Healthy Schools Quotes
A Few Quotes We Are Proud Of!
"The School Health Improvement Process [SHIP] was an important part of La Pine High School identifying and advocating for a major need - more staffing in our counseling department. The stakeholder feedback collected through the SHIP was important to increasing our counseling staffing by 67% for the upcoming 2023-24 school year, a need that we are excited to be able to address" - Scott Olszewski, Principal, La Pine High School
"Healthy Schools has enabled our students to improve their comprehension with concepts related to health promotion and disease prevention. This program helps us to enhance health while fostering equity and excellence for every learner through collaboration with educators, partners, and communities." - High School Health Teacher
“The Healthy Schools program has been a positive addition to La Pine High School and the La Pine community. I have worked with various groups in South County, and pre COVID facilitated a community group focused on creating partnerships between the schools, the community, and local resources/services. One of the biggest challenges was connecting health related services to the schools and providing resources for our students, families, and community. Amanda, our Public Health Specialist, has worked diligently to understand the La Pine community and identify resources to meet the health-related needs of the community. I look forward to continuing this partnership to ensure services and resources are accessible to the entire community of La Pine and strengthen the school and community relationship.” – Leslie Reif, Interim Assistant Principal, La Pine High School
“I really want to appreciate the County Commissioners and the members of the budget committee for partnering with us. This is really an exciting, exciting initiative for our schools and for the mental health and wellness for our students. So, I really want to thank the Commissioners and the Budget Committee.” – Melissa Barnes Dholakia, Chair of the Bend-La Pine Schools Board of Directors, following our Healthy Schools presentation at the BLS Board meeting on December 14, 2021
“Both the school district and county commissioners deserve credit for trying something new to tackle these public health challenges in the schools. Without intervention, more students will fail to succeed in school.” –Editorial from the Bend Bulletin on December 25, 2021
“They [Deschutes County] have recently launched a new Healthy Schools model within the Bend-La Pine School District with embedded public health specialists in every high school. It’s modeled on the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model and has a deep focus on supporting mental health and wellness. A very promising approach that we would love to see scaled across the state!” – Ashley Thirstrup, Oregon Health Authority Interim Director of Health in Education, in an email introducing our program to leaders of public health programs for school-age youth in Multnomah County
“Teachers always appreciate when “experts” get a chance to come in speak. It gives students a break from listening to teachers, in addition to an opportunity to learn from someone designated to this expert role. Typically these lessons are completed by a counselor, which means that, on average, a counselor is using 10 hours of their school day to be in the health classes, taking away from the daily connection and completion of activities for a typical day in the life of school counselor. This shift also allows counselors to be more readily available for supporting students who might need additional support and resources.” – Christine Ewing, Bend Senior High School Counselor, in an email describing the impact of their Healthy Schools Public Health Specialist delivery of suicide prevention education curricula to all 9th grade Health classes
“The Healthy Schools Program has impacted my teaching by shedding light on current student health behaviors and trends. I am able to tailor my curriculum, scope, and sequence to better meet the needs of my students in health topics and skills relevant to them. I have also been able to connect students to local health services/programs.” – Denise Horton, PE and Health Teacher, Caldera High School
