Wellness: CSBA studies effective outreach to boards
Published: March 1, 2011
As part of CSBA’s ongoing efforts to promote student wellness, the association is studying how school board members and administrators can most effectively use data to identify and address the most pressing health problems impacting the schoolchildren in their respective school districts and county offices of education.
The project is a partnership between CSBA and the California School Health Centers Association; it’s supported in part by an $8,500 grant from the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health, which maintains an extensive online database on children’s health.
CSBA staff convened focus groups in Northern and Southern California last spring and during last December’s Annual Education Conference and Trade Show in San Francisco to ask school board members and administrators what information would best help them assess the health care needs of students. The focus groups were also asked to evaluate a number of statistical and descriptive presentations about children’s health needs with the aim of discovering how best to present essential data so that governance teams can make informed decisions.
“We asked participants to describe the most pressing health problems in their districts,” said Ben Bartos, a focus group leader. “We also asked them to describe compelling presentations, and to tell us what made them memorable. We developed some presentation templates and asked members of the focus groups for their responses to these examples.”
Martin Gonzalez, who heads CSBA’s Financial Programs and Policy Services Department, said although the Packard grant is not the largest the association has received, it could be one of the most important.
“At the core, this project will help us understand how board members interact with data and how data impact board decision-making,” he said. “We hope to gain insight about how best to convey critical information about what impacts a child’s ability to learn and thrive.”
Although public schools can’t address all the health problems that affect students’ capacities to learn and thrive, Gonzalez said, “There’s a great deal that schools can do.” CSBA’s Student Wellness Web page has additional information and resources.
Andrew Krackov, the Packard Foundation’s assistant vice president for programs and partnership, said school board members and administrators are a key audience for an organization that’s dedicated to improving children’s health. “We’re trying to learn how to present data in a way that will help school board members and superintendents make informed decisions,” he said. “We want the data to raise awareness and serve as a catalyst for discussion and action.”