School leaders making a difference: Collaboration to improve the health outcomes of school-aged children

School district staff, especially its leadership, must be able to effectively communicate with families, community groups and local government. Likewise, families and community groups must be able to express their needs to school leaders. The American Association of School Administrators works with school leaders to sustain local, state and national partnerships and fosters communication between diverse stakeholders so that children are in school and ready to learn.

Specifically, AASA has partnered with the National School Boards Association to collaborate through the Leadership Forum on Healthy Students and Healthy Schools, consisting of five state teams. Each team has diverse membership that works collaboratively at the state level to engage school leaders in asthma management.

In addition, AASA partnered with the National League of Cities to provide technical assistance to six city and school leader teams that focused on creating and implementing local wellness policies.

Within local districts, AASA convenes an Urban and Rural Healthy Schools Coalition, respectively, which look at improving school indoor air quality. These groups work within and across district teams to effectively improve IAQ within the environmental constraints of their specific settings.

The types of collaborations showcased within each of these projects highlight the positive impact of national, state and local-level partnerships can have on the health school-aged youth. Participants will hear about the lessons learned from these successful groups and take away concrete strategies on how to engage school leaders and other stakeholders to improve the health of students.