2010 Blue Apple Health Education Award Recipient – with Distinction

Parr’s Ridge Primary Elementary School offers a comprehensive health education program that teaches through skills-based and rigorous instruction. Driven by the National and State Health Education Standards along with county curricula, instruction focuses on mastery of health literacy and promotes divergent thinking skills. Students are encouraged to engage in real-life learning experiences through differentiated lessons that strive to meet the needs of every learner. Throughout the school year, kindergartners receive 30 minutes of health instruction each week, while first and second graders receive 60 minutes. Student-centered lessons are developed and tailored to meet the needs of the learners in our population. Comprehension of knowledge is evaluated using an array of formative and summative assessments. Daily instruction incorporates areas of mental health, personal health, substance abuse prevention, growth and development, safety and injury prevention, nutrition, and disease prevention. The staff of Parr’s Ridge places an emphasis on healthy behaviors. Parr’s Ridge has a culture that values health and supports the health experiences offered to all students. The staff works together to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they need to live long, healthy lifestyles.

Principal: Ann Marie Blonkowski      Health Educator: Ashley Bacon

Frankfort Middle School – Ridgeley, WV

2010 Blue Apple Health Education Award Recipient – with Distinction

Frankfort Middle School students receive an extensive comprehensive health education program that includes a documented, well-planned, and sequential curriculum that address all dimensions of health every year in grades six through eight.  The health curriculum addresses and integrates education within a range of categorical health problems at developmentally appropriate ages. Lessons focus on the national and state health education standards necessary to meet students’ needs.  Health education utilizes skills-based, research-based programs and technology to provide in-depth content and interactive tasks to enhance learning and encourage positive attitudes and healthy behaviors in today’s teens.  It provides students the opportunity to develop and demonstrate increasingly sophisticated health-related knowledge and skills. For example, the seventh and eighth grade students participate in an activity called, “Kids Teaching Kids.”  The students create board and activity games utilizing prevention skills to teach to students in the primary schools.  One seventh grader sums it up, “Eat healthy, stay healthy, and most importantly, be healthy.”

Principal: Susan Long                          Health Educator: Susan Ray

Havre de Grace Middle School – Havre de Grace, MD

2010 Blue Apple Health Education Award Recipient

The health education curriculum at Havre de Grace Middle School is provided to every student in grades six through eight. Students are provided the current state curriculum in many creative and innovative lessons including student assessments. Students learn lifelong skills such as decision making and refusal skills which can be applied to solve many problems they will face in today’s society. Each student is exposed to current topics while learning with a hands-on approach. The students learn in a non-threatening environment allowing them to ask personal questions. Students also learn the importance of healthy eating, fitness and avoiding drugs by examining and researching the effects on their individual lives. The Health and Physical Education Department works closely together to combine topics which are covered in both curriculums and to help reinforce important and overlapping concepts. One eighth grade student summarizes, “My health education has been very important to my success in middle school. What I have learned will help me to make the right decisions and therefore help me succeed in life.”

Principal: Glenn Jensen                   Health Educator: Angela Taddia

Kaiserslautern Middle School (KMS) is guided by a data-driven, content standards-based, student-focused vision. In October 2007, KMS was presented data that indicated a large number of its students were overweight or obese and an equal number at-risk due to weight-related issues. The KMS principal contacted Mrs. Blakley, the World-wide Consumer Advocate for the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA), and forged a partnership based on nutrition literacy as the first line of defense for student health.
KMS’s sixth grade teachers created a nutrition and wellness program, entitled Food for Thought, which supported standards in all core content areas. The commissary served as an extension of the classroom as students took regular tours to learn about nutritional choices and how they affect family health. Mrs. Blakley worked with teachers, parents, and students to ensure all were making healthy choices. The Food for Thought program is totally transportable, and the next step includes plans to make it available to all DeCA commissaries and Department of Defense Dependents Schools (DoDDS).
The KMS schedule was adjusted from a traditional block schedule to a seven period day to ensure all students had the opportunity for health education. The program was enhanced this school year to include a fitness component. Volunteers for the military community have been recruited to facilitate outdoor activities to ensure KMS students are continuously moving their bodies and focusing their
minds on nutrition and health. A daily program has been established whereby students document their mileage with the goal of virtually walking by grade level to three different high deployment locations. The program not only incorporates physical activity with nutritional awareness, but also serves as another way to support our deployed parents and troops.
All Kaiserslautern Middle School stakeholders are extremely enthusiastic about our wellness plan and are eager to guide our students to become healthy, happy, and physically fit adults.

Don’t forget to apply for the 2010 Blue Apple Awards. Your school could win and you could win at trip to Indianapolis, In for the National AAHPERD Convention. Application are located here: http://blueappleaward.org/page/index/Application

Department of Defense Dependents School

San Diego News Network

Fox 12 News in Mankato, MN

Wicomico County Public Schools

Windham School District - Windham, Maine

Washington Local School District - Toledo, OH

Our other Blue Apple Award Recipients are:

• Chula Vista High School, Sweetwater High School District – Chula Vista, CA
• Kaiserslautern Middle School, Department of Defense Dependents School – Kaiserslautern, Germany
• Mankato High School, Mankato Area Public Schools – Mankato, MN
• Mankato Middle School, Mankato Area Public Schools – Mankato, MC
• Mt. Arart Middle School, District 75 – Topsham, ME
• North High School, Eau Claire Area School District – Eau Claire, WI
• Parkside High School, Wilcomico County Public Schools – Salisbury, MD
• Validus Preparatory Academy, New York City Public Schools – Bronx, NY