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Description: Being a public health educator involves determining many risk factors in low socioeconomic neighborhoods, school campuses, and communities. By knowing the risks helps measure, prevent, and close the gaps in School health services such as;  nutritional services, physical education, and health promotion for students, family/community involvement, healthy school environment, health and physical education, educational programs, prevention of chronic diseases, illnesses, and much more.

Audience: Students, parents, teachers, stakeholders, and everyone who live or teach in these communities are a contributing factor in knowing these legal guides.

Topic: Legal Guide to School Health Services/ Programs

Chosen: It is important for all communities to know how to prevent and promote healthier habits and environments that they live in to reduce health disparities but at the same time abiding by the laws and regulations. The need for public health education and programs in schools requires a team effort to help the students, parents, and teachers help prevent childhood obesity, high blood pressure, mortality, and morbidity for their future through better school programs, better-eating habits, and education. There must be a legal guide about issues involving minors in a school setting for teachers.

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Interviewee: Mrs. J'Lynda Brown MPH, MEd.

School: Angelo State University/ Adjunct Professor of Health Science Professions

Link: https://www.angelo.edu/faculty/cv/jbrown122.pdf

Importance: The Legal Guide to School Health Services because the students K-12 overall well-being is affected if the following programs are not implemented in the schools for a better healthier life and life longevity. This guide is important to follow because if not followed court cases regarding student privacy and data collection directly impact work, especially since a lot of tools now use some type of "connected" technology. In any case, where the law is updated to tighten restrictions pertaining to privacy, all technology must be updated or replaced to reflect current legislation. It is also important to have classroom interaction tools while using health services/programs so that potential violations are minimized.  However, this also means new technology will take longer to be implemented in classroom settings (J. Brown, Email communication, September 17. 2021).

Best Practices:  1) Respecting the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Students have the right to have access to their educational records and control over the disclosure of personally identifiable information. 2) Research tools to determine how they collect data and what data is collected in courses so that it is vetted to ensure it does not violate FERPA. 3) Know the laws and stay current with them because they are always changing. As educators, we must adhere to local, state, and federal education laws and it is important to understand and follow them to assure the health and safety of our students (J. Brown, Email communication, September 17. 2021).

Emerging Issues:  An area of emerging issues that educators should be on the lookout for in implementing any health services are the results.  Are they working for the student, or are they not? Testing the Efficacy, Effectiveness, and Implementation is constantly changing.  Methodological challenges and Type III errors, if the health services are not effective then the methodology must be changed.
Assessing Validity is also changing to determine independent variables like the Health program services and defined outcomes like knowledge, health practices in schools, and health status.

Mrs. Brown has experience in state and local government public health grant management and professional training. Her areas of interest include access to care, behavioral health, communication, and interprofessional education.

She aims to understand health promotion through recognizing disparities (ethnic, cultural and socioeconomic) in care affecting quality and outcomes in order to promote evidence-based practices. Thus, connecting relevant evidence-based practices into e-learning and face-to-face learning environments for students and professionals to community populations.

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Citation:  Center for School Health and Education. (n.d.). APHA (American Public Health Association).

Link: http://www.schoolbasedhealthcare.org/Key-Issues/Health-and-Well-Being-in-Schools

This professional association in education from a public health side is that all children who attend schools should especially in the lower socio-economic neighborhoods have school-based health programs that can identify social factors.  For example, did the students eat last night, do they have electricity at home to do their homework, do they even have a home? School-based health centers and school partners are in the best position to see the social factors and stressors that affect students, and to work with community partners to remove those barriers so students can learn and graduate. Without the many professional associations, laws and regulations, there would be no protections, health educations, promotion, physical activities, or programs in our schools to teach our students the importance of health, and life longevity.  Having all of this in our public schools can also improve academic performance and a higher rate of graduations.

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Lambrinou, C. P., Androutsos, O., Karaglani, E., Cardon, G., Huys, N., Wikström, K., Kivelä, J., Ko, W., Karuranga, E., Tsochev, K., Iotova, V., Dimova, R., De Miguel-Etayo, P., M González-Gil, E., Tamás, H., Jancsó, Z., Liatis, S., Makrilakis, K., Manios, Y., & Feel4Diabetes-study group (2020). Effective strategies for childhood obesity prevention via school-based, family-involved interventions: a critical review for the development of the Feel4Diabetes-study school-based component. BMC endocrine disorders, 20(Suppl 2), 52. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12902-020-0526-5

Martin, A., Booth, J. N., Laird, Y., Sproule, J., Reilly, J. J., & Saunders, D. H. (2018). Physical activity, diet, and other behavioral interventions for improving cognition and school achievement in children and adolescents with obesity or overweight. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews, 1(1), CD009728. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD009728.pub3

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McDonald, M. (2021). Why Physical Education Can't Be a Case of The Pandemic. U.S. News.  https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2021-06-07/why-pe-cant-be-a-casualty-of-the-pandemic

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State Legislature Law: Texas Education Code

Link:  https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/SOTWDocs/ED/htm/ED.38.htm

Source of Law:  Texas Constitution

Law and Legal requirements:

For each school district, one or more coordinated health programs for Elementary, Middle, and Junior High School students should be available: Ex: physical health education including programs designed to prevent obesity, cardiovascular disease, oral diseases, and Type 2 diabetes and programs designed to promote the role of proper nutrition (Texas Education Code-EDUC § 38.013(a)(1).

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Law:  State Law

Link:  https://www.ncsl.org/research/health/state-policies-on-sex-education-in-schools.aspx

Source of Law: Judicial Law

Law and Legal Requirements:  "The department shall develop model education programs to be available to educate the public about AIDS and HIV infection. The programs must be scientifically accurate and factually correct" (Tex. Health and Safety Code § 85.004).

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Law:  Federal

Link:  https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-106publ310/html/PLAW-106publ310.htm

Source of Law:  Statutes Law

Law and Legal Requirements:
Title XV: Healthy Start Initiative Sec. 1501. Continuation of a healthy start program requires that the most disadvantaged children live longer and more productive lives. This law in public schools requires that the basic health needs (nutrition, housing, psychosocial, support) are met among the children. (Children's Health Act of 2000, 15. U.S.C. § 1501 (2000)).

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Law:  Federal and State Laws

Link:   https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/education-code/educ-sect-28-004.html

Source of Law:  Administrative Law

Law and Legal Requirements:
This law requires that all students (a) The board of trustees of each school district shall establish a local school health advisory council to assist the district in ensuring that local community values are reflected in the district's health education instruction (b) A school district must consider the recommendations of the local school health advisory council before changing the district's health education curriculum or instruction (Texas Education Code - EDUC § 28.004(a)(b)).

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Slide #10 Local Administrative Law/Policy/ Rule:

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Slide #10 Local Administrative Law/Policy/ Rule:

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Link:  https://www.saisd.org/departments/health-services/shac

STUDENT WELFARE FFA WELLNESS AND HEALTH SERVICES. The District shall support the general wellness of all students by implementing measurable goals to promote sound nutrition and student health and to reduce childhood obesity through nutrition education, physical activity, and other school-based activities (School House Advisory, 2017).
San Angelo Schools shall review and consider evidence-based strategies and techniques and shall develop nutrition guidelines and wellness goals.  The SHAC shall permit participation by parents, students, representatives of the District’s food service provider, physical education teachers, school health professionals, members of the Board, school administrators, and members of the public. (School House Advisory, 2017).

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Professional code of ethics: Responsibility in the Delivery of Health Education.

Citation: Code of Ethics for the Health Education Profession. (2020)

Link:  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10556699.2000.10604690

The integrity in the delivery of health education in the communities or schools to uphold respect, rights, dignity, confidentiality, and worth of all.  Adapting different strategies and methods of health education in public schools to meet the needs of diverse populations and communities (Code of Ethics, 2020).

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Slide #12 Personal Connection to the Legal and Ethical Standards:

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Slide #12 Personal Connection to the Legal and Ethical Standards:

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Personnel connection to legal and ethical: The personal connection to legal and ethical standards overview and the connection of public health that it is just not in the communities.  It is a much broader scope of all communities, all schools, and all organizations.  Bridging the gap in public schools through public health programs is important and knowing the different laws can guide us from any violations of the professional code of ethics.

Feelings about connection:   The health of all beings is an important way of life in order to live a long and healthy life and starting to instill this into our younger generations is much needed to begin, maintain healthy habits.  Without these laws and regulations in our public schools there would less children attending, and uneducated.  Knowing how it takes a legal guide and principles to keep our society safe, protected, builds a structure and function to help the students educational needs.

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Slide #13 Bulleted list of Recommendations/ Best Practices for Compliance: 

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Slide #13 Bulleted list of Recommendations/ Best Practices for Compliance: 

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1.  Create school-wide prevention and intervention strategies.

2.  Implement staff development and training

3.  Build more law enforcement partnerships

4.  Fostering more parent, community involvement

5.  Provide links for mental health and social service agency

6. Consult legal council if beginning a new health service program.

7.  Mandate health screening programs

8.  Support Academic Achievement

9. Provide consent forms to parents on any health education programs or services that involve their child.

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Code of Ethics for the Health Education Profession:  (Abbreviated Version), (2000). Journal of Health Education, 31:4, 218, DOI: 10.1080/10556699.2000.10604690

4 School Health Services." Institute of Medicine. 1997. Schools and Health: Our Nation's Investment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5153.

School House Advisory Council (SHAC). (2017). San Angelo
Independent School.
https://pol.tasb.org/Policy/Download/1139 filename=FFA(LOCAL).pdf&filename=FFA(LOCAL).pdf