Wisconsin Green & Healthy Schools Team

Establishing a Green & Healthy Schools Team is a key step to becoming a sustainable Green & Healthy School. You will need the support and expertise of a variety of people in your school to develop a long lasting Green & Healthy Schools program. This team is the heart and soul of a Green & Healthy School. Not only does the team plan and implement activities, but it serves as the cheerleader for the program! It also prepares the school to make some lasting changes. Through commitment and leadership, your team members will experience first hand the health, economic, ecological, and educational rewards they helped your school achieve. A successful Green & Healthy Schools Team should include at least one member from each of the following groups: administration, building/maintenance staff, food services staff, teachers, and students. The school nurse, purchasing/business manager, and a member of the PTA or PTO may also make good additions to the team.

Your Green & Healthy Schools Team

1. Holds regular meetings. All team members should be kept informed and involved in making key decisions.
2. Develops and implements a plan to conduct the Green & Healthy Schools Assessment. Include students and as many classrooms as possible, and remember administrators and other school staff will need to play a key role as well.
3. Communicates and markets your plans. This can be done by: holding a Green & Healthy Schools kick off assembly, writing an article in the school newspaper or for the school web site, hanging posters, conducting announcements, etc. In addition, track progress and keep everyone informed on new developments regarding the program.
4. Distributes and explains various sections of the Assessment to school staff and asks classes to help complete the sections.
5. Collects completed Assessment sections.
6. Reviews the Green & Healthy Schools Requirements Chart [PDF, 40KB] and the Green & Healthy Schools Assessment and determines if your school meets all the criteria listed in the Discovery and Inventory column. If not, works on a plan to meet the criteria.
7. Fills out and submits the Green & Healthy Schools Assessment Verification once all the criteria in Discovery and Inventory column are met.
8. Moves forward to the Action and Implementation Step of the Green & Healthy Schools Program using the completed Assessment sections.