School Health Advirosy Council Minutes - 10-/12/10

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PROCEEDINGS OF THE SCHOOL HEALTH ADVISORY COUNCIL

School District No. 2, Yellowstone County

High School District No. 2, Yellowstone County

Billings, Montana

 

October 12, 2010

 

The School Health Advisory Council met Tuesday, October 12, 2010 at 4:00 pm in Room 213 of the Lincoln Center. Virginia Mermel presided over the meeting. Attending were, Karen Dawson, Kay Schwartz, Marv Forquer, Tina Postol, Mindie Robbins, Bette Hunt, Judy Povilaitis, Gordon Klasna, Robert Roe, Laura Holmlund, and Thomas Harper. Guests included Hanna Noel, Jill Bunge, Terry Smith and Kathy Aragon

 

Introductions

Virginia Mermel welcomed the committee and introduced new members and guests.

 

Safe Routes to School Presentation

City of Billings Engineer, Terry Smith and State of MT, Safe Routes to School Coordinator Kathy Aragon updated the committee on the status of Safe Routes to School in SD-2. Thanks to a grant that was received in 2009, the City Engineers were able to identify safety concerns for people walking or biking near 11 SD-2 elementary schools and plot safe routes for walking and biking to each school. The City Engineers office is conducting safe routes audits for the 11 remaining elementary school this year and hopes to get funds to complete audits for the areas around the SD-2 middle schools in subsequent years. The SRTS audit can be viewed on the City of Billings website at:

http://ci.billings.mt.us/index.aspx?NID=1589

 

Legislative Update

Virginia Mermel reported that the transportation bill at the Federal level is up for re-authorization and having a good SRTS plan and policy can help us get some of the SRTS funds this bill is bound to contain. Virginia will work with Kathy Aragon, the City of Billings and RiverStone Health Complete Streets project personal to strengthen the SD-2 Wellness Policy regarding walking and biking to school so our district is in a position to get the funding.

It was also reported that the Child Nutrition Re-authorization Act was brought up to standard with $4.5 billion added from the SNAP program (new name for food stamps). There is an over-arching law that says you cannot produce education with financial needs attached unless you can balance the budget by taking is from another source. The congressional version is much better in terms of being wholly funded. Congress has come up with a price tag of 8 billion over a ten year span. So far they have only come up with a billion dollars so they will look at the problem again on December 3rd. The Joint Chief of State has come out in favor of the congressional version. Virginia will keep the committee informed as the bill goes forward.

 

BackPack Program Update

Virginia Mermel reported that 520 children benefited from the program last year through a seed grant from the Montana Food Bank Network. Students enrolled in the SD-2 Vocational Program helped to make the program a success under the guidance of Karen Dawson.

 

So far this year there are only 320 children in the Back Pack program because SHAC was able to pair over 50 families accounting for 160 children with weekly food boxes and other assistance from local social service agencies. The Childhood Hunger

Summit held in January helped bring public and private social service organizations, funders, food service, school and healthcare personnel together to work on better ways to address chronic hunger and food insecurity in Yellowstone County.

One of the 3 taskforces formed at the Summit helped to coordinate and produce a food resources brochure that went out to every student in Yellowstone County.

Over the summer with the help of Riverstone Health graduate student who did outreach

to the families that agreed to be contacted. We were able to get 39 families representing 120 of the children who previously received BackPack meals to agree to take food boxes instead of BackPack meals which is better because food boxes provide enough food for the entire family and food for weeknight meals.

 

The BackPack Committee budgeted to serve 400 children each weekend and school holiday during the 2010-2011 school year. Hopefully with the money on hand and keeping the numbers around 400 children or less, SHAC should be able to fund the program through June 3rd thanks to the individuals and organizations that so generously donated.

 

 

Virginia reported that OPI and the Food Security Council hosted a state wide Child Nutrition and Hunger Conference in September. There is a big change on how we are looking at hunger in our community. The Salvation Army and Family Services, Inc. have teamed up with the school district to submitted USDA Hunger Free Communities grant to help deal with the hunger problems. By improving distribution of donated foods and providing a west end summer feeding site for students who depend on free and reduced meals during the school year.

 

Virginia Mermel introduced Hanna Noel and Jill Bunge,

VISTA volunteers brought to Billings by the City and Major Jackson, Dir of the Billings Salvation Army. Jill and Hannah are working on a million dollar USDA grant that would help build sustainable community gardens in Billings and surrounding areas. Jill reported that SD-2 has agreed to team up with the Salvation Army to plant community gardens at select title 1 elementary schools and possibly the Career Center. School involvement is a requirement for winning the grant. In addition to learning a bit about growing food crops, students will have an opportunity to learn about social enterprise and entrepreneurship by selling crops they raise. Several teachers and administrators present felt the grant would be a good fit for students at the Career Center as it has vacant land on which to plant crops, water access, and proximity to classes where students could learn farming, irrigation techniques, cooking skills, etc.

 

SHAC To Do List

SHAC would like to see the summer lunch in the parks program expand not only the number of sites but also physical activities at the parks. The money that was received last year to help bus students who did not live near a feeding site to one of 6 active sites was one time money so new grants will have to be written for this project.

 

Virginia would like to seethe SHAC members organized into two teams –a Physical Activities Team and a Nutritional Team. She noted this has been tried before without success but wants to make another stab at it now that we have new leadership at the Y and some promising developments in terms of the number of elementary students taking part in the extramural cross country program this fall. Virginia asked members to let her know which team they would live to be part of.

 

 

Approval of Minutes

The minutes from the February 9, 2010 meeting were not approved at this meeting because of absent committee members.

 

Upcoming Meetings

Next SHAC meeting is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday November 16, 2010

 

 

 

Respectfully submitted:

 

__________________________

Virginia Mermel, Chair

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Cindy Curnow, Recorder