Wellness Committee Meeting
December 7, 2021
Minutes
Attendance:
All committee members present for today’s meeting.
Additional attendees:
Kyle Williams - High School Assistant Principal
Dr. Pyle opened the meeting by briefly reviewing the minutes from the previous meeting on
11/12/19. Discussed events that have taken place since the last meeting regarding COVID-19
impact and how it has affected the district.
We discussed goals and action steps for the program’s three areas - Nutrition, Physical Activity
and Other School-Based Activities.
COVID-19 IMPACT
● Discussed the mental health impacts the pandemic has had on teachers and students.
Teachers have access to counselors at the Ozark Center through the district EAP.
Students have access to our on staff social worker, building counselors as well as
counselors with Will’s Place on campus. It was mentioned that students don’t know how
to access the services available. Need to provide information to students letting them
know about services available and contact information.
NUTRITION
● Goal was to increase school lunch participation by 6% and breakfast participation by 3%
by May 26, 2022. The baseline data was meals served in the 19-20 school year, prior to
the pandemic. USDA put in place waivers to allow schools to provide free meal service
to all students regardless of meal status through June 2022. Lunch increased by 17% and
Breakfast increased by 86% for the 20-21 school year. So far, lunch has increased an
additional 10% and breakfast has increased an additional 14% in 21-22. These numbers
most likely will drop a little once students are required to pay for meals again. We have
seen the most increase at the Junior High and High School levels. Grab N Go style
breakfast has helped increase the numbers.
● Long lunch lines continue to be an issue and deter some students from eating school
meals, but not sure how to adjust this process to speed up the wait times.
● Elementary Grab N Go breakfast has helped to increase participation. Administrators
continue to send communication about meal service to parents through newsletters.
● High School continues to only eat in commons even with Grab N Go style breakfast.
Doors at the High School open between 6:00am - 6:30am each morning, food service will
Wellness Committee Meeting
December 7, 2021
Minutes
consider serving breakfast earlier to accommodate kids in the building earlier than
7:30am.
● We had intended to implement new food taste tests to encourage participation, but that
did not happen due to COVID-19. We will try to implement this for the 2022-2023
school year.
● Continue to encourage teachers and other staff members to use non-food rewards in the
classroom. Surveys show most agree it's best to use non-food rewards, but needed
suggestions on what those rewards could be. Lindsey Stevenson has sent reward
suggestions to those who participated.
● The district has added several bottle filling stations in all buildings. We are currently
looking into changing all water fountains into bottle filling stations. Christy Pittman will
look into providing reusable water bottles to students to promote reusable bottle use.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION / ACTIVITY
● We discussed the fitness zone goals and that they are measured by grade level. Baseline
data for these goals were set at the beginning of this school year. Physical Education
teachers will reevaluate the students at the end of the school year to see percentage of
change. The Junior High and High School numbers could be skewed a little because
some kids only take PE one semester. May reconsider the way we evaluate seniors’ Body
Fat % and BMI since some seniors don't take Physical Education until senior year and
may be well beyond healthy limits and cannot change within one year.
● PE teachers are working on a google document to be able to track performance year to
year at the HS level.
● Starting this year, we have incorporated student wellness challenges at the High School.
The first challenge was just completed. It was a challenge between homeroom classes
and minutes of physical activity. We had about ⅓ of the homeroom classes participate.
The grand prize was an early release for the winning homeroom. Students who weren’t
able to leave early would go to the gym and Coach Merrell would supervise and have fun
games/activities for the students to do during that time. We are hoping to have more
participation in the next challenge.
● K-5 students continue to participate in physical activities during breaks such as
GoNoodle, brain breaks or fresh air breaks. May need to follow up with JH and HS
administration and teachers to make sure students have the option to stand up or just take
a quick break during each block if needed.
OTHER SCHOOL BASED ACTIVITIES
● Vaping is our main target for this objective.
Wellness Committee Meeting
December 7, 2021
Minutes
● Have had a significant increase in Junior High. According to administrators, we are on
track to see an increase overall for this school year. High School has already had 42
incidents so far this year.
● With the uptick in incidents at the Intermediate building, we will look into an education
program at the elementary level.
● We will continue with the PSA information at Junior High and High School. Parents who
attended High School parent teacher conferences also received a flyer with information
regarding the dangers of vaping.
● The High School currently has an education program in place. The Junior High and
Intermediate are also implementing the same program. We found that education at the
Intermediate level may help reduce numbers overall. May have a separate education
program not in conjunction with the DARE program. We are also seeing an uptick in
drug related incidents with THC pens being more accessible with dispensaries in the area.
We could promote an education program at younger age levels and more of an addiction
program for older students, especially repeat offenders. Trying to determine why kids are
doing this from the start could circle back to mental health issues or other stress factors in
their life.
● We have installed a vape detector in the High School and are looking into adding more in
the High School and possibly Junior High and Intermediate. They are very expensive so
we need to determine the need and what the goal is.
OTHER DISCUSSION
● Internet safety education - Intermediate age may be a good age group to start a program
like this.
● Christy Pittman is working on a new program that will be rolled out in January for
teachers to have access to videos and other information to teach nutrition and wellness