A big day at Watervliet Elementary School

Today we had some distinguished visitors at Watervliet Elementary School. New York State Commissioner of Health, Richard Daines and Dr. Julie Gerberding, Director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention toured our school to learn about the many initiatives we have underway here at Watervliet to keep our students healthy. (Story on our website can be found here)

Across the country childhood obesity numbers are on the rise and we are concerned about what this trend could mean for our students. We’re making every effort to work lessons about healthy eating into our elementary curriculum. Our physical education department focuses on not only team sports but also individual sports so we can help instill lifelong physical activity habits in our students. Our students study food science and nutrition to learn about healthy food choices. These initiatives go on all year at WES.

Additionally, we participate in the Seal A Smile program. Seal-a-Smile is an oral health program providing services to elementary school aged children. The program has an oral health classroom education component (read more about their visit to WES here) as well as providing dental screening, fluoride treatment, dental cleaning, individual oral hygiene instructions and follow-up oral health care management services. All participating students receive a tooth brush and toothpaste and other fun surprises.

It was exciting to have visitors of this caliber at our school. Thank you to our students and staff who, as always, were excellent and welcoming hosts. I am pleased that we were chosen for this visit - in many ways our school is the center of our community and we strive to provide as many services to our students and their families as we possibly can. It was nice to have an opportunity to “show-off” some of what we are doing to state and federal policymakers.