An innovative response to complex state and federal regulations for school wellness policies

Local education agencies throughout the country face a complicated array of funded and unfunded nutrition and physical activity regulations. As an example, in Arkansas the General Assembly passed Act 1220, state legislation designed to combat child obesity, and improve the health of the next generation of Arkansans by changing state and local nutrition and physical activity policies. Subsequently, the federal government passed the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act of 2004 mandating that all school districts participating in the federal child nutrition programs (e.g. National School Lunch program) develop and implement a wellness policy. Further, Arkansas public schools were required to incorporate wellness policies into the Arkansas Consolidated School Improvement Plan. To help schools satisfy these various requirements without duplicated effort and documentation, the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) consolidated the regulations associated with the federal and state laws into a single checklist. The checklist makes it possible for schools and districts to satisfy requirements simultaneously, and, because federal child nutrition program funding is contingent on ADE's approval of the wellness policy as part of the annual agreement between the state agency and local education, they are more likely to comply with other regulations that may not have stringent consequences for noncompliance. This presentation will describe how this process unfolded in Arkansas and highlight this invaluable checklist.