Why doesn’t Ohio have health education standards?

We ended our statewide conversations on addiction by asking community members, “What steps might we take to combat the addiction crisis?” Many responded by advocating for better prevention education, including curriculum about how addiction works, the effects opioids can have on the brain, mental health, and coping skills for stress and trauma. But this discussion left some with another question: why doesn’t Ohio have statewide health education standards that would teach kids about prevention?

Current state law prohibits the Board of Education from establishing health education standards, instead leaving it up to individual school boards to create their own curriculum. But when facing something like the opioid crisis, which has affected thousands of children, many schools were looking for guidance. This week’s blog explores the programs and resources that have filled in the gaps.

Local-control of health education

Ohio has traditionally advocated for strong local-control policies, and that includes leaving the specifics of curriculum to the discretion of the more than 600 individual school boards across the state. It’s currently the only state in the country that lacks health education standards, reports the Washington Post.

Instead, Ohio law requires that students must receive “60 hours” of health education in high school in order to graduate, and that includes drug, alcohol, and tobacco use prevention education. However, the law doesn’t have specific requirements for younger students, and the state doesn’t track what type or how much health education schools actually invest in, leaving a lot of room for variation, the Dayton Daily News found.

The need for opioid use prevention curriculum

In 2014, opioid use prevention education was added to this law with the passage of House Bill 367, requiring the board of education of each local district to select a curriculum that includes instruction on the dangers of prescription drug use, according to the Ohio Department of Education. The bill also aims to teach the connection between prescription use and heroin addiction.

Many schools lack the tools to follow through on these new regulations. In March, the Dayton Daily News sent out a survey to 38 schools in Butler, Warren, Montgomery, Greene, Miami, Clark and Champaign counties, asking “at what grade levels students get drug education, how much they receive and what kind.”

Out of the 38 school districts, 13 responded. Seven of the schools don’t start drug prevention education until sixth grade or later. At four others, students in fourth or fifth grade participate in D.A.R.E., where police officers come to schools and talk to kids about prevention. They found that only two school districts have a “complete kindergarten through high school health curriculum that follows state guidelines for opioid education.”

Project HOPE steps in

One new program might be the answer to getting more schools on track: the Health and Opioid Abuse Prevention Education (HOPE) Curriculum, began a pilot in Belpre this year. The framework was developed with a grant from the Ohio Department of Higher education, by Kevin Lorson, a health and physical education professor at Wright State University and a team of other educators.

The program encourages teachers to discuss real-life situations with students, and ways to deal with them. Instead of scare tactics, they learn the social and emotional skills needed to cope with trauma, in order to reduce the risk of substance use. By the time they get to high school, where they might be faced with peer pressure or difficult choices, they’ll know what to do. Lorson told the Washington Post, “I don’t know if HOPE is the magic bullet, but the focus on these key concepts and skills has given folks a place to rally around.”

To explore the curriculum, see lesson examples, and schedule a training, visit Start Talking!

Attorney General Resource Guide

Another supporter of the HOPE curriculum is current Attorney General Mike Dewine, who has recently advocated for prevention education beginning in kindergarten. In 2016, Dewine created the Joint Study Committee on Drug Use Prevention Education in conjunction with the Ohio House speaker and the Ohio Senate president, which consists of law enforcement officials, bipartisan state legislators, teachers, superintendents, and other prevention professionals who met with citizens and researched local substance-use prevention efforts.

Their first recommendation was that “every Ohio student receives annual, age appropriate prevention education in grades kindergarten through 12.” To help schools develop comprehensive prevention curriculum, they released a resource guide in June that walks teachers, principals, superintendents, and community members through each facet of prevention education.

The guide also highlights successful examples of prevention tactics that are working across the state, including HOPE, and prevention education funding sources. According to the Akron Beacon Journal, the guide was sent to all school districts in the state, and administrators will also be invited to regional training sessions in the fall.

Key resource guide findings

Some of the findings in the report may be surprising, like the idea that children with developing minds might not benefit from listening to the stories of people in recovery. This kind of technique has replaced the “scare tactics” popular in old drug education curricula, but may lead kids to think that using drugs isn’t a big deal. “Listening to recovering addicts talk about their success might minimize the negative effects of substance abuse in kids’ developing minds. And even a brief description of a drug’s euphoric effects might attract a potential user,” Molly Stone, the Prevention Services Chief for the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, told the Journal.

Instead, the committee found that schools should be “replacing stark anti-drug messaging with curriculum that teaches social and emotional skills — like self-control, emotional awareness and problem-solving — across subject areas”

Although it isn’t currently legal for Ohio to officially implement statewide-education standards, these programs and resources are starting to make a difference for the state’s children. What prevention programs do you see working or not working in schools around you? Where is more help needed? Let us know in the comments below.

Update: In March, state Senator Vernon Sykes (D-Akron) introduced Senate Bill 287 which would require the State Board of Education to create health education standards for K-12 schools. The bill has been referred to the Education Committee.