Ten Years on the Road to “24/7” School Policy

Audience: Tobacco control advocates interested in school policy.

Key Points: Tobacco free school policies protect students, staff, and visitors from the dangers of secondhand smoke exposure, reinforce classroom messages about the dangers of tobacco use and set a no tobacco use norm for youth.  Oklahoma has worked with school districts over the last 10 years to adopt a comprehensive no tobacco use policy. However, achieving policy change and having the policy adopted is often not easy.  From two K-12 districts in 1999, at the end of 2011 Oklahoma had over 237 K-12 districts, 6 vo-tech schools, and 18 colleges with policies.

Educational Experience: The three presentations in this session will focus on the lessons learned.  The first will present one county’s experiences and lessons learned in passing policies in small rural districts, large urban districts, and private schools.  The second presentation will focus on another county’s use of youth advocates who have been instrumental in the passage of policies.  The last presentation will focus on the similarities and differences between working with K-12 districts and working with post-secondary institutions (vo-tech schools and colleges) to pass policies.

Benefits: The presentation will provide experiences and strategies from the field on how to collaborate and work with schools to update and strengthen current tobacco policy to include no tobacco use language utilizing guidelines and other supporting rationale for passing a comprehensive no tobacco use policy.