Dr. Marcella R. Kelly School

This fall, the district’s Health Services and Facilities teams are joining together and engaging with the Massachusetts Asthma Action Partnership (MAAP) and Health Resources in Action with up to four other school districts across Massachusetts in the Healthy Environments Advance Learning (HEAL): Building Capacity for Resilient Schools learning cohort. Participants will receive in-depth training, technical assistance, networking opportunities, and a small stipend to address environmental conditions and heat-related causes of asthma.

This federally funded project, in partnership with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), builds on the Clearing the Air: An Asthma Toolkit for Healthy Schools through additional education and resources on extreme heat and ventilation. Nurses and custodians will attend professional development and perform school walkthroughs together. They will participate in online learning modules drawing on themes and topics from the toolkit, which will be hosted on Northeastern University’s School Health Academy platform. The learning opportunity is part of MAAP’s effort to increase knowledge and capacity on practical steps schools can take to improve environmental conditions. MAAP will make the modules accessible to all interested MA-based school nurses for continuing education credits, at no cost, for the following year. The learning content will also be available to interested teachers and other stakeholders.