Healthy People 2010 is the prevention agenda for the nation. It is designed to identify the most significant preventable threats to health and to establish national goals to reduce these threats. It should not be surprising that Healthy People 2010 includes many school-specific health objectives. There are 20 Healthy People 2010 objectives that are school-specific and these are listed in Appendix A. Increasing the number of students who complete high school is a Healthy People 2010 goal, as are increasing the number of schools with sound environmental policies and reducing school days missed as a result of asthma. The interwoven quality of educational achievement with health, mental health, and safety is one reason that the prevention, detection, and resolution of health and safety problems require cooperative efforts of students, their families, community agencies, and school personnel.

The primary target audience for these guidelines is the school administrator responsible for overall school or district policies or responsible for one or more components of school health and safety at the school site or district level. Undoubtedly, many others who play a role in the assessment, planning, or improvement of school health and safety programs or in advocacy efforts related to school health and safety programs will also find these guidelines helpful. These include school health professionals, educators, school board members, parents, other community members (including transportation officials and child advocates), legislators at all levels, professionals in government departments (e.g., education, health, safety, transportation, justice, and labor), and students themselves.

Many schools and districts have practices and policies in place that are consistent with guidelines recommended in this collection. Most schools will find many of the remaining guidelines easy to adopt. For some guidelines, however, a school or district might not find the guidelines feasible in the short-term, given resource limitations, but will include them in their planning.