Implementation of Healthy Schools Policies in Washington DC: Weighing the Gold Standard with Innovative Alternatives

The District of Columbia boasts one of the most comprehensive arrays of healthy schools policies in the country, ensuring a comprehensive focus on the whole school, the whole community, and the whole child. These policies, which include the DC Healthy Schools Act of 2010 (HSA), the Youth Bullying Prevention Act of 2012, and the Youth Suicide Prevention and School Climate Measurement Act of 2015, among others, require schools to implement a number of “gold standards” related to promoting healthy youth development. The DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) is empowered to assist with the implementation of a number of these policies. This presentation will feature representatives from OSSE’s Division of Health and Wellness discussing their successes and challenges in the implementation of such policies. The discussion will largely focus on one such policy, the requirement within the HSA for schools to provide Breakfast in the Classroom, an alternative breakfast delivery model where students eat breakfast in their classroom after the official start of the school day.

In the last 5 years, and through close collaboration with its stakeholders including individual schools and LEAs, OSSE has gained significant insight into the successes, challenges, and areas of opportunity in increasing breakfast consumption of nutritious and palatable foods. This presentation will provide a District-level review of lessons learned through a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis based on LEA interviews, OSSE cost projections, feedback from principals and stuff, and input from food service vendors. Additionally, this presentation will look at alternative breakfast models through a budgetary lens, weighing costs and outcomes.

The presentation will focus on providing prevention researchers context about the realities of implementing evidence-based policy in schools and consideration for how to engage school stakeholders in the creation of such policy.