Every Middle School Needs A Health Class
Tweens and teens deserve real information about their brains and bodies
Hi Readers,
Since 2002, I’ve been a health education teacher in San Francisco public schools. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a well-planned, well-taught health class in action, but it is pretty amazing. We directly address some of adolescents’ biggest concerns: mental health, relationships, sexuality, social media, and substance use. Students learn skills they can use for the rest of their lives, and get help accessing services they might need to get through their teen years.
These classes make a difference. I’m not just saying that - public health researchers have spent years trying to determine what actually changes health behaviors in teens, and have published their findings as “What Works In Schools.” One of the “big three” key strategies: Providing quality health education, including sexual health education.
In my school district, a semester of health education has long been a high school graduation requirement, and our program is seen as a model of innovation and excellence.
However, many students, families, and educators recognized that young people needed to get the information we cover before high school. That’s why, in 2015, SFUSD started its first middle school health education classes.
Since then, the program has grown steadily, with more middle schools adding health classes each year. Now most SFUSD middle schools had health classes on their rosters, and we have a terrific cadre of enthusiastic, well-trained middle school health teachers in place.
Unfortunately, we recently learned that this middle school health education program is at risk of being eliminated, and we’ve been kicking into action to save it.
I firmly believe that defunding, eliminating, or turning these classes into “electives” will harm young people. Today, I want to tell you about what we’ve been doing and why I think its important, both because we could use your support and because I think there are many lessons here that could be applied in other communities.
What I Told The School Board
Earlier this week, I stepped up to the podium at the San Francisco Board of Education meeting and delivered this public comment:
I’m Christopher Pepper. I’m a teacher on special assignment and I help coordinate and support our amazing health education program.
I’m coming to you tonight in a state of alarm about your proposal to eliminate middle school health classes.
After a full decade of growth, where we have steadily moved closer to our goal of having health classes in every middle school, our teachers now being told their jobs won’t exist next year.
This is a huge mistake.
Health classes provide an opportunity for young people to learn about vaping, periods, suicide, and sexual harassment from well-trained teachers who really care about them.
Health education should be a rite of passage for all students. Instead of cutting it, I recommend making it a scheduled semester-long class for all 7th graders. At minimum, you should find a way to keep our current program in place.
Please save middle school health education!
Students Say Middle School Health Classes Matter
After hearing about these proposed cuts, some students who are now in high school have been sharing their experiences with middle school health education. I was particularly touched by this statement from a 9th grader:
I have been struggling with my mental health since 7th grade, and for a long time, I didn’t really understand what was happening to me. Some days were tough, and I felt overwhelmed, stressed, and confused. Health class helped me put words to what I was feeling and helped me realize that mental health is just as important as physical health. Learning about emotions, stress, and coping skills made me feel less alone and showed me that what I was experiencing was real and valid.
The idea of the health class being cut makes me feel worried and upset. Health class isn’t just another class, it teaches things that actually matter in real life. For students who are struggling like I was, this class can be one of the only places where mental health is talked about openly and seriously. Taking it away could make students feel ignored or unsupported.
If health class is removed, I don’t know where young people will learn accurate information about their bodies and mental health. A lot of people turn to social media, but that isn’t always reliable. Because I know that if I never had health class, I would’ve turned to social media because mental health isn’t talked about in my family, and I know that some students also don’t feel comfortable talking about their mental health. Not everyone feels comfortable asking parents or adults questions.
I Told Everyone That “Our District Was Smart To Add Health Education To Middle School”
Getting health classes established in middle school took a lot of time and effort, and required redesigning the middle school day. This redesign had a lot of benefits, but large systems changes like this take time and always encounter some resistance. To make sure these changes stuck, we had to be persistent, tenacious, and committed to a long-term vision of success. We knew that if we could get health classes established in a few key middle schools, we’d develop some momentum to keep going.
By August of 2019, I was so excited about these burgeoning efforts that I wrote an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle:
High school health teachers get these kinds of questions all of the time: “Weed is a plant, so it’s not dangerous, right?” “What are periods even for?” “Do all carbs make you fat?” “Am I normal?” I’ve always been surprised at the gaps in students’ basic knowledge about health. They often enter ninth grade with many questions about their bodies, their development and their feelings. That’s why I am thrilled that the San Francisco Unified School District has a new initiative to make sure all students get to take a health-education class in middle school. Middle schoolers need help understanding how their bodies are changing, how to navigate pressures around sexuality and substance use, and how to help friends who are struggling with mental health concerns. As part of SFUSD’s Middle Grade Redesign Initiative, students will take a trimester of health in both seventh and eighth grade, along with art, computer science and world language. Importantly, these won’t be “elective” classes that only some students will get to take — they will be built into everyone’s schedules. The redesign is being piloted at two schools this fall and will eventually roll out at all San Francisco middle schools. To get ready for this change, SFUSD has been providing lots of professional development and credential support to educators who want to teach middle school health. There’s now a whole cadre of caring teachers who are excited to make health education a rite of passage in middle school. As these classes are implemented, I look forward to spending less time catching high schoolers up on basic information, and more time delving deeply into issues like planning healthy meals, practicing mindfulness and preventing sexual harassment. Health education class will give middle school students in San Francisco a safe, caring place to talk about their concerns, find real answers and get support when they need it. Teachers may not be able to make all the drama and worries of middle school go away, but there’s a lot we do a lot to improve the experience and prepare our young people for healthy lives. I’m excited that San Francisco is taking this progressive step forward to meet the needs of our youth.
Why Is Health Education Threatened Now?
In our district, unlike some other places, there really hasn’t been much opposition to health education. The proposed cuts seem to be almost entirely budget-related. We had been using a grant to support the middle school health education rollout (it paid for 1/2 of each health teacher’s salary). That grant is ending at the end of this school year, which means that that schools would need to pay for their health teacher’s full salary out of their site budgets, in the same way they pay for the salaries of their math, science, and English teachers. Unfortunately, the first response to this change was not “let’s get creative and find some funding to keep our awesome health classes in middle school” but “let’s eliminate the health classes.”
I do have hope that this train can be reversed. Just last month, the school district reversed its plan to eliminate dozens of social work positions after “a riotous school board meeting at which dozens of students called out the district for neglecting their well-being and communities.”
Public advocacy can prompt a lot of change.
How To Advocate For Health Education
It can be hard to know where to start with a campaign to support health ed. Here are some ideas I shared on CaliforniaHealthEducation.org
Educate the School Board of Education:
Include student, parent and community members’ voices.
Present Health Education as solutions to relevant community level health
needs (such as vaping or mental health concerns).
Educate school administrators on need for health education:
Share best practice models.
Identify student needs using local/site data.
Provide support with creating a suitable master schedule.
Work with student, parent and community partners to build advocacy for programs.
Pro Tips
Establish a guiding principle/philosophy forwhy health and how health education should occur.
Capitalize on local city health issues, to promote health education.
Work with local partners to make education relevant and build a guest speaker
pool.
Test models at pilot schools before expanding to the entire district.
Build a sense of community among health teachers throughout the district.
Invest in existing teachers who want to obtain a secondary Health Credentials.
Educate teachers on the need for understanding new research and evolving health education with trends over time.
Education on media and data literacy for teachers.
Ensure universal health education exposure in secondary schools; identify a district-wide standard for length of time (trimester, semester, etc.) and specific grade level for implementation.
Establish trust with upper-level management and school administrators by being responsive to their needs.
One Last Thing
Feel free to reach out to members of the San Francisco Board of Education and let them know how important middle school health education is and why we should be working hard to keep it in place.
Recent Teen Health Today Highlights
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The “Omnivore’s Dilemma” author would like a word. PLUS: Why is smoking making a comeback with Gen Z?
Raising Teens Today - A Roundtable Discussion
Todd Kashdan, Joanna Schroeder, and Christopher Pepper in conversation
How To Become A “Trusted Adult” For Teens
Great tools for getting better at talking about substance use
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