A school Wellness Policy is a written document that guides a local educational agency (LEA) or school district’s efforts to create supportive school nutrition and physical activity environments.
 

This is important because each school district that participates in federal Child Nutrition Programs, such as the National School Lunch Program or the School Breakfast Program, is required to develop and implement a wellness policy.

In addition, healthy children simply learn easier.

To help evaluate how AUSD is doing with our Wellness Policy, whether it is having a positive impact or not, every 3 years we re-look at it with the help of the WellSAT. The WellSAT is a quantitative assessment tool that assigns a score to help us improve our local School Wellness Policy. The purpose of scoring our Wellness Policy is to identify where we are strong and where we can make improvements. WellSAT was jointly created by the University of Connecticut, the USDA, and the Institute for Health Research & Policy. Since 2010, the WellSAT tool has been used by thousands of schools and organizations across the country. All WellSAT items reflect federal law and/or best practices.

Our District's Scorecard

The 2022 WellSAT scorecard was full of praise for our actual implementation of our Wellness Policy, but essentially encouraged us to improve how we explain that to parents and families. With our scorecard in hand, the AUSD Wellness Committee is positioned for 2023 to look at specific areas for improvement and when we will make these changes to our policy. AUSD's Wellness Committee includes AUSD district nurses, food services, teachers, staff, community members, and administration.

​​​​​​Click here for
Atascadero Unified School District's 2022
WellSAT Report Card

Atascadero Unified School District's
Board Policy Student Wellness

Atascadero Unified School District's
Wellness Committee Page