Bridging the gap between community health and K-12 schools

The topic of this article is program planning for K-12 school health programs collaborating with community agencies, businesses, colleges, and organizations. Community involvement was listed as one of the weakest areas of school health efforts in a national coordinated school health study [1]. This article presents the 5-year results demonstrating the outcomes of K-12 schools program planning aimed at community involvement in the coordinated school health model. Directors of the Departments of Education and Health in South Dakota initiated training for school personnel in the coordinated school health model through development of councils in the schools starting in 2000. The expectations of the councils were to design a program plan to support the health of students and staff in their school. The short-term results of a 5-year evaluation indicated the greatest area of gain was in community health involvement to improve student and staff health.