2000115-Strengthening-Communities-with-Neighborhood-Data

232 Strengthening Communities with Neighborhood Data
In addition, the philanthropic community played an important role.
In late 2009, the RGK Foundation announced a new focus on the
“improvement of middle school children’s health through physical activity.”
The foundation commissioned a 2010 report, Stuck in the Middle:
The False Choice between Health and Education in Texas Middle Schools,
which recommended a set of programs and policies (Kelder 2010).
In response to a request for proposal issued in September 2012, RGK
awarded a $150,000 grant to AISD to enable the implementation of
HOPSports and other physical education activities at six middle schools.
These additional resources resulted in HOPSports being implemented in
all AISD middle schools (Hays Free Press 2012a).
COH’s work with AISD attracted the notice of other school districts
in Travis County, including Hays Consolidated Independent School
District. 14 The steps were similar to those taken in Austin: negotiating
a data use agreement, cleaning and analyzing the new data, and sharing
the findings with a wide range of stakeholders at a community summit
in July 2012. The obesity mapping project was mentioned as one factor
in the American School Health Association’s selection of Hays Consolidated
Independent School District’s Superintendent Dr. Jeremy Lyon as
the recipient of its 2012 School Health Leadership Award. The award
honors superintendents who have fostered school environments that
address the connections between health and learning. Like AISD leaders,
Dr. Lyon showed leadership in a range of activities to act on the findings
of the report, including introducing innovative new programming,
expanding physical education activities, and supported the expansion of
the school-based student health center (Hays Free Press 2012b).
The need demonstrated by the COH analyses helped to raise external
funds to support health programs. The Hemphill Elementary School in
the Hays School District, which serves primarily low-income children,
was 1 of 12 recipients of a three-year $15,000 “Excellence in Education”
Healthy Campus grant, funded by a Texas grocery firm. The grant supported
initiatives such as implementing nutrition education throughout
the curriculum, including healthier foods in the school meal program
and vending machines, creating a community garden, and enhancing
physical education classes (Hilsenbeck 2013).
Children’s Optimal Health continues to serve the community by
analyzing issues at the neighborhood level and sharing the latest news
on the factors influencing children’s health and potential ways to move
the related indicators in the right direction. Achieving improvements in