Tennessee Coordinated School Health Mission
To improve students’ health and their capacity to learn through the support of families, communities and schools. This mission will be accomplished by utilizing the eight components of Coordinated School Health developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Physical Education/Activity/Wellness
Public Chapter 1001: Tennessee’s 90 minute Physical Activity Law for Elementary and Secondary students. A behavior, in an educational setting, consisting of bodily movement that requires expenditure above the normal psychological (muscular, cardio, respiratory) requirements of a typical school day.
Mental Health/School Counseling
Services provided by certified school counselors and psychologists that contribute to the mental, emotional, and social health of students and the health of the school environment. These services include individual and group assessments, interventions and referrals.
Student, Family, and Community Partners
Coordinated School Health promotes an integrated school, parent, and community approach for enhancing the health and well-being of students. Schools actively solicit parent involvement and engage community resources and services to respond more effectively to the health-related needs of students.
Health Education
Health education is a planned, sequential K-12 curriculum that addresses the physical, mental, emotional, and social dimensions of health. The curriculum is designed to motivate and assist students to maintain and improve their health, prevent disease, and reduce health-related risk behaviors. It allows students to develop and demonstrate increasingly sophisticated health-related knowledge, attitudes, skills, and practices. The comprehensive curriculum includes a variety of health-related topics.
Healthy School Environment
A healthy school environment includes the physical and aesthetic surroundings such as the school building, the area surrounding it, any biological or chemical agents that are detrimental to health, and physical conditions such as temperature, noise and lighting. The psychological environment includes the physical, emotional, and social conditions that affect the well-being of students and staff.
School Staff Wellness
Coordinated School Health encourages health education, health-related fitness activities, and health assessments for school staff. Staff health initiatives improve morale, and encourage a greater commitment to the school’s Coordinated Health program. A personal commitment to healthy living provides good role-modeling.
Health Services
Health services are designed to ensure access or referral to primary health care services or both, foster appropriate use of primary health care services, prevent and control communicable disease and other health problems, provide emergency care for illness or injury, promote and provide optimum sanitary conditions for a safe school facility and school environment, and provide educational and counseling services.
Nutrition
School nutrition programs reflect the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans as well as other criteria to achieve nutrition integrity. The school nutrition services offer students a learning laboratory for classroom nutrition and health education, and serve as a resource for linkages with nutrition-related community services. These services are provided by qualified child nutrition professionals.