June 2020 - CDC Healthy Schools Highlights

CDC's pandemic guidance for the Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) now includes health considerations and tools to help make reopening decisions for operating child care programs, schools, youth programs, and day camps. Information is also available in CDC Activities and Initiatives Supporting the COVID-19 Response and the President’s Plan for Opening America Up Again. 

This guidance uses what is currently known about the transmission and severity of COVID-19 and is updated as more information becomes available.

CDC recommends all students, regardless of ability, should get the recommended 60 minutes or more of daily physical activity. Schools can help students meet this recommendation by creating physical education and physical activity programs that provide equal opportunities for all students, including students with disabilities, to participate. 

A new CDC Healthy Schools policy brief on inclusive school physical education and physical activity for state education and health leaders includes the following:

• Defines inclusion.
• Identifies relevant federal policies.
• Describes the current status of inclusion in the United States.
• Suggest six simple actions state leaders can take to promote inclusion at the district and school levels.

State Highlights

CDC Healthy Schools grantees and their partners continue to deliver activities for student health and learning during the COVID-19 emergency response. To date, these activities include the following:

• Working with the state National School Lunch Program to update the school feeding sites map and providing this information to federal and state agencies.
• Coordinating activities with school nurses to ensure students’ school medicine supplies are available for pickup and putting in place plans for social distancing during pickup times.
• Providing nontraditional instructional resources for health and physical education that teachers can offer students while they are at home.
• Compiling culturally appropriate resources and materials to support mental health for anxiety and racial tension during remote learning caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Find out more about the CDC cooperative agreement, Improving Student Health and Academic Achievement Through Nutrition, Physical Activity and the Management of Chronic Conditions in Schools (DP18-1801 Healthy Schools).