and conditions so students can best benefit from schooling. Through the vision and leadership of Patricia Willis, President of the BellSouth Foundation, and Leslie Graitcer, Associate Director, the expert consultation and this publication became a reality. We also thank Wendy Best, Grants Manager, for her involvement. We are grateful to the many education and health leaders across the South who nominated innovative school districts which actively address health issues to advance education reform. Twenty-three school districts were interviewed to understand how they meet the comprehensive needs of students and integrate aspects of health in the district policies, curricula, instructional activities, and services to students. We documented the various approaches that districts use as they focus on the healthy development and overall learning outcomes of children and youth. Our staff conducted site visits to three school districts to gain a deeper under standing of their efforts. We are deeply indebted to the Fulton County Schools in Hickman, Kentucky; Gwinnett County Schools, Lawrenceville, Georgia; and West Feliciana Parish Schools, St. Francisville, Louisiana for sharing their time and stories with us. Special thanks is extended to Superintendents Charles Terrett, George Thompson, and Lloyd Lindsey for opening their doors to this endeavor. Of these 23 districts, 12 were invited to comprise a group of experts to inform the BellSouth Foundation on the ways that health and comprehensive services can be de signed to improve student achievement. These participants represented a mix of rural, midsized, and urban settings and ethnically, racially, culturally, and socioeconomicallv diverse student populations. They shared their challenges and triumphs, and deserve our deepest appreciation: Beaufort County School, South Carolina; Broward County Schools, Florida; Chattanooga Public Schools, Tennessee; Cleveland County Public Schools, North Carolina; Dade County Public Schools, Florida; Fulton County Public Schools, Kentucky; Gulfport Public Schools, Mississippi; Gwinnett County Public Schools, Georgia; Jefferson County Public Schools, Kentucky; Manatee County Public Schools, Florida; Santa Rosa Public Schools, Florida; and West Feliciana Parish Schools, Louisiana. All demonstrated commitment on the part of the superintendent and school board to education reform and the healthy development of children and youth. Other experts who participated in this consultation deserve thanks: Tony Cipollone, The Annie E. Casey Foundation; Patrick Cooper. National School Health Education Coalition; Ronnie Dunn, Kentucky Family Resource/Youth Service Centers; Linda Goodson, University of Alabama School of Public Health; Nancy Hall, Georgia Department of Education; Robert Kronley, Southern Education Foundation; Frank Loda, Center for Early Adolescence; Amanda Dew Manning, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Paul Mauer, Kentucky Cabinet for Human Resources; Gloria Primm Brown, Carnegie Corporation of New York; and Annette Townsend, Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. The work and support of my colleagues at Education Development Center, Inc, (EDC) have been essential to improving the conditions of children and families and the institutions that serve them. Janet Whitla, President; Cheryl Vince Whitman, Senior Vice President and Director of Health and Human Development Programs; and Tim Dunn, Director of Comprehensive School Health Programs, deserve special recognition. My thanks are also extended to Margery Hemsing Rankin, Ingrid Alcantara, Heidi LaFleche, and Ruth Rappaport. Finally, Steven Chervin offered his invaluable assistance with the interviews, site visits, expert consultation, and keen perceptions of the world of schools. Daphne Northrop, coauthor of Education and Health: Partners in School Reform, applied her in sight, intellect, and fine journalistic skills in a process illustrative of true collaboration.     Dorvn Davis Chervin Director, Southeast Office Education Development Center       FOREWORD   Education and Health: Partners in School Reform is both an end and a beginning. This report concludes a process of the BellSouth Foundation to find and learn from schools that are reforming both their education and their school health programs. In support of their efforts, we announce the beginning of the New Partnerships Network of Southern Schools, directed by Education Development Center, Inc.(EDC), to help sustain the work of these districts and to encourage other schools and policymakers to undertake similar comprehensive reforms that address the holistic needs of children and their families. As the BellSouth Foundation pursued education improvement in its early years, we observed two conflicting notions: the notion that today's schools would work just fine if all students came to school healthy, behaved, and motivated; and the notion that today's schools cannot work for any students until the schools themselves undertake comprehensive change in curriculum, organization, professional development, and governance. In other words, reform the children or reform the schools. In 1990, the BellSouth Foundation published Fulfilling Reform's Promise: The Need to Expand the Vision of Education in the South in which we concluded that we really must do both. We must support all children's readiness and ability to learn and we must make that learning meaningful for the modern world. The Honorable Richard Riley, cochair of the BellSouth Foundation's advisory committee in 1990 and now United States Secretary of Education, remarked in his introductory comments to Fulfilling Reform's Promise, Education reform must address the host of human needs that allow children to benefit from schooling and that prepare learners to live in a world with no geographic boundaries. Education, then, takes on new meaning--one that encompasses the total physical and emotional, as well as intellectual, development of the learner." The 32 educators and advisors to Fulfilling Reform's Promise further challenged the BellSouth Foundation to expand the way we operate by broadening our activities beyond grantmaking. The "operating agenda" was created in response and has prompted us to develop and support networks of educators. convene diverse parties around educational issues, and support selected research. Education and Health: Partners in School Reform is a BellSouth Foundation operating agenda initiative directed by EDC and its southeast office. We began with the premise that schools had an opportunity, if not a responsibility, to improve the success of children by addressing their health and human service needs as well as their academic needs. At the conclusion of our investigation, we understood that attention to children's health by schools is not optional. Beyond the delivery of actual services, often coordinated through other agencies, schools must rethink the role of curriculum, instructional strategies, school environment, student and personnel policies, and all aspects of school life to foster healthy children who are ready to learn every day. The twelve school districts identified by EDC for their comprehensive reforms in both education and health are trailblazers in responding to the holistic needs of children. The following report celebrates them and offers the lessons of their work, the successes as well as the sobering obstacles, as a guide to others. These pioneers cited pressing needs to communicate with and learn from each other. The BellSouth Foundation has responded with a grant to EDC to provide that linkage through the New Partnerships Network. We hope others will review this report and respond to the ideas and additional needs that are described. Educators, human service professionals, local and state policymakers, and foundations will find roles and opportunities that merit their consideration. We invite your response and your comments so that together we can help all our children flourish.     Patricia L. Willis President BellSouth Foundation       To be continued...