CPS Office of Student Health and Wellness Wins National Award for Leadership in Providing Comprehensive Student Services

 CPS Office of Student Health and Wellness Wins National Award
for Leadership in Providing Comprehensive Student Services

CHICAGO -Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is honored
to announce that the District’s Office of Student Health and
Wellness (OSHW) will receive the American School Health
Association’s (ASHA) Whole School, Whole Community,
Whole Child (WSCC) Award, which recognizes organizations
that have implemented a collaborative model that supports each
child’s physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development.

This award is being presented to CPS for its leadership in
establishing the Healthy CPS program, which aligns with the
District’s core value to serve the whole child so students are
healthy, safe, engaged and academically challenged. As the
nation’s third-largest school district, serving more than 330,000
students in 600-plus schools, the District aims to be a national
leader in the field of school health and in providing comprehensive
services as outlined in this video.

“I’m proud of the dedicated team that makes up our Office
of Student Health and Wellness, and this well-deserved award
honors the work they do every single day to serve our students”,
said CEO Pedro Martinez. “Our OSHW colleagues work
extraordinarily hard on any given day, but particularly over the
past two-plus years. Their efforts to address COVID-19 while
also serving our students physically, emotionally, and mentally
have been vital to helping students heal from the impact of the
pandemic, learn, and thrive.”

Healthy CPS
In addition to being the primary CPS entity responsible for
providing health services to students, OSHW has established
the Healthy CPS program, a mechanism for communicating,
supporting the implementation of, and monitoring compliance
with roughly 50 federal, state, and local health and wellness policies.
This work aligns with the CDC’s Whole School, Whole
Community, and Whole Child model.

The award recognizes a variety of tools and resources that
support the health of CPS students. This includes more than
400 learning gardens across the District and a state-of-the-art
agriculture lab that provides a training space to equip teachers
and school garden teams in various agriculture processes that
can be used in classrooms and gardens. Over 200 schools have
Gender and Sexuality Alliances (GSA) to enhance safe and
supportive school environments, and 130 schools participate
in the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, bringing hands-on
nutrition education to thousands of students each year. In
addition, OSHW experts provide programming and technical
assistance to schools around mental health, sexual health
education, LGBTQ+ support, physical activity, school gardens,
direct health services, and enrollment in and utilization of public
health benefits such as Medicaid and SNAP.

Schools achieve Healthy CPS status by meeting at least 90
percent of criteria ranging from weekly physical education minutes
and daily recess to staff training and healthy celebrations.
As of SY18-19, the last year of reporting before the pandemic,
90 schools had achieved Healthy CPS certification, and 72
percent of the total criteria were met across the District.

In 2019, OSHW expanded on the Healthy CPS programs
by establishing the Whole Child Advisory Council, which regularly
convenes departments, including the Office of Social Emotional
Learning, the Office of Diverse Learner Supports and
Services, the Office of School Safety and Security, the Office of
School Counseling and Postsecondary Support, and Nutrition
Support Services, to share initiative updates and priorities,
review policies and programs through a whole child lens, and
discuss opportunities for cross-departmental partnerships. In
2022, OSHW launched the Whole Child Partner Network,
composed of over 50 organizations that provide direct programming
to CPS students. The network strives to increase collaboration
across WSCC components and better support schools.
The groups converge at an annual Whole Child Partner Summit,
allowing CPS departments to provide high-level overviews of
their priorities and partner needs and fostering community and
networking, strengthening internal and external partnerships.

This past year, OSHW added a second partner-led summit
to provide organizations the opportunity to share their own best
practices and learn from others whose work touches on multiple
WSCC components. OSHW set a goal to create a consistent,
unified message to help school leaders understand how these
pieces all fit together.

Specific to the COVID-19 pandemic, OSHW has worked
to support the whole child by leading the District’s effort to
provide access to vaccines, free COVID-19 testing, personal
protective equipment, and contact tracing to keep school communities
safe. As of June 1, OSHW has:

Administered over 1.5 million COVID-19 tests since
September 1, 2021,

Hosted over 1,500 COVID-19 vaccination events serving
more than 23,000 patient encounters between July 1, 2021 and
June 30, 2022.

Distributed more than $13 million of Personal Protective
Equipment (PPE) to students and staff.

Thanks in part to CPS’ effort to promote COVID-19
vaccination and increase access to vaccines, CPS students at
District-managed schools are outpacing the national average for
vaccinations. As of June 1, 2022:

64.05 percent of CPS students aged 12-17 at District-managed
schools are fully vaccinated, compared to 59.5 percent
nationwide

43.72 percent of CPS students aged 5-11 at District-managed
schools are fully vaccinated, compared to 29.1 percent
nationwide

“Healthy students are more prepared to learn, and more
prepared to succeed in college, career, and civic life,” said
Tashunda Green-Shelton, Deputy Chief Health Officer of the
Office of Student Health and Wellness.

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