Noble schools focus on employee wellness

By Julianna Parker

August 04, 2008 11:51 am

— NOBLE -- For the past few years, Noble Public Schools has focused its wellness initiatives on students. Staff has worked to get nutrition in the cafeterias and exercise in the gyms up to national standards.
This upcoming year, Noble schools will turn their focus to employees.
The good example set by the adults around children is hoped to help students make healthy decisions for themselves, said Eva Dunn, child nutrition director for NPS.
"The thing is, if we can get our adults on board, and the students see the adults are caring about their health, we're hoping we can pass it on to our students," she said.
The effort started with a survey this spring. Dunn and the other child nutrition staff members asked teachers and support personnel if they would use new health and wellness resources if they were offered at NPS.
The answer was a resounding yes.
"I think the need is so great that I got a huge response," Dunn said. So plans began to take shape by Dunn and her staff, along with a wellness committee that has met over the past year.
When teachers come back to school this month, they'll be given a new set of resources to make healthy choices in their own lives.
Dunn has prepared a handbook for employees that features information about portion sizes, healthy eating tips, information on cholesterol and blood pressure, nutritional facts and tips on how to create rewards for students other than unhealthy food.
NPS also will work with Norman Regional Hospital to provide blood pressure checks at least once this year at all five school sites in the district. The results of those tests would be used as a "before" starting point, to log the progress of employees in moving toward healthier lifestyles.
A more visible change will be the creation of a walking path around the NPS administration building connecting to Pioneer Intermediate School. Dunn said Turning Point already has given the schools the signs to create the path and the City of Noble has agreed to install them.
And within each school, the hallways will be marked with distances so employees can know how far they walk every day.
The new initiatives are being met with favorable responses from staff members who have heard about it.
Mary Hainline, assistant director of Child Nutrition Services and manager of the Curtis Inge Middle School kitchen, is especially excited about knowing the distances of each hallway.
"You can definitely get your heart rate up walking the eighth grade hallway," she said.
Hainline said adults' actions influence the choices kids make, so this initiative will be good for students as well as the employees.
Dunn gave a presentation about the wellness program to the school board members at their regular meeting July 14. Superintendent Greg Kasbaum said the project is moving forward with "baby steps" because of a tight budget. But the steps forward are positive ones, he said.
"We thought we would just do something that would help the employees," Kasbaum said. "... One of the goals is to make it so they are good role models for the students."
Julianna Parker 366-3541 jparker@normantranscript.com