SchoolMatters Blog

$6 million Safer Schools Grant

We just received huge news about a $6 million federal grant related to improving school safety and student health.  Steele Howen on the Albemarle County Public Schools staff deserves a lot of the credit for working on this grant partnership with the Commission on Children and Families and the City of Charlottesville Schools.  I look forward to having the School Board briefed on this work in the upcoming school year.

Brian Wheeler

July 24, 2009 * Daily Progress [full story]

Safer, healthier students on way? $6 million grant to tackle concerns

Charlottesville and Albemarle County are jointly receiving nearly $6 million to help bolster programs targeting violence and substance-abuse prevention in schools and childhood development.

The Safe Schools/Healthy Students federal grant will be spread out over the next four years between the two divisions. The programs that both school systems will implement through the grant will address a range of issues that concern youth — such as violence and bullying prevention, early childhood social and emotional learning, access to counseling and family-support services and resistance to peer pressure on drugs and alcohol consumption.

The initiative is designed to work all the way from the preschool level through the 12th grade to head off social and emotional troubles that could hinder students’ learning. Combined, Charlottesville and Albemarle was the only grant recipient in Virginia, and received one of 29 grants administered nationwide.

Motivating masses: Area teacher wins physical education award

9/17/06 * Daily Progress [full story]

The voice mail message of the Agnor-Hurt Elementary School physical education teacher is revealing: “Hi, this is Gwen Hairston … leave a message, and stay fit.”

Hairston, a PE teacher entering her 30th year, recently was recognized as the 2006 Southern District Elementary School Physical Education Teacher of the Year by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education.

In a country where 20 percent of children and teenagers are projected to be overweight by 2010, according to a recent Institute of Medicine report, Hairston is helping Albemarle County schools redefine physical education.

“It’s not your grandmother’s PE class,” she said. “There is no more dodge ball. There is no more taking the ball and whaling it and knocking the devil out of somebody. Years and years ago everything [in gym class] was sports-related. You couldn’t do anything unless you were a jock, but it’s not like that anymore. It’s important that school principals, board members and the public understand how important physical education is. It’s not recess. We have a curriculum we have to follow.”

Hairston showed a 2-inch-thick binder as proof. Health and wellness are the focus now.

Crozet Walk to School Day

Yesterday, the Crozet Elementary community celebrated Walk to School Day.  Many families walked their children from nearby neighborhoods.  Some rode their bikes from up in the mountains.  Even students who took the bus had to follow a long path around the school to start their day.  My job as a School Board volunteer was to guide one of the bus loads of children into the school. We had a great time and the weather was perfect.

Crozet Elementary is working with the Alliance for Community Choice in Transportation (ACCT) to promote more safe bicycling and walking to our neighborhood elementary schools.  ACCT has surveyed parents about their interest and concerns.  They are investigating the training of crossing guards and taking an inventory of sidewalk and bicycle lane needs that can be factored into the Crozet Master Plan.  Many parents yesterday said they wanted to make this a regular event!

Brian Wheeler

Internet safety article on AlbemarleFamily.com

Albemarle County parent Melanie Snyder has an article this month on the AlbemarleFamily.com website entitled "Crusin' the Net-Safely."  It mentions filtering software you can place on family computers.  We are using SafeEyes at the Wheeler household (I think I read about it in Consumer Reports) and it seems to work pretty well.  Brian

Internet Safety and our Children

On August 11th, Liz Rabin suggested our Health curriculum "include internet safety and how prolific predators are out there. For the school system to not present these topics is, in my opinion, simply not preparing our kids for the real world."

Liz and I have spoken about this before and I am in complete agreement.  One easy thing we can do is to encourage our Parent Teacher Organizations to take advantage of the presentation offered by the Albemarle County Police Department on Internet safety (flyer PDF linked here).  When I was PTO President at Murray Elementary, we invited them to do a presentation and it was eye opening and well received. 

This issue also hits close to home for me because, after that presentation, I discovered in the "real world" a criminal had placed a hidden camera in our home during a major renovation.  Evidence recovered at the criminal's residence included a library of tapes and a computer.  I worked with Delegate Rob Bell and Detective Steve Wilkins to have the unlawful videotaping crime changed from a misdemeanor to a felony in Virginia.  In fact, Delegate Bell told me recently that someone was convicted under this toughened law this year in a nearby County.

Because of my experience and Liz's feedback, I have added this to my list of issues to examine in our Health curriculum during the year ahead.  Brian

Alcohol Education & Binge Drinking

On July 29th, Fay Macko suggested we talk about our health education and binge drinking.  I'll be honest, I am not familiar with that specific part of our curriculum.  I would encourage anyone who is that reads this to chime in with their thoughts. 

I can report that we had an interesting presentation before the School Board on May 26, 2005 from a group of Seniors at Monticello High School.  Their report was entitled "Updating the Health Curriculum: Alcohol Education and the Social Norms Method."  Like Ms. Macko, these students said our health curriculum needed to be changed.  The recommended two changes: 1) Utilize a method of teaching alcohol abuse prevention called "Social Norms"; and 2) use the curriculum to prepare students for the college drinking environment.

These students said our videos were over ten years old and they did not relate to experiences students face today.  They said we should focus on identifying and promoting healthy, positive behaviors that are the actual norm in the population.  A focus on the risks and poor decisions encourages students to overestimate the amount of drinking taking place and can actually promote increased alcohol abuse.

On binge drinking, they presented a myth vs. reality slide.  The myth being that binge drinking is an epidemic problem on college campuses.  The fact, according to their research (Cited David J Hanson, Ph.D.), is that binge drinking is on the decline in colleges.

Now what do you think?  Brian

(BTW, my children are still middle school and elementary age.)

Health & Wellness in our School Priorities

The School Board will likely approve new goals and priorities for 2005-07 at its August 11th meeting.  One area that I have tried to strengthen throughout my tenure on the board, and through my appointment of Dr. Martha McKechnie to the Health Advisory Committee, is to improve the Division's efforts on health and nutrition.

One of our draft priorities relates to promoting "a physically active lifestyle that promotes good health and wellness."  Staff have recommended three specific implementation strategies in this area: 1) Continue to improve nutritional offerings in the school lunch program and use the additional management position [position in food service which I supported and helped initiate in the budget process] to support nutrition programming in schools; 2) Revise the health/PE curriculum to align with a lifelong wellness/fitness learning model; and 3) Develop and implement a wellness policy.  This will be measured in part by the collection of baseline wellness data (Governor’s Scorecard nutrition and physical fitness data and drivers’ education data).   Brian