Running head: COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL ASSESSMENT

Comprehensive School Assessment

Franki Bailey
Arizona State University
PPE 310
February 7, 2016
Christopher Lineberry

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Assessment Results

Assess Your School

Assessment Results

Overall Grade: F
During School: 20%
Let's get to work. The school day is the critical time for implementing the Active & Healthy Schools
Program, which can benefit students, teachers and staff. Let's look at some steps for improving your
Active & Healthy score during the school day.

Curriculum: 20%
Let's get to work. The Active & Healthy Schools Program is committed to creating programs that
schools can successfully implement and maintain. Let's look at some possibilities for your PE
program.

Recess / Lunch: 25%

Let's get to work. A few simple changes can encourage students to choose healthy foods over
sugary snacks, which will increase your Active & Healthy score and help students get more out of
school.

After School: 20%

Let's get to work. Take a look at a few simple changes your school can make to help create an Active
& Healthy environment, both at school and at home.

After assessing my schools overall health on Gopherspot, I am sad to say, my school has
received a failing health grade. It is with a heavy heart that I report this, because I feel the
questions this assessment asked were very simple, yet brief enough to cover the basics health

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needs a school should have. With this being said, I do not know if these questions being so cut
and dry are a good thing or a bad thing? I am currently student teaching at Pedro Guerrero
Elementary School in Mesa, Arizona. This school does its very best to promote healthy living
given the little help they receive from parents. It is very hard to push or implement something
without the support of parents. However, this is no excuse! I believe there is more my school can
do to implement healthy eating and living. This next week, we will be participating in a school
wide Jump Rope for Heart activity. This can be a great jump start to livening up the schools
health plan and curriculum. You have to start somewhere, and now is as good a time as any. Go
GECKOS!
One area that needs to be vamped up at Guerrero, is the way the school promotes health.
There is no promotion of healthy anything. I do not see posters promoting healthy playing or
eating. Now, this is not to say we cannot change that little fault of ours at Guerrero. I have
NEVER met a school with so many supportive loving teachers. Guerreros Teachers first priority
is their students. This is a quality that I have rarely seen while in the iTeachAZ Program. This
school is very dedicated to its students, which is why I know this is a topic that can be addressed
and wonderfully implemented. Another area that can be improved upon is student recess. It is not
long at all and the students have recess before lunch? How can they run off all that cafeteria food
if they play before lunch? To me, this is just mind boggling. I know from my own experience
that school lunches are not always healthy. There needs to be some alternative for the students
that are eating that food. As teachers, we always say we cannot put a price on education. So, why
do we put a price on health? Yes, we do have a lot of mouths to feed at schools. Yes, feeding that
many mouths is costly I am sure. However, the cost should be no excuse to feed our children
junk.

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Another worry of mine is that PE is considered a special. Since when did PE become an
option or special? Physical Education was mandatory every day when I was in school. I am still
alive. I still learned everything that needed to be learned, and what do you know, here I am in
College. I do not agree with Physical Education once a week because I feel that PE is an outlet
for energy. We wonder why our kids are going stir-crazy in our classrooms. What second grader
wouldnt after sitting all day? My students barely have enough time to get a drink and go to the
bathroom. You know what, I barely have enough time to get a drink and go to the bathroom in
the fifteen minutes provided for recess and I am an adult. Almost 7 in 10 parents say their
childs school does not provide daily physical education even though experts recommended 150
to 225 minutes per school week (Harvard T.H. Chan, 2016).
I think the best way to make a change for the positive, would be to intergrade health into
our classroom curriculum. I wouldnt even mind adding a certain time during the day that I am
allowed to take my kids out to run around for an extra thirty minutes. Children need that allotted
time to really take a brain break and stretch and move. At that time I would provide a healthy
snack. I cannot tell you how many Mrs. Bailey, Im hungry I get by the time 1:30 rolls around.
Lunch is at 11:25. A healthy snack for any child old or young, is good. By showing students how
to be healthy and eat healthy in the classroom and at school, we are providing them with healthy
ways to live outside of class and school. They will apply these techniques to other aspects of
their lives.
Another great way to get parents, community, and neighboring schools involved in
healthy living is to be honest about the alarming health concerns that plague their children. It is
nice to sugar coat health and say, Oh, there kids, they are resilient. The fact that children are
resilient is no excuse to NOT promote healthy living. We forget that promoting healthy living

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isnt only to be healthy, but to also prevent risky behaviors such as alcohol and tobacco use, or
bullying (MedlinePlus, 2016). We cannot forget the upbringings and lifestyles these children
come from. It is hard enough in todays fast pace world to not get swept up in what is cool.
Information
I am currently finishing up my senior year of student teaching at Guerrero Elementary
School in Mesa, Arizona. Guerrero Elementary is a public Title 1 school located in the Mesa
Unified School District. According to School Digger 95.4% of students receive free/reduced
lunch. School Digger also reports that out of 635 students 84.3% are Hispanic, 5.3% American
Indian, 3.3% African American, and 9.9% is white. I would say it is a diverse school considering,
but a majority of the school are Hispanic students. Guerrero is ranked 887th out of 929 schools in
the Mesa School District. Guerrero Elementary is home to grades K-6. Guerrero Elementary
school received a C letter grade or a 2 out of 10 according to Mesa School Grades.
Over all, this paper was actually very eye opening to write. The information I have found
on my school will help me later with my Signature Assignment. The statistics and other
information I have found will not only benefit me, but it will benefit my students as well. This is
because I will be creating and implementing a school wide health plan for my students. This
information only allows me to better assess the needs of my school and its students.
School Assessment

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Resources
SchoolDigger.com. (2015, December 3). Retrieved February 07, 2016, from
http://www.schooldigger.com/
Guerrero Elementary School. (2016). Retrieved February 7, 2016, from
http://www.publicschoolreview.com/guerrero-elementary-school-profile/85210
MedlinePlus. School Health. (2015, March 26). Retrieved February 07, 2016, from
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/schoolhealth.html
Mesa AZ Schools. Letter Grades. (2015). Retrieved February 07, 2016, from
http://www.samelam.com/Web/AR422641/CustomContent/index/5117704
Harvard T.H. Chan. Poll finds lack of physical education in public schools a concern of parents.
(2013). Retrieved February 07, 2016, from http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/pressreleases/lack-of-physical-education-in-schools-concerns-parents/