1705 Sullivan Drive
Bogalusa, LA 70427
(985)281-2100

Local Wellness Policy                                                      
Bogalusa City Schools                                                                    
                                                                              
Rationale

The recent passage of Section 204 of Public Law 108-265, of the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act, requires the local education agency to establish a local wellness policy by the first day of the 2006 – 2007 school year.

BogalusaCity Schools recognizes that student wellness and proper nutrition are related to students’ physical well-being, growth, development, and readiness to learn.  The School Board is committed to providing healthy school environments that promote student wellness, nutritious foods and beverages, physical education, nutrition education, and regular physical activity as part of the total learning experience.  A healthy school environment provides students with the skills, social support, and environmental reinforcement they need to adopt long-term, healthy eating, physical activity and other health-promoting behaviors that can improve achievement.  Bogalusa City Schools is committed to providing a school environment that encourages nutritious eating habits and appropriate physical activity as a means of promoting academic success and encouraging lifelong health.

General Statements Regarding Wellness:

Children need access to healthful foods and opportunities to be physically active, to grow, to learn, and to thrive.

Good health fosters student attendance and education.

Obesity rates have doubled in children and tripled in adolescents over the last two decades, and physical inactivity and excessive calorie intake are the predominant causes of obesity;

Heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes are responsible for two-thirds of deaths in the United States, and major risk factors for those diseases, including unhealthy eating habits, physical inactivity, and obesity, often are established in childhood;

More high school students should participate in sufficient physical activity and attend physical education classes;

Very few children (2 to 19 years) eat a healthy diet consistent with the recommendations from My Pyramid;

Nationally, the items most commonly sold from school vending machines, school stores, and snack bars include low-nutrition foods and beverages, such as soda, sports drinks, imitation fruit juices, chips, candy, cookies, and snack cakes;

School districts around the country are facing significant fiscal and scheduling constraints; and

Community participation is essential to the development and implementation of successful school wellness policies.

Thus, Bogalusa City Schools is committed to providing school environments that promote and protect children’s health, well being, and ability to learn by supporting healthy eating and physical activity.

Bogalusa City Schools has appointed Joannie Miller, Director of Child Nutrition Programs, to coordinate and access the implementation of the Local Wellness Policy.

Therefore, it is the policy of the Bogalusa City Schools that:

• The school district will engage students, parents, teachers, food service professionals, health professionals, and other interested community members in developing, implementing, monitoring, and reviewing district-wide nutrition and physical activity policies.
• All students in grades K-12 will have opportunities, support, and encouragement to be physically active on a regular basis.
• Foods and beverages sold or served at school will meet the nutrition requirements as outlined in Bulletin 1196.  Qualified child nutrition professionals will provide students with access to a variety of affordable, nutritious, and appealing foods that meet the health and nutrition needs of students; will accommodate the religious, ethnic, and cultural diversity of the student body in meal planning; and will provide clean, safe, and pleasant settings and adequate time for students to eat.
• All schools in our system will participate in available federal school meal programs (including the School Breakfast Program, National School Lunch Program, Summer Food Service Program, and the After School Snack Program).
• Schools will provide nutrition education and physical education to foster lifelong habits of healthy eating and physical activity, and will establish linkages between health education and school meal programs, and with related community services.  

Federal and State Requirements

Bogalusa City Schools will:

• Offer a school lunch program with menus that meet the meal patterns and nutrition standards established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Louisiana Department of Education (LDE), Office of School and community Support.
• Provide school breakfast and snack programs with menus that meet the meal patterns and nutrition standards established by the USDA and LDE, Office of School and Community Support.
• Encourage school staff and families to participate in school meal programs.
• Operate all Child Nutrition Programs (CNP) with school foodservice staff who are qualified according to current professional standards (Policies of Operation, Bulletin 1196).
• Establish food safety as a key component of all school food operations and ensure that the food service permit is current for the school site.
• Follow State Board of Education policies on competitive foods and extra food sales (1196).
• Establish guidelines for all foods available on the school campus during the school day with the objective of promoting health and reducing obesity.

School District Policies

Bogalusa City Schools will provide:

• Adequate time for breakfast and the recommended 30 minutes for lunch.
• Whole and enriched grain products that are high in fiber, low in added fats and sugars, and served in appropriate portion sizes consistent with the current USDA standards.
• Fresh, frozen, canned or dried fruits and vegetables using healthy food preparation techniques and 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice.
• Nonfat, reduced fat, low-fat and/or flavored milk and yogurt, nonfat, reduced fat and/or low-fat real cheese.
• Nuts, nut butters, seeds, trail mix, and/or soybean snacks.
• Healthy food preparation techniques for lean meat, poultry, and fish.
• School meals accessible to all students with a variety of delivery strategies.
• A cafeteria environment conducive to a positive dining experience, with socializing among students and between students and adults; with supervision of eating areas by adults who model proper conduct and voice level; and with adults who model healthy habits by eating with the students.

Other School Policies

Bogalusa City Schools will:

• Eliminate use of foods as rewards for student accomplishment.
• Encourage serving healthy food at school celebrations.  Notices shall be sent to parents/guardians either separately or as part of a school newsletter, reminding them of the necessity of providing healthy treats for students and/or encouraging the use of non-food treats for classroom birthday or award celebrations.
• Eliminate selling food items of limited nutritional value as fundraisers, such as candy, cupcakes, or sugar beverages.
• Provide nutritious and appealing options whenever foods/beverages are sold or otherwise offered after school at sporting and academic events, celebrations, social events, after school care, ad other school functions.

    
Food Marketing

• School based marketing should be consistent with nutrition education and health promotion.  As such, it is recommended that schools limit food and beverage marketing to the promotion of foods and beverages sold individually.  School-based marketing of brands promoting low-nutrition foods and beverages is strongly discouraged.   The promotion of health foods, including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy foods is encouraged.
• Marketing activities that promote healthful behaviors include: vending machine covers promoting water or milk; pricing structures that promote healthy options in vending machines, and sales of fruit for fundraisers.
• The goal of improving nutritional intake can also be accomplished by applying basic marketing strategies to sales of healthful options.  Schools can consider the four P’s when establishing guidelines for foods and beverages served or sold during the school day.

• Product:  Vendors and companies have increasing numbers of products available-many with a more healthful profile than traditional snack items.
• Placement:  The sales of more nutrient-rich foods and beverages can be increased by placing them in “prime locations”- at student’s eye level.
• Price:  Another way to increase the sale of healthful items is to offer them at a lower cost.
• Promotion:  There are many creative ways to promote healthy options—offer samples of new products, giving discount coupons, designating as healthy choice. 

Nutrition Education

Because a high percent of all children and adolescents are enrolled in school, the classroom environment is ideally suited to give students the skills and support needed to adopt healthful eating behaviors for life.  Teachers, food service personnel, and other staff can offer their expertise and model appropriate eating behaviors.  Students have opportunities to practice healthful eating behaviors at school.  Collaboration among school food service staff, teachers, the community, families and institutional services is necessary.  Both traditional classroom education and behavioral change programs is recommended.  Nutrition education can be intergraded into content and instruction across the curriculum including science, mathematics, English language arts, and social studies.  Integration of nutrition information into teaching content areas should use the resources of the classroom, the school, and the community.  Nutrition education also is part of health education, which enables students to acquire knowledge and skills needed to practice good health. 

Behavior change can be enhanced through social learning theory, as well.  Social learning theory may include a parent component for younger students and peer involvement for older students.  The cafeteria can be used as part of the total educational system for modeling behavior.

Bogalusa City Schools will:

• Promote and implement nutrition education that promotes lifelong healthful eating practices;
• Use lessons that are age-appropriate, behaviorally focused content that is developmentally appropriate and culturally relevant;
• Use lessons that are sequential and are correlated with standards, benchmarks, and grade level expectations;
• Provide hands-on activities that are fun;
• Provide opportunities for students to a taste foods that are low in fat, sodium; and added sugars and high in vitamins, minerals and fiber;
• Focus on positive aspects of healthful eating behaviors;
• Promote social learning techniques such as role modeling, providing incentives, developing social resistance skills, overcoming barriers to behavioral changes and goal setting, social resistance skills, overcoming barriers to behavioral changes and goal setting;
• Strive toward hiring qualified, certified health education teachers; and
• Provide staff development for teachers; and
• Implement the iCare program in grades preK through 8.

Physical Education

Both regular physical activity and nutrition mutually contribute t healthy citizens and reduce the incidence of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, depression, obesity, and other chronic health problems.  General Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that children and teens be physically active for an accumulation of at last 60 minutes daily in school and non-school activities.  Since children spend the majority of their time at school during weekdays, it is imperative that schools provide students with the means to participate in physical activity.  Physical Educations programs should help students attain the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to lead and active, productive life and maintain a healthy-enhancing level of physical fitness.   Physical education programs will include the following components:

 1.  Emphasize knowledge and skills that promote a lifetime of physical activity.
 2.  Standards that define what students should know and be able to do.
 3.  Keeps students active for most of the class time.
 4.  Provides many different physical activity choices.
 5.  Meets needs of all students, especially those who are not athletically gifted.
 6.  Features cooperative, as well as competitive games.
 7.  Develops students’ self-confidence and eliminates practices that humiliate.
 8.  Assesses progress in reaching goals, not on achieving absolutes standards.
 9.  Promotes physical activity outside of school.
10.  Teaches self-management skills, such as goal-setting and self-monitoring.
11.  Actively teaches cooperation, fair play, and responsible participation.
12.  Focuses at the high school level on helping students make the transitions to a physically active adult life. 

In Louisiana, Act 734 passed to require public schools for grades K-6 require 30 minutes each school day of quality, moderate to vigorous physical activity for students.

Bogalusa City Schools will:

• Promote and implement quality physical education programs that emphasize and promote participation in lifelong physical activities and reaching a health enhancing level of physical fitness among all students.
• Provide students in grades K-8 with a minimum of 150 minutes per week (30 minutes per day) of health and physical education.
• Ensure that students in grades K-6 participate in planned, organized, and moderate to vigorous physical activity for a minimum of 30 minutes each school day.
• Strive toward having qualified, certified physical education teachers guide physical activity instruction in all elementary grades as well as in middle and high school.
• Provide staff development on standards implementation for instructors.
• Ensures that adequate safety policies and provisions are in place.
• Strive toward ensuring that adequate equipment is in place to provide all students are able to be active for a minimum of 30 minutes.
• Provide a variety of fitness training, motor skills, and team work modules in the 270 hours (54 minutes per day) required at the high school level for graduation.
• Use a recognized instrument or program to evaluate student’s physical fitness.
• Provide age appropriate equipment and facilities.
• Implement the iCare program.

Physical Activity Opportunities

In order to improve the health and fitness of our students and to prevent childhood obesity, we must put increased emphasis on the importance of physical activity for students.  The following recommendations are made in the best interest of students recognizing that schools, parents and communities will need to be creative in finding additional opportunities and resources for physical activity outside of classes.

Bogalusa City Schools will provide opportunities for physical activity:

• Recognize that daily physical activity is essential to student welfare and academic performance.
• Encourage physical activity during recess for elementary students, intramural programs, integration in the academic curriculum, and clubs as well as in physical education programs and at home.
• Provide daily recess for all children in K-8.
• Work with community to create ways for students to walk, bike, skateboard, roller skate, play basketball, softball, baseball, or participate in other physical activities in safe locations at times other than the school day.
• Encourage parents and guardians to support students’ participation in physical activities, to be physically active role-models, and to include physical activities in family plans.
• Encourage school staff to participate in physical activities to serve as role models.
• Support and implement the iCare program.
• Support community-based physical activity programs.

Measuring the Implementation and Designation of a Site Monitor

A plan for measuring implementation of the local wellness policy, including the designation of one or more persons within the local educational agency at each school, charged with the operational responsibility will ensure that the school meets the local wellness policy.

The Supervisor of Instruction and Principals will be responsible for assuring that physical activity opportunities offered to students will be consistent with state physical education standards for students. 

The Director of Child Nutrition Programs and site managers will be responsible for assuring that Handbook 1196 is implemented to meet the nutrition requirements.

These goals, accompanying guidelines and the recommendations will be reviewed annually by the Local Wellness Policy Committee and make the appropriate recommendations to the principals.

This policy will be monitored by the superintendent.

Involvement

Involvement of parents, representatives of the school food authority, the school board, school administrators, and the public will be involved in the continued development of the school wellness policy.
                                                                                                                                    List of approved snacks
http://www.pbrc.edu/Division_of_Education/pdf/Approved_listing.pdf (Pennington Biomedical)

JFM/localwellnesspolicy.word

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