Joe Cook Fine Arts Magnet School is the only school in Mississippi to be named to the Alliance for a Healthier Generation’s annual “America’s Healthiest Schools” list in 2016.
The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, which promotes healthy lifestyles among school age children, identified 328 schools nationwide which excel at promoting healthy choices and lifestyles for its students, according to a press release from The Alliance.
“Healthy schools are better schools — it’s that simple,” CEO Howell Wechsler said in the press release. “Research tells us students who attend healthy schools perform better academically, have better attendance and their behavior improves.”
Each school that makes the list has to meet requirements laid out in the organization’s Healthy Schools Program Framework of Best Practices and can win a Gold, Silver or Bronze Award. Joe Cook met requirements for the Bronze Award, which include health education for all grades, 60-89 active minutes per week, promoting walking or bicycling to school and providing a variety of food options in the cafeteria.
Joe Cook was also recognized for its healthy food in the cafeteria — which includes free breakfast for students, water and cups at lunch and pre-sliced fruit — as well as its program “Read, Right, and Run!” For the program, students read 26 books, documented themselves doing 26 good deeds and ran 26 miles. Students had time to run in P.E. and were encouraged to run at home with their families. For the final lap in the 26-mile run, the school held an event in which students, families and faculty all ran the last mile together.
The Alliance for a Healthier Generation will hold a regional event in Atlanta, Georgia, on Nov. 4 for Bronze-winning schools from Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia.
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