School district wellness policy revised, language modified

The latest draft of Conejo Valley Unified School District's wellness policy features several revisions from the original.

Gone is a provision that disallowed involvement in other physically-demanding activities (such as interscholastic or intramural sports) in lieu of P.E. courses. That language made some parents, especially of high school students, uneasy.

"If there is a physical activity program that the district considers transferable to the child's P.E. credit, we're going to honor that in the policy," said Joe Cook, the district's head of child nutrition.

"By doing so, we're giving those students involved in athletic teams more time in the classroom studying academics, because they can fulfill their P.E. requirement through their involvement in teams or other clubs after school."

Also removed was a guideline that required students to spend at least 50 percent of gym class participating in moderate to vigorous physical activity-a mandate Cook called "unrealistic."

"We wanted to take into account that there may be a week where there's more verbal instruction than physical activity, and we didn't want to punish health and P.E. teachers if that happened," Cook said.

Because of regulations in the California Education Code, the wellness committee also completely removed a section called "staff wellness," which called on district employees to set a good example by maintaining their own healthy lifestyles.

"The district is not in a position to mandate any type of policy for staff members without doing collective bargaining work with the teachers' unions," Cook said.

"We would have to get any type of policy language related to our employees passed through them," he said, "and right now the district's not interested in going through that process."

Finally, the committee softened the language regarding food-related fundraising, opting instead to stick with existing state mandates. School groups can continue to sell baked goods and pizza, etc.-as long as they're conducted after the lunch hour. Still, Cook hopes the spirit of the policy will lead students to healthier fundraisers.

"We are going to be encouraging more fundraisers related to physical activity-such as Jog-aThons, car washes-as opposed to cookie dough or pizza sales," Cook said. "Our hope is through positive language and suggestion, we're going to get a lot of the old candy bar and cheesecake fundraising activities converted over time."

-Kyle Jorrey