804-a. Comprehensive school health education demonstration program. 1. Within the amounts appropriated, the commissioner is hereby authorized to establish a demonstration program and to distribute state funds to local school districts, boards of cooperative educational services and in certain instances community school districts, for the development, implementation, evaluation, validation, demonstration and replication of exemplary comprehensive health education programs to assist the public schools in developing curricula, training staff, and addressing local health education needs of students, parents, and staff.
2. School districts or BOCES may contract with appropriate agencies or organizations to participate in such program. Such program shall be limited to health education at the elementary level and shall be designed on a multi-year basis. Such program shall include but not be limited to the following components:
a. Developer grants for comprehensive school health education programs.
(i) Such grants shall include the development, implementation, and evaluation of a comprehensive health education program including such activities as:
(A) coordination of health instruction with other available programs in the school and the community related to health education;
(B) provision of inservice training and materials for elementary level school teachers in comprehensive health education;
(C) development and implementation of evaluation procedures to measure students' knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes prior to and after project implementation; and
(D) development and implementation of a mechanism for project maintenance and long-range programming.
(ii) Upon successful completion of the above activities and the availability of funds, such grant recipients will assist other local educational agencies with replication.
b. Health education regional training centers. Regional training centers for the purpose of developing materials and providing training programs to meet the needs of teachers statewide in the implementation of comprehensive school health education programs at the elementary level will be established.
c. Statewide advocacy for comprehensive health education. Development and implementation of a statewide advocacy program to create an awareness on the part of school administrators of the need to develop strategies for implementing comprehensive school health education programs at the elementary level.
d. Replication of validated health education programs. Grants will be awarded to local school districts or boards of cooperative educational services for the replication of nationally or state-validated exemplary health education programs.
Last modified: February 3, 2019