File: IHAM

HEALTH EDUCATION

Good health is a dynamic quality and therefore depends upon continuous life-long attention to scientific advances and the requisition of new knowledge.

The Agawam School Committee is committed to a sound, comprehensive health education program as an integral part of each student's general education.

The School Committee believes that the greatest opportunity for effective health education lies within the public schools because of their potential to reach children at the age when positive, lifelong health habits are best engendered and because the schools are equipped to provide qualified personnel to conduct health education programs.

The health education program in the Agawam Public Schools will emphasize a contemporary approach to the presentation of health information, skills, and the knowledge necessary for students to understand and appreciate the functioning and proper care of the human body. In addition, students will be presented with information regarding complex social, physical and mental health problems which they might encounter in society. In an effort to help students make intelligent choices on alternative behavior of serious personal consequence, health education will examine the potential health hazards of social, physical and mental problems existing in the larger school-community environment.

In order to promote a relevant, dynamic approach to the instruction of health education, the School Committee will continue to stress the need for curricular, personnel and financial commitments which are necessary to assure the high quality of the system's health education program.

LEGAL REF.: M.G.L. 71:1

Agawam Public Schools