HLTH 5433 Module 5 Leadership Plan Example

Present and Healthy: A Two-Year Leadership Plan to Expand a School Health Response to Chronic Absenteeism Across a Small Urban District

Student Name

American College of Education

HLTH5433: Leadership in Contemporary Health Education

Module 5 Assignment

Instructor Name

November 2, 2026

From Pilot to District

Four earlier papers built this project step by step. A newly hired coordinator for health and wellness, working without authority over principals in a district of nine thousand students, chose adaptive leadership as her approach to children missing school for health reasons. District records then pointed her to one high-need elementary school and to two causes, asthma and dental pain. She mapped the relationships the effort would need among families, staff and clinics, and she set out the privacy, attendance, housing and disability rules the team must follow. This final paper turns that one-school pilot into a two-year plan, Present and Healthy, covering all eight elementary schools and adding work on anxiety-related absence in the two middle schools. It lays out the vision, goals, leadership structure, phases, communication, data use, partnerships, safeguards and the coordinator's own growth.

Vision and Goals

The vision is simple: every child in the district is present and healthy enough to learn, and every absence is treated as a signal to help. The plan has three measurable goals for the end of the second year. First, reduce the chronic absence rate in the district's elementary schools from 22% to 16%, with the largest reductions at the three highest-need schools. Second, ensure that at least 80% of students with diagnosed asthma have a current asthma action plan on file and that every elementary school hosts at least one on-site dental service day each year. Third, establish a school-level attendance and health team at every elementary and middle school that meets at least twice a month and reviews data on absence and its causes. These goals connect attendance to health, consistent with evidence that chronic absence harms both learning and long-term health (Allison et al., 2019).

A Shared Leadership Structure

No single person can lead this work across ten schools. The plan establishes a district steering group chaired by the assistant superintendent and coordinated by the health and wellness coordinator, with members from principals, nurses, counselors, attendance staff, the homeless education liaison, family representatives and the three outside partners: the community health center, the county's asthma program and the dental van. The steering group sets direction, resolves barriers and reviews district data quarterly. At each school, an attendance and health team, led by the principal and including the nurse, counselor, attendance clerk, a teacher and a parent, carries out the work. This structure reflects the adaptive leadership principle that those whose practices must shift should own the work, with the coordinator acting as convener, coach and connector rather than doer (Heifetz et al., 2009).

Phases

The first semester of year one completes the pilot and prepares for expansion: the pilot team documents what worked, the consent form and team procedures are finalized, and two additional high-need elementary schools form teams and receive training. In the second semester, those two schools begin, supported by peer coaching from the pilot school's nurse and principal. In year two, the remaining five elementary schools join, and the two middle schools add a focus on anxiety-related absence in partnership with the district's counseling staff and a community mental health provider. Each phase begins with a readiness check: a principal committed to leading, a nurse with time, a partner in place and a team trained on privacy and attendance procedures.

Communication

Communication differs by audience. For families, the district will replace its truancy letter with a bilingual letter that begins by asking about the child's well-being and describing available help, followed by a phone call from school staff. Family nights at each school will introduce the health services available. For staff, a two-page guide and a short training will explain the shift from enforcement to support, the team process and privacy rules. For the school board and community, the coordinator will present quarterly progress with de-identified data and stories shared with permission. For partners, a shared calendar and monthly partner call will keep services coordinated. Across all audiences, the message is consistent: attendance matters, and the district will help children get to school healthy.

Data and Learning

Data use continues the cycle begun in Module 2. A simple dashboard will show each school's chronic absence rate by month, grade and student group, the share of absences coded as illness, how many children with asthma have a current plan on file and how many dental visits took place. School teams will review their own data twice a month; the steering group will review district data each quarter. The pilot school will be compared with schools that have not yet begun, which allows the district to see whether changes follow the program rather than districtwide trends. Families and staff will be surveyed each spring about whether the school's response to absence feels helpful and respectful. When results fall short, the steering group will examine why before expanding further.

Partnerships and Sustainability

Community partners provide the health services the plan depends on. The health center will expand from visits at the pilot school to a rotating schedule at the three highest-need schools, with the long-term aim of a school-based health center at one of them. The case for that aim is strong: across 46 studies, clinics based in schools were linked to students moving up a grade on time, fewer suspensions, fewer asthma attacks and less reliance on emergency rooms (Knopf et al., 2016). The coordinator will work with the health center and district finance staff to identify sustainable funding, including billing for services to eligible students, grants and district funds shifted from court referral processes. Written agreements with each partner will define roles, data sharing and continuity if staff change.

Safeguards and Equity

The legal and ethical safeguards from Module 4 apply at every school: the two-way consent form, documented supports before any truancy step, participation of the homeless education liaison, screening for Section 504 eligibility and de-identified reporting. Equity is built into the plan's order and measures. The highest-need schools join first, data are reported by student group so that gaps are visible and materials and meetings are available in Spanish and English. The ten-component school health model from ASCD and the CDC provides a frame for this work by connecting health services, counseling, family engagement and community involvement around each student (Lewallen et al., 2015).

The Leader's Own Development

Leading a district-wide change also requires the coordinator to grow. She will seek a mentor among experienced district leaders, join a regional network of school health coordinators and complete training in facilitation and data visualization. She will ask for feedback from principals and partners each semester on how her leadership is experienced, and she will keep a reflective journal on decisions and their results. Recognizing her limits, she will rely on counsel for legal questions, on clinicians for medical questions and on family liaisons for community insight. A leader who learns alongside the teams she supports models the adaptive stance the plan depends on.

Conclusion

Present and Healthy turns a one-school pilot into a district-wide approach over two years. It sets measurable goals linking attendance and health, shares leadership among a steering group and school teams, expands in phases with readiness checks, communicates differently with families, staff, the board and partners, uses data for continuous learning, builds sustainable partnerships and carries forward the legal, ethical and equity safeguards developed earlier. It also attends to the leader's own growth. Together, these elements give the district a realistic path from treating absence as defiance to treating it as a call to help.

References

Allison, M. A., Attisha, E., & Council on School Health. (2019). The link between school attendance and good health. Pediatrics, 143(2), e20183648. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2018-3648

Heifetz, R. A., Grashow, A., & Linsky, M. (2009). The practice of adaptive leadership: Tools and tactics for changing your organization and the world. Harvard Business Press.

Knopf, J. A., Finnie, R. K. C., Peng, Y., Hahn, R. A., Truman, B. I., Vernon-Smiley, M., Johnson, V. C., Johnson, R. L., Fielding, J. E., Muntaner, C., Hunt, P. C., Jones, C. P., & Fullilove, M. T. (2016). School-based health centers to advance health equity: A Community Guide systematic review. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 51(1), 114-126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2016.01.009

Lewallen, T. C., Hunt, H., Potts-Datema, W., Zaza, S., & Giles, W. (2015). The Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child model: A new approach for improving educational attainment and healthy development for students. Journal of School Health, 85(11), 729-739. https://doi.org/10.1111/josh.12310