The School Health Portfolio System: a new tool for planning and evaluating coordinated school health programs

The School Health Portfolio System (SHPS), developed originally to evaluate the Florida Coordinated School Health Program Pilot Schools Project, offers a new and innovative system for planning and evaluating a coordinated school health program at the individual school level. The SHPS provides practitioners a detailed but easy-to-use system that enables schools to create new programs or modify existing programs across all eight components of the CSHP model, as well as administrative support critical to sustainability. The System comes packaged as a self-contained, notebook-style manual divided into 15 sections. It includes electronic templates of key documents to guide school teams in creating a customized portfolio, and a list of sample goals and artifacts that confirm achievement of a goal related to the school's coordinated school health program. An evaluation rubric provides a structured method to assess a program portfolio's contents, and the extent to which the contents document achievement of program goals. The rubric produces both a qualitative assessment, such as a narrative summary of program strengths and areas for improvement, and a quantitative assessment, such as a numerical score (0-100), letter grade (A-F), or 5-star system (*-*****). The physical structure, function, and scoring of the rubric depend on the method of assessment. The SHPS enables schools to set goals based on individual school needs, and incorporate CSHP goals into school improvement plans--a critical factor in sustainability and accountability. The System also offers teams the option of coordinating their efforts with CDC's School Health Index as a companion assessment measure. This article outlines the process a team would follow in developing a portfolio, and includes a sample assessment for the area of School Health Education.