In 2023, Massachusetts updated its Health and Physical Education Framework, which provides guidelines for districts when creating their health and physical education programs. The programs should include mental and emotional health; personal safety; physical health and hygiene; healthy relationships; nutrition and balanced eating; physical activity and fitness; substance use and misuse; sexual health; and public, community, and environmental health. Using the Framework is voluntary and Districts have discretion when choosing how to implement the Framework and their curriculum. Parents also have the right to opt out of sex education lessons.
The standards are intended to allow for each student to participate fully with appropriate accommodations to promote maximum participation of students with special education needs. The Framework was written with several guiding principals:
1. Partner with educators, families, and community stakeholders representing students’ diverse backgrounds in which all are invested in supporting students’ personal health and the overall health of their community since students come from racially, culturally, and socially diverse backgrounds.
2. To be developmentally and age-appropriate, inclusive, trauma-sensitive, culturally sustaining, and provide a safe and supportive learning environment so that all students, without exception to ability or circumstance, are supported as individuals, and can achieve the learning goals.
3. Incorporate diverse perspectives and acknowledge that attainment of equity and optimal health are individualized, contextual, and affected by intersections of race, ethnicity, culture, religion, education, economic condition, gender identity, sexual orientation, dis/ability, personal experience, and many other factors.
4. Every student deserves equitable access to effective Comprehensive Health and Physical Education programming, including dedicated courses for physical education and health education every year from Pre-Kindergarten (Pre-K) through grade 12, facilitated by qualified educators (e.g., licensed and/or trained in this health and/or physical education).
5. Foster equity-focused and trauma-informed approaches through school-wide collaboration to support and promote a sense of belonging, mental health and well-being, and the development of social and emotional skills including self-awareness, self-management, self-care, social awareness, responsible decision-making, and relationship skills in a wide variety of contexts and situations.
6. Use a variety of effective implementation and assessment strategies and provide multiple opportunities for learning and demonstrating competency.
7. Develop students’ skills for research, reasoning, decision-making, critical thinking, problem-solving, and the habits of mind needed to be healthy across their lifespan. This includes being able to differentiate among a variety of factors affecting behavior such as culture, community, peers, and group dynamics.
8. Require a school-wide culture that promotes equity, health and well-being, integration and collaboration among education leaders and health professionals, and coherent district-wide support for implementation to improve each student’s cognitive, physical, social, and emotional development.
For pre-K through grade 12, standards are organized into practices, which are the processes and skills students will learn throughout the elementary, middle, and high school years that promote and maintain lifelong health and well-being. More detailed standards for each grade can be found in the Framework. There are 7 practices:
Practice 1: Decision-making and Problem-solving. Make health-promoting, informed, responsible decisions and solve problems in a variety of health-related situations. Students should be able to:
thoughtfully apply a decision-making process and address problems
evaluate their options and consequences, and the result of their decision
evaluate benefits and risks
differentiate between a decision they can make on their own versus one they need help making
work collaboratively to solve problems while navigating group dynamics
Practice 2: Self-management and Goal Setting. Set goals, engage in health-promoting behaviors, and avoid risky behaviors. Students should be able to:
Recognize and regulate their emotions, actions, and behaviors to manage stress, impulses, and motivation
Use healthy instead of risky methods to meet their social, emotional, and physical needs
Take personal responsibility for aspects of their health their in control of
Engage in health-promoting behaviors
Set their own health goals
Practice 3: Social Awareness, Relationship, and Communication Skills. Enhance relationships, personal health, and the health of others through social awareness and effective communication. Students should be able to:
take the perspective of and empathize with others
treat all individuals with respect and employ strategies to meaningfully engage with family, school, and community resources and supports
establish and maintain meaningful and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups
use verbal and non-verbal skills to develop and maintain healthy personal relationships and ask for and help enhance the health of self and others
resist inappropriate social pressure
constructively negotiate conflict
communicate needs, wants, and feelings in order to support their health and avoid violence
extract information from a variety of forms of communication and apply it in new settings and circumstances.
Practice 4: Movement Skills. Demonstrate competence in, and knowledge of, a variety of movement concepts, principles, motor skills, and physical fitness components in order to engage in purposeful and health-promoting physical activity, including sports and games. Students should be able to:
develop competence in order to improve and maintain overall health
know the components and principles of fitness
can develop a fitness program,
are able to use movement in ways that enhance overall health and well-being
exhibit prosocial involvement with others
foster the enjoyment and motivation needed to participate in lifelong fitness and physical activity
Practice 5: Self-awareness and Analyzing Influences. Examine how emotions, thoughts, needs, values, beliefs, and other factors (both internal and external) influence behaviors and articulate how these influences impact health behavior and outcomes. Students should be able to:
Recognize and describe their own identities, feelings and needs
Appropriately express and manage emotions
Develop vocabulary to describe how they feel physically and emotionally
Show empathy in infer what others may be experiencing and respond with compassion
Recognize and evaluate influences around them
Practice 6: Information and Resource Seeking. Access, evaluate, and use valid and reliable health information, products, services, and related resources. Students should be able to:
Seek information from reliable sources and evaluate the reliability of the source
Know how to use health products in appropriate ways
Seek health services and resources relevant to their needs
Practice 7: Self-Advocacy and Health Promotion. Promote personal, family, and community health and well-being. Students should be able to:
recognize their own and others’ health needs
address needs on their own
encourage others to embrace similar behaviors and support their efforts
communicate those needs within their family and communities