AUBURN – When Wendy Tardif’s oldest son went to Auburn Middle School six years ago, health lessons were a big part of his day.

Two certified teachers taught the subject full time. Three physical education teachers offered gym. A school police officer taught students about the dangers of drugs.

But by the time Tardif’s middle son enrolled at the school a few years later, both health teachers were gone. Budget cuts had claimed a gym teacher. Lessons on nutrition, decision-making skills and a small amount of sex education were folded into family and consumer science, formerly called home economics.

If that trend continues, Tardif, who works as a grant manager at Healthy Androscoggin, is afraid her youngest son won’t get any health education at all.

“I’m really concerned about them getting the skills they need to stay healthy so they can learn,” she said.

She isn’t the only one who’s worried.

Some parents and community health advocates say Auburn doesn’t focus enough on health education – or spend its health funding wisely enough – at a time when children are increasingly overweight and in need of health guidance.

They believe the school system is failing kids.

“It gets put on the back burner,” said Kristen Gilbert, the school department’s former health coordinator. “It’s not a concern (for Auburn officials) and kids out there are losing out.”

Integrating health

School officials disagree.

They acknowledge that health education is “spread thin,” but say it’s certainly not ignored. In recent years the school system bought new fitness equipment and increased standards, they say. Children are offered health-related after-school programs, and health lessons are incorporated into other classes.

Said Superintendent Barbara Eretzian, “I see it as an integrated part of our system.” She believes students are getting the information they need.

School officials say health is the foundation of education in Auburn.

“It’s hard not to think of it as the umbrella under which we do everything,” said Elaine Dow, co-director of the Office of Learning and Teaching. “If you’re unhealthy physically or feeling unsafe, you’re not going to do well on those math problems.”

Elementary school students learn about health issues, such as washing their hands and eating nutritious food, from their regular classroom teachers. Sometimes a guidance counselor or an outside expert presents a special lesson.

At the middle school, health is integrated into gym, science, and family and consumer science classes. A health center provides physical and mental-health care for students and offers some classroom presentations. Students who want more exercise can join an after-school program for lessons on yoga, rock climbing or Tae Bo.

At the high school, students must take one health class, two gym classes and a health or gym elective, such as current health issues or strength and conditioning, in order to graduate. Edward Little High School also has a health center.

“I think we have maximized the opportunities with the resources we have,” said Dan Cifelli, who with Dow heads the Office of Learning and Teaching.

The trend

With increasing state standards and greater public attention paid to childhood obesity, teenage drug use and other health issues, school systems across the state are expanding their health programs.

SAD 52, which covers Turner, Leeds and Greene, has an educator dedicated solely to substance-abuse education. SAD 17, which includes Oxford Hills-area towns, has a school health coordinator to oversee health education, two health teachers at the middle school and two health teachers at the high school.

Union 43, which includes Mexico, Rumford, Byron and Roxbury, has won awards for its health program. With one health teacher at the middle school, one health teacher at the high school and a health coordinator to oversee health programs from kindergarten through grade 12, the schools offer focused health classes on topics ranging from eating disorders to family planning.

Many teachers believe that dedicated class time is needed to meet Maine’s Learning Results standards and to prepare students for healthy lives.

Most middle and high schools now have health classes, according to a recent state survey of 193 Maine schools. Eighty-six percent of middle schools require students to take between one and three health courses.

“The trend really is to increase instructional time,” said Kathy Wilbur, director of the state’s coordinated school health program.

Some parents and health advocates say Auburn is bucking that trend. They worry that Auburn students won’t be prepared for a healthy adulthood.

They want dedicated health classes at the elementary and middle schools. They want teachers to spend more time covering health topics, and they want more programs on substance abuse and other health issues.

Shandra Bishop, an Auburn mother of two, feels she has to supplement Webster Intermediate School’s health program if she wants her children and their classmates to get a full education. She hopes to start her own after-school class on relaxation and motivation.

But she worries about the future.

“If there are no more parents like me, we aren’t going to have these programs,” she said.

Grant returned

As parents worry that their kids don’t have the programs they need, they wonder why Auburn hasn’t taken better advantage of the health funding it has received in the past.

In 2000, the Auburn school department won a five-year state grant to create a comprehensive health program with help from Healthy Androscoggin, a Lewiston-based organization that promotes health in the community. The money was set aside to hire a school health coordinator, to assess Auburn’s health program and to plan improvements.

The school system kept the grant for about three years and spent $155,000. But in 2003, despite cuts to the school budget, officials backed out of the grant. They gave up the money that remained: at least $100,000.

School officials said a change in health coordinators and work on the Maine Learning Results meant they didn’t have the staff or the time to complete the grant’s requirements.

Eretzian felt bad about it, she said, but “it was one of those things that just didn’t click.”

Of the 54 Maine school systems that received the grants, only Auburn turned money away.

Lewiston got the grant instead.

Around the same time, Auburn got another grant. Worth $300,000, this one was a federal grant to buy fitness equipment. But after spending the money, some of the equipment – including six body mass index machines worth $19,400 and 400 heart-rate watches at a cost of $32,000 – was shuffled among different grades and teachers.

Much of the equipment remained untouched. Teachers weren’t trained to use it.

Spread thin’

Auburn school officials say they know they have issues with their health program.

“It’s spread thin. I’ll be right upfront with it. I wish we had more resources,” said Superintendent Eretzian.

It’s reasonable to integrate health into other subjects, Eretzian said, but “sometimes it does get lost in the shuffle.” With greater state and federal demands and increases in math and reading testing, she said it’s getting more difficult to squeeze everything in each day.

“We struggle all the time with time,” she said.

Eretzian also acknowledged that Auburn schools had problems with the state’s health grant and turned money away. Other Auburn officials conceded they didn’t know who would cover the topics taught by school-based police officers, even though those officers have been gone for months.

But despite those problems, they say Auburn’s health program is solid.

Teachers are now trained, and schools expect to use all of the equipment bought with the $300,000 federal fitness grant, including six climbing walls that cost a total of $55,000 and 216 compasses worth more than $3,000. The climbing walls are located at four elementary schools, the middle school and high school. The compasses have been distributed to the Auburn Land Lab, four elementary schools, the middle school and the high school

The school system also offers peer mediation, civil rights teams and health centers to help meet students’ social and physical needs. All students must meet the increased Learning Results standards for health, and high-schoolers now need another half-credit in health to graduate.

Some parents agree that the school department’s health program is meeting students’ needs.

“I think it’s been pretty good,” said Debbie Farrago, a mother of three.

With kids in seventh grade, fifth grade and kindergarten, she said schools teach about nutrition and other health topics in gym class. She said her children’s schools have cut down on team sports, focusing more on individual activities that children can do throughout their lives – “health-for-life kind of stuff.”

Theodore Belitsos, a father of four and a member of the Auburn School Committee, also believes the schools cover health well.

The problem he sees is parental involvement. Too few kids learn about health at home, he said.

“There’s a certain subset of parents out there who have essentially abdicated their role or responsibility as parent,” he said.

He believes the school system is doing what it can, given its limited time and resources.

On that, Tardif agrees.

“I understand what a task it is,” she said.

She believes Auburn is a good school system that is doing its best. But with high state standards and growing health concerns, that best may not be good enough.

Her answer: more community involvement.

“We have to be more creative,” she said.

She would like the school system to establish more relationships with local organizations such as Healthy Androscoggin, where she works. The agency has an alcohol awareness program for middle school students in Lewiston and Auburn.

Such partnerships would cost Auburn little and would get community groups more involved in schools.

And it would give Auburn kids the health education they need.

“I think it’s going to take a community effort,” Tardif said. “It takes a community to raise a child and it takes a community to raise a healthy child.”