Student Health Advisory Council students report conference, outreach and recruitment drive

At the Dec. 8 meeting of Greeley School District No. 6’s Board of Education, wellness coordinator Rachel Herschman and lead social worker Jessie Caggiano introduced students from the Student Health Advisory Council (SHAC) who updated the board on the group’s activities and recruitment.

Ninth-grader Carly Serrano said she joined SHAC in February and described attending the American School Health Association conference in October, where district students sat on a panel to explain how the district’s wellness-policy implementation works in local schools. Student member Caleb Aldridge recounted SHAC’s participation in a district wellness fair, the SHAC menu-sampling (“SHAC Mat”) events that invite students to taste and rate potential school-menu items, and a “kind note” campaign in which members write encouraging sticky notes distributed across schools.

SHAC said it has about 23 students representing Greeley Central, Greeley West, Northridge, ECA, University and Frontier Academy, and that it is running a recruitment contest with social-media promotion aimed particularly at recruiting middle-school applicants. Board member Dorn Azari (board representative to the wellness committee) praised the students’ professionalism and asked about the smoothie-bike outreach; students described the bike as a hands-on wellness station that students earn access to by participating in campaigns.

The board thanked the students for their work and encouraged members to promote SHAC recruitment at their home schools. No board action was recorded; the item was an informational update.