I had the opportunity to attend the Metro Denver Health and Wellness Commission’s Lean and Green School Symposium yesterday, which attracted over 300 folks from the ed community to talk about diet, wellness, green buildings and other issues related to building a culture of well-being in schools.
I have, to use an unfortunate analogy, totally drunken the Kool-Aid on this…no doubt in my mind we need think about schools in terms of their public health implications.
Easy to say, tough to do. But having butted my head on this for the past six years, I see some tangible signs of progress:
1. Five years ago, when we were starting the Denver School of Science & Technology, we tried to create a consortium linking the Denver School of the Arts, the culinary program at Johnson & Wales, and DSST. The concept was to have Johnson & Wales prepare the meals, cater the two high schools, and have their students run most of the food service program as part of an internship. Only problem was that Johnson & Wales used SODEXCO/Marriott as their caterer, and that DPS was the only entity allowed to serve free/reduced lunch meals. DPS, at the time, was not a pinnacle of creativity when it came to healthy food service.
2. Plan B was to have the healthiest vending machine program in the state at DSST. Only problem was that Pepsi/Frito Lay had an exclusive with DPS. So much for that bright idea.
3. When we went around seeking financial support for constructing the school, at least three foundations/high net worth individuals turned our proposal down because we were investing $1.5 million in a gym, cafeteria and athletic facilities, and therefore creating a "Taj Mahal"…even though it cost less, on a square foot basis, than a new DPS school. We built them anyway…anyone think this is a dumb idea now? Moral: Don’t get into this business if you are not prepared to walk away from funders.
4. We wanted to build the first true Green School in DPS. Unfortunately, the LEED program at the time was prohibitively expensive. So, instead we built a school that was 42% under standard energy code, thanks to daylighting and passive solar, and used "grey water" for the athletic fields. DSST received a one-time $70,000 rebate from Xcel for reducing peak load, but it wasn’t technically a LEED school.
Flash forward 5 years, and DPS is one of the biggest groups attending the conference and is making sounds like the get it. Dwight Jones from CDE and Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien are calling for changing the state’s policies related to school lunches. The national LEED policies have been changed for schools, so that it has become possible to construct the $8 million Morgridge Middle School at DSST to LEED Silver standards at a relatively cost-effective price. I think it will be the first LEED school in DPS. And funders are beginning to insist that charters not be forced to house their students in buildings that are inferior to district schools.
Not bad for 5 years. So what’s next?
Judging from the speakers and conference participants, there are models being developed in terms of new approaches to PE, which focus on keeping the kids more constantly active during the course of the day; meal programs that are not only healthier but engage students in learning about preparation, cooking, etc; even a very cool school model where healthy living is one of the driving aspects of the school culture. Check it out here. (The name is a little over the top for our corner of the world, but the programs are really interesting and thoughtful.)
Last but not least, there’s research being done that may be able to quantify the intellectual and test score benefits of having students who don’t look like the earthlings in WALL-E.
The real question is how to turn this into a movement…something the conference didn’t quite get to address.
None of this stuff is anywhere near as sexy as arguing over ProComp, etc, which is why you never see anyone blog about it, but with 30% of our kids approaching obesity levels, it is more important in the long run.
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