Health education in Massachusetts schools is less frequently being coordinated with other disciplines or with other constituencies than was true a few years ago . National recommendations for comprehensive school health programs suggest that health education is most effective when coordinated with other subjects and with community groups. The reasons for this decline are not clear, but may be related to greater pressure on other teachers to increase student performance in their own disciplines. Health education teachers are receiving inservice training on health-related topics, and are seeking more . They were especially interested in receiving more training on suicide prevention, death and dying, and emotional and mental health, with over half of health teachers mentioning one or more of these issues.
Parents are largely supportive of health education .
Principals report far more positive than negative feedback about their schools' health education programs, and teachers are far more likely to report expanded rather than restricted topic coverage due to parental feedback. Even though most schools have a policy permitting parents to exempt children from all or part of health education, very few parents actually do so. Virtually all schools have adopted basic policies regarding school health and safety issues . Policies regarding general bullying, harassment of gay and lesbian students, and adult attendance at school-related events are less common. Also, many schools have not provided recent staff training on the policies they do have, making strong and uniform enforcement of the policies problematic.