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Board hears recommendation to adopt LiveWell health curriculum with supplements; community review planned
Summary
District staff recommended LiveWell (Human Kinetics) as the 6–12 core health textbook and listed supplementary evidence‑based programs for substance‑use, suicide prevention and healthy relationships; staff said the materials meet state adoption lists and will go to public review.
Bend‑La Pine Schools staff on April 8 presented a recommended secondary health curriculum and a set of evidence‑based supplements intended to meet state requirements and expand prevention programming.
Deputy Superintendent Dr. Lisa Burke introduced the health adoption presentation and said the district convened health teachers and subject‑matter experts to review state‑adopted options. “Effective teaching and learning of health is really a core foundational skill,” said Dr. Muscanti, who helped facilitate the review group.
Why it matters: Health instruction includes statutorily required topics — including substance‑use prevention, suicide prevention and sexual/reproductive health — and staff said adopting a single, state‑approved core text would improve consistency across schools and better integrate supplementary prevention programs.
What staff proposed: The district recommended LiveWell (publisher Human Kinetics) as the core middle‑ and high‑school health textbook and proposed a suite of supplements for specific topics: Catch My Breath and Project ALERT for middle‑school substance‑use prevention; Stanford Prevention Toolkit materials (including Safety First) for high school; Erica’s Lighthouse for suicide prevention; and state‑developed synthetic opioid prevention lessons. Staff said the supplementary lessons would be mapped to grade levels and to Health 1 and Health 2 courses.
Field testing and translation supports: Staff said teachers field‑tested alcohol, tobacco and other drug lessons and some nutrition units; reproductive and sexual health units were not part of the field test. Materials for both LiveWell and its supplements include Spanish translations and audio/visual supports, staff said.
Implementation and review: Staff recommended middle‑school scope and sequence changes so the same textbook can serve different grade‑level units, and said they would post digital copies of the curricula for community review. Dr. Burke said district teams will finalize a scope and sequence with the Addies Act/ suicide‑prevention committee before adoption.
Board questions and next steps: Directors asked how bullying prevention is covered; staff said bullying‑related lessons are embedded across social‑emotional and health units and in Wayfinder life‑and‑career programming, but acknowledged there is not a separate stand‑alone bullying curriculum. Several directors asked staff to inventory bullying lessons across LiveWell and supplements and report back.
No immediate vote: The April 8 presentation was an adoption recommendation and planned community review; the board did not vote to adopt LiveWell at the meeting. Staff said a district website with digital copies would go live the next day and that additional public comment opportunities will be scheduled.
