The Kentucky Department of Education -Federal Program Resources
annually holds a Coordinated School Health Institute. The Institute
is usually hosted during the summer. Its goal is to provide
educators and health care professionals linked to school systems
additional professional instruction in health and practical living.
While seeking to attract teachers and other school personnel, the
Institute has tended to attract more health professionals in recent
years.
Separate from the Institute is the Academy program, an enrichment
and training school for educators, also held during the summer.
Individual Academies focus on particular subject areas with the
Practical Living Academy being a new addition to the series.
In the summer of 2001 the Coordinated School Health Institute was
held at Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY. Two separate
Practical Living Academies were also offered in Bowling Green and in
London, KY. The Bowling Green Institute and Academy were taught in
tandem to explore potential benefits to one or both programs from
this overlapping approach.
The goal of this evaluation is to examine attendees at all three
workshop series and to gauge the efficacy of the Institute in
meeting attendees' expectations.
Demographics
The demographics for participants at the 2001 Coordinated Health
Institute are:
Total Participants:
Median Age:
Gender:
Race:
Education:
Employment:
Education:
Region:
Certifications:
Attendance:
36
44
30 females, 6 males
33 whites, 3 blacks
The group is almost evenly divided between
individuals with a BA/BS degree and those with an MA. Three of the 36 have Ed.D or Ph.D degrees.
All say they work in a school system. 39% are teachers, 8% are administrators, and another 8% are
school nurses. The largest group, 44%, describe having jobs outside these
categories but within a school system. Of the 39% who are teachers, two of every five
teachers attending the Institute report teaching health, practical living, or
physical education. Two of every five teachers in attendance also teach either 5th
or 6th grades, and the majority has taught for 2 to 5 years.
Of all Institute participants, only 28% have educational backgrounds specifically in health or
physical education as their college major. Sixty-six percent, however, did have some
specific training in health education in college. Another 38% have additional,
post-college training in health.
Half of the attendees are from central Kentucky with
another fifth from south central Kentucky.
Seventy-seven percent of attendees are not
certified in health. Only 3% currently hold emergency certifications. Half of the group knows
their school's practical living CATS scores; the other half does not.
None of the Institute attendees have ever
attended an Academy. Over a third, 38%, have attended the
Institute before.
Expectations of the Institute
Attendees are about evenly split over whether the Institute is
expected to teach content areas or methods. A slight majority
expects that health content areas will be taught. A majority of
attendees would like all subject areas on the survey to be taught by
the Institute. Incorporating dance into physical education least
interested attendees.
By even higher majorities and in many cases unanimously, the
attendees felt all areas on the survey fit their expectations of
what the Institute should offer.
Regarding how the Institute's topics should be chosen:
-
47% said that attendees should choose the topics in
advance
-
30% said that topics should focus on areas of concern
from statewide youth health statistics
-
23% said that topics should reflect areas of needed
improvement in schools' testing scores
Attendees report that various factors drew them to the Institute:
-
27% were drawn by the offer of mini-grants
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22% were drawn by the topics offered
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22% were drawn by the reputation of the Institute
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11% were strongly urged as a workplace requirement
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6% were drawn by the financial stipend
Fourteen percent of attendees had not heard of the mini-grant
offer. One attendee knew of the offer but did not intend on writing
a grant. 83% of those attending a prior Institute said they had
submitted a mini-grant during it. 68% report they would be willing
to take an Institute over three consecutive summers. 88% of those
teaching practical living felt that the Institute would prove
helpful to their teaching. 27% of attendees, however, do not teach
practical living. Similarly 88% of those teaching health felt the
Institute would prove helpful to their teaching. 20% do not teach
health.
Post-test
Only 21 individuals took the final post-test at the Bowling Green
Institute. The attendees unanimously felt that the Institute taught
content on school health issues. Two-thirds felt that topics should
be chosen by attendees prior to the Institute. A fifth (20%) felt
that the topics should be data-driven by statewide youth health
statistics. It should be noted that attendees were not presented
with a youth health statistics overview. Such a presentation may
have swayed attendees to be more in favor of this choice.
Attendees at the end of the Institute voiced that they were
almost evenly split over why they attended. A slight majority came
because of the topics while the rest came for the financial stipend.
Attendees felt that all the presentations were good or excellent.
The only presentations to receive lower ratings were:
Overall attendees considered the overall quality to be:
-
Institute: 69% excellent, 31% good
-
Teaching and Presenters: 46% excellent, 54% good
-
Meeting Space: 100% excellent
-
100% would recommend the Institute to others.
Comparisons with the Academy
This evaluation also looked at linkages with the Academy. Of the
forty-seven people attending the Bowling Green Practical Living
Academy, only one reports knowing that this Academy was being taught
in conjunction with Institute even several days after the Academy
began. Equally only one person among the sixty-six Institute
participants were aware that some sessions were being held with the
Academy.
Almost one in five Academy participants have previously attended
an Academy with the Reading Academy being the most common prior
Academy cited. On the other hand almost two out of every five
Institute attendees this summer had previously attended an earlier
Institute. Academy attendees had not participated in an Institute.
Attendees to the Institute had not attended an Academy. Thus the two
programs draw from different participant bases and have a
significant number of return attendees.
A number of attendees to the Academies and the Institute did not
complete a post-test survey. Of the attendees who did complete a
post-test survey, both Academy and Institute attendees report high
levels of satisfaction with their respective programs. Satisfaction
remains high regardless of whether the Academy was held as a
stand-alone program (London) or held in conjunction with the
Institute (Bowling Green). Almost half (47%) of Institute attendees
would like the Institute's curriculum chosen in advance by
participants. This model is the one followed by the Academy.
Participants also mark that they expect the Institute and the
Academy to teach the same health-related topics. A majority of
Academy participants, however, expected the Academy to focus on
teaching methods (54%) compared to health content (40%).
The Institute participants are almost a mirror image of this
statistic: 54% expect the Institute to teach health content
while only 38% expect the Institute to focus on teaching methods.
The only other clear difference between the Institute and Academy
participants is their employment. The Institute primarily attracted
family resource center personnel employed in the schools. The
Academy attracted teachers.
Summary
The Practical Living Academy and the Coordinated
School Health Institute have many similarities. Attendees expect
both to teach similar topical areas. Offering the Academy in
conjunction with the Institute appears to have no effect on
participants' satisfaction with either program; both remain high.
Rather than competing for the same pool of school personnel, the two
draw on different bases: teachers for the Academy and school support
personnel (family resource center staff, school nurses, and similar)
for the Institute. The Academy is also perceived as having a greater
focus on teaching methods rather than content. The largest group of
participants to both programs state they would like to be able to
pick topic offerings themselves and to pick them prior to the summer
programs.
With such similarities, it would almost appear that these two
programs could be folded into a single program. This situation would
prove problematic to some degree. While the teachers who attend the
Academy could participate in the Institute and its content areas,
the Institute's support personnel attendees would find less use for
the Academy's teaching methods curriculum. The Academy's teachers
would in turn miss out on valuable pedagogical training. Perhaps the
best fit would be to continue joint programs where Academy
participants attend the health content sessions offered by the
Institute. This would free up time for the Academy to focus more on
teaching methods and for the Institute to specialize more fully in
content areas.
Recommendations
The Kentucky Department of Education -Federal Program Resources
works with Kentucky schools in administering federal, tax-payer
programs to improve students' health and to make schools healthy
sites for cognitive learning. In effect, improving Kentucky's
children's health seeks to also improve their learning. This task is
an important and necessarily challenging one. Currently most
Kentucky students receive their entire health education through two
limited mechanisms: a single health class taught in 9th
grade and through prevention programming performed as an add-on
content area. This situation thus demands a targeted and efficient
means of meeting the health education responsibilities of schools.
What We Know
Through funding by the US Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, Kentucky does have some valuable assets in
evaluating both students' health risks and schools' methods of
ameliorating them. While limited currently to public high school
students who are not in psychiatric, alternative, or adjudicated
special schools, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) surveys
Kentucky teens every two years about their health-related behaviors.
One approach is to examine how Kentucky teens match up against their
peers nationwide in health risks. While the 2001 YRBS data is now
coming out statewide, comparative national statistics will not be
available for some months. Therefore, we must look to the 1999 data
for comparisons:
In 1999 'average' Kentucky teens fared poorly in several areas
compared to American teens' levels of risky behavior as a whole.
These included:
-
Higher levels of tobacco usage
-
Higher levels of extreme dieting practices (taking laxatives
or vomiting)
-
Lower levels of nutrition
-
Higher levels of forced sexual intercourse involving teenage
males
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Higher levels of relationship battering
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Lower levels of HIV/AIDS education
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Higher levels of steroid, inhalant, and injectable drug use
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Far lower levels of physical education (PE) class
participation
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Lower levels of physical exercise
-
Higher levels of experience of sexual intercourse
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Higher levels of drunkenness in the month prior to the
survey
The 2000 School Health Education Profile Survey (SHEPS) provides
a second key measure by asking school principals and the lead health
teacher in a school about health education. Two SHEPS questions are
of particular interest. One asks teachers about health content areas
where teachers have received training in the last two years. A
second asks which of the same areas teachers feel they need
additional training and want such training.
While the students in the YRBS and the teachers in the SHEPS are
not drawn from the same school necessarily, together these two key
surveys define Priority Health Education Content Areas. Level One
areas cover teen risk behaviors where Kentucky teens are worse than
their national peers if these same areas have not received
much training for health teachers in the last two years. Level Two
areas are also behaviors coming up as worse on the YRBS for Kentucky
than the nation but where teachers have some higher levels of
training.
Priority Health Education Content Areas
Level One:
-
Youth health behavior indicators where Kentucky teens
are worse than national averages drawn from the 1999 Youth
Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS)
-
Twenty-five percent (25%) or less of lead school health
teachers report they have not had staff development training
in this area for two years or more as drawn from the 2000
School Health Education Profiles (SHEPS)
Level Two:
Level One:
-
Nutrition and Dieting: Kentucky teens' eating habits
are generally less healthy than American teens as a whole.
Kentucky teens drink less 100% fruit juice and milk. They also
eat fewer carrots, other vegetables, and green salad. Kentucky
teens also are more likely to describe themselves as overweight
and to report extreme measures to lose weight: laxatives,
vomiting, non-prescription diet pills, and fasting.
Less than one in four health teachers also report having any
staff development around these health behaviors in the last two
years. They also express that they would like additional
training in the area of nutrition and weight control.
-
Human Sexuality: Kentucky teens are about 5% more
likely to have engaged in sexual intercourse than the average
American teen responding to the YRBS. Only one in four health
teachers report any training in this area.
-
Sexual/Relationship Violence: While Kentucky
female teens report an incidence of being forced to have sex that is slightly
higher than the national average (0.9% above the national
average), Kentucky male teens' reporting is 2.5% higher than the
national average. Youth of both sexes report a higher than
average incidence of being slapped, hit, or hurt by their
boyfriend or girlfriend. A majority of health teachers report
training in violence prevention, but it is unclear whether this
category includes violence of this nature.
Level Two:
-
Physical Exercise: With only 24.1% of Kentucky teens
reporting they spent 20 minutes or more actually exercising in
physical education (PE) classes, Kentucky teens are far below
the national average of 76.3% of American teens reporting 20
minutes or more of regular PE exercise. Only one in three
Kentucky high school students participate in PE even once a
week. Only 22% participate regularly in PE every school day.
While a higher than national average number of Kentucky teens
report exercising to lose weight, fewer Kentucky youth than
American teens in general actually exercise for 20 minutes three
times a week, do toning or strength exercises, or participate in
team sports. Less than half of health teachers have also not had
any staff development in this area in the last two years.
-
Tobacco Usage: Like adult Kentuckians, our youth
on average are more likely to smoke than their fellow American teens. They are
also more likely to smoke more, to have smoked at an earlier
age, to smoke at school, and to purchase their own cigarettes at
a store than national averages. Kentucky teens also use snuff
more often than other American teens. Only about a third of
health teachers have received staff development training on
tobacco usage.
-
HIV/AIDS: Kentucky teens are also less likely to
report having received information about HIV/AIDS. Fifty-nine
percent of health teachers report having received no updated
training on this disease in the last two years.
-
Steroids, Inhalants and Injections:
While Kentucky
teens have lower than average reported usage of marijuana and
cocaine, they have a higher than average incidence of steroid,
inhalant (including glue), and injected drug use.
-
Drunkenness: Kentucky teens also report a higher
incidence of drinking five or more alcoholic beverages within an
hour and thus the likelihood of becoming drunk. They also report
having first tried alcohol (more than a few sips) at a younger
age.
A Place for the Institute
Clearly there are areas where
Kentucky health educators need additional, on-going training to more
effectively promote student health. The Kentucky Department of
Education -Federal Program Resources is the agency through which
annual evaluations of these needs are analyzed. The Coordinated
Health Institute could easily become the vehicle for providing this
training. While participant interests define the Academy's course
offerings, the Institute's offerings would be a need-and-data-driven
compliment for health teachers.
One concern has been that the Institute offered the same content
year after year. Utilizing the YRBS and SHEPS, the Institute could
be formatted along these lines:
-
An initial workshop opening the Institute would include
an annual update on findings from the YRBS, SHEPS, and ties
to other state and federal health and education data such as
the KIP survey, leading teen mortality figures, and CATS.
-
The Institute would then offer workshops at three levels
such as Nutrition I, Nutrition II, and Nutrition III for
example. Attendees could then attend workshops targeted for
their knowledge level and prior attendance at the Institute.
Subject areas would focus on the Priority Health Education
Content Areas and also on teaching methods workshops
designed to facilitate getting health care messages to
students whether in health classes, other classes, or
through extracurricular programs.
Using the overall health areas defined by the YRBS as
the general structure and adding in opening and data
update sessions, the Institute would become a ten part
summer school. Each area would consist of workshops
given either in the morning or afternoon over a single,
5 day week.
-
Welcoming and Key Note Address
-
Health Measures Update
-
Nutrition
-
Personal Safety and Violence (vehicular
accidents and weapons)
-
Suicide
-
Tobacco
-
Sexually Transmitted Diseases and
Unintended Pregnancies
-
Alcohol and Other Drugs
-
Exercise and Physical Activity
-
Update on Risk Prevention and Health
Education and Closing
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A final workshop would focus on new information,
programs, and issues related to school health that have
arisen since the prior year.
