Schools
Policy Change
POLICY ELEMENTS
Essential Elements
- Prohibiting tobacco use by all students, staff and visitors in school buildings, school grounds and at all school-sponsored events.
- Staff training and development.
- Consequences for those who violate the policy.
Enhanced Elements
Additional elements to include in your policy might be:
- Prohibitions against tobacco advertising in schools or industry sponsorship and marketing.
- Provisions for students, staff and families to have access to cessation.
- Progressive consequences or disciplinary actions for tobacco use by students, staff and visitors.
- Adding tobacco awareness to curriculum.
10 Steps for Successful Policy Change
After you’ve decided to work on becoming a 100% tobacco-free school, follow these 10 steps to help your school progress in the right direction. Please note, these steps are assumed to be completed throughout the year prior to the policy being in place.
- Gather a committee that will oversee the activities done during this initiative.
- Distribute a survey to students, staff and visitors to measure attitudes and knowledge of the potential policy. Also, use this time to recruit some students to serve on the committee.
- Hold committee meetings as needed.
- Gather baseline data, such as a butt pick-up, counting the number of smokers at a football game, counting the number of tobacco offenses from students, etc. This data should be something that can be measured yearly.
- Hold events and hand out promotional materials. Be creative! Work in conjunction with other school-sponsored activities. Get the community excited about becoming tobacco-free.
- Organize a presentation for the school board. Present the proposed policy, along with your data that was collected.
- After the policy has been passed, make a formal announcement to your school community.
- Have a kick-off event on the day the policy becomes active. Be sure to make it a positive activity.
- Continuously work to enforce the policy. Remember, you are changing the norm in your school – the enforcement becomes easier over time!
- Collect follow-up data each year after the policy has been in place and compare it to your baseline data to evaluate your success.
Enforcement Ideas
In order for your policy to be effective, the proper enforcement must be in place. Here are some suggestions on how to ensure success:
- Publicize the policy to the community-at-large.
- Communicate the policy clearly to each school building or site.
- Present the policy in a positive light.
- Assign a designated enforcement officer
- Involve law enforcement
- Post signs
- Notify your school community well ahead of time.
- Clearly identify the consequences of violation.
- Give the policy plenty of time to take effect.
- Make a brief announcement of the policy at ALL sporting events. Consider announcing it several times during those games.
- Print the policy on the back of program booklets, tickets, menus, etc.
- Keep the grounds clean and clear of debris, which makes it less likely for someone to want to smoke in that area.
- Inform your local community and the media of the policy change.
To view a sample policy that you can adapt in your own school district, click here.
Copyright 2008, Hamilton County Tobacco-Free Partnership
Funded by Ohio Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Foundation
and The Hamilton County General Health District