Celebrate Success and Look Ahead

Recognizing your accomplishments can help your community maintain momentum and support for school and student health. Celebrations also give you the opportunity to reinforce the importance of your work, recognize the achievements of students and adults, thank staff and volunteers who contributed to your efforts, and take pride as a school and a community in what you accomplished.

Identify Wins

Revisit your School Health Index results and take a moment to update your assessment. Where have you improved? Work with your School Health Team to create a plan for celebrating and sharing these improvements. Celebrate wins, no matter how big or small! Incremental improvements support long-term, sustainable programming. To share your success, consider:

• Meeting with school and district administrators to highlight your work (and advocate for continued support);
• Sharing on your school’s social media and website, in newsletters and at school events;
• Contacting local media to do a story;
• Speaking at an open school board or other community meeting on the importance of physical activity and nutrition and the actions your school has successfully taken;
• Recognizing students, staff, families and community members that contributed to your success;
• Hosting an event such as a community breakfast, student assembly or Every Kid Healthy Week event to have fun, recognize contributors and reinforce healthy messages;
• Sharing your school’s success with Action for Healthy Kids to inspire other schools to improve their environment to ensure kids are healthy and ready to learn.

Plan for Next Year

As you celebrate wins, spend some time with your team reflecting on challenges and additional opportunities for improving school and student health. Review the Opportunities for Growth section of your School Health Index report to identify 3-5 priorities for next year. Our 6-steps for creating healthier schools is a cyclical process and each year, we encourage you to work through each step to ensure you have the people, tools, resources, and programming to make your school the healthiest place it can be.