Hackley School (New York)

 “Enter Here to Be and Find a Friend”

Creating a Connected Health
and Wellness Curriculum
Across Departments

Challenges

Hackley School may have finished building its Walter C. Johnson Health Center, but there was still much work to be done. The essential and time-critical need was “a program to match the building” which included reconstructing their health curriculum, hiring their first Chair of Health Education, and equalizing the food inequalities on campus, among other issues.

Further Context

In 2012, Hackley School hosted an auction, wherein they received $44 million for 3 paintings (Monet, Pisarro, and Sisley) that had been bequeathed to them from the Allen Family. They strove to uphold their mission statement in deciding where the money would best go, ultimately deciding on a Health Center. Their mission statement reads, “Hackley challenges students to grow in character, scholarship, and accomplishment, to offer unreserved effort, and to learn from the varying perspectives and backgrounds in our community and the world.”

Assessing Needs

Hackley School sought to conduct a full assessment of its health and wellness programming by partnering with Elevate. Through a focused nutrition assessment conducted by a registered dietician, a review and analysis of the school's health and wellness programs, their existing health curriculum for grades 7, 8, and 10, a change readiness assessment survey of leadership, and a food service vendor analysis, Elevate unearthed several needs. The full scope of work included school schedule, homework, parent education, student engagement, alumni, and food services vendor review.

Identified Needs

  1. Reconcile disproportionate distribution in the range of length of homework assignments across departments to identify homework load and balance student commitments

  2. Food inequalities when it comes to accessibility on campus to healthy food

  3. The community’s primary overarching goals of school health are to: increase positive health behaviors and health outcomes, and improve social outcomes

Recommendations

Through the assessments listed above, Elevate offered several crucial recommendations to Hackley. At its core, the key objective was to create a cross-discipline, “Connected” Health and Wellness Curriculum across departments, thus creating transparency, facilitating decision-making, and connecting parent voices.

Enabled Hackley To:

  1. The creation and implementation of a collaborative timeline, plan, and budget for health education to maximize opportunity and impact

  1. Focus on the importance of food and nutrition within the school to help build a healthier culture

  2. Construct a more connected curriculum through the inclusion of more educators in their curriculum discussions.

  3. Educate parents in addition to students, as home life directly affects all students in some capacity

Client Transformations

CHOICES

Hackley launched their official parent education program/speaker series, "CHOICES".  This program focuses on how many families and students make choices related to their lives that influence their health at home, with peers, and at school.

Character

E.g., Empathy

Health

E.g., E-Cigarettes

Opportunity

E.g., Development

Independence

E.g., Identity

Coping

E.g., Parental Support

Expectations

E.g., Course Load

Strategies

E.g., Routines, Self-Regulation, etc.

Transformations

  1. Members of the Hackley community can now provide feedback to ensure a consistent vision is articulated. To achieve the success of new programs, Elevate strongly recommends that the vision, messaging, and communications always tie back to the school's mission and cultural value system.

  2. Student stress and anxiety are now more clearly understood as a multifaceted public/community health problem. 

  3. The development of a community health framework now guides policy revision, development, programs, and communication. 

  4. Hackley utilizes insights from student surveys and focus groups, combined with evidence-based strategies to improve its approaches to food and nutrition equity, stress, health education, and homework.

  5. Hackley hired its first Chair of Health Education, who is dedicated to the growth and development of the programs implemented.

Interested in strengthening your School’s Health?