Each portion of the Dublin City School District's curriculum is reviewed by a team of experts in their fields on a rotational basis every five to six years.
This year, we spent time reviewing our K-12 health curriculum.
Director of Curriculum Jill Reinhart and a team of educators started their review process by asking important questions.
What do we believe a world-class health education should provide for our students?
What should an elementary and secondary education look like? What are best instructional practices?
What resources do we need and have on hand to assist with the delivery of this education?
As they began to answer these foundational questions, important themes emerged.
They included:
* The purpose of the Dublin City Schools health-education program is to empower students to succeed in an ever-changing society by gaining knowledge and developing resiliency using decision-making skills needed for maintaining optimum health.
* The district's goal with its health curriculum is to help students find the balance of physical, social, mental and emotional health that serves as the foundation of lifetime wellness.
* Students will be engaged actively in a safe, challenging learning environment, with content that is timely and appropriate and takes advantage of district and community resources.
There are many topics in today's health curriculum that those of us who attended school many years ago would not recognize.
There are new pieces of the curriculum that focus on adult/child boundaries, opioid/prescription drug abuse prevention and how to perform CPR and use an AED machine.
We also address topics such as human trafficking, and online safety.
In addition, there is more emphasis on mental health in today's health curriculum than there was 15-20 years ago.
Suicide prevention, anti-bullying programming and developing healthy relationships are concepts that are all addressed in our health curriculum.
We have important community partnerships in place with agencies such as Syntero and groups such as Parents Encouraging Responsible Choices.
Both offer student mental- health courses for parents through the District's Parent University program.
Syntero also provides counseling services for at-risk students or students who are just going through rough patches in their adolescence.
Bullying and conflict resolution is an important learning component for our students in our health curriculum.
We teach the damaging impacts bullying can have on students, and we also emphasize reporting any cases of bullying or harassment.
Students and parents can anonymously report bullying, harassment,or any other concern by visiting our website and clicking on "Report Bullying/Harassment" at the top of every page, by calling 1-866-LISTEN-2-ME, or by telling any Dublin City Schools staff member.
Ohio law requires students to be educated about nutritional values of foods, the harmful effects of drugs, alcohol and tobacco use, opioid abuse prevention, organ donation, body systems, personal safety, assault prevention and basic personal hygiene and safety.
The health curriculum is an important part of a well-rounded education.
The emotional and physical well-being of students are essential to the overall learning process in Dublin City Schools.
Dublin City School District Superintendent Todd Hoadley, Ph.D., submitted the From the Superintendent's Desk column.