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Professional Development

Florida HEAP

About HEAP: The Health Education Assessment Project is a collaborative of over 20 states whose purpose is to support quality and effective health education. HEAP is a part of the State Collaborative for Accountability and Student Standards (SCASS) which falls under the umbrella of the Council of Chief State School Officers (state commissioners of education).

HEAP does not train a teacher how to teach health education but enhances the skills of the teacher so that he or she teaches health education at an increasingly higher level which has a greater impact on student skill acquisition and use. The teacher shares the role of learning by facilitating student growth. The student increasingly becomes the director of his or her learning by use of critical thinking and discovery.

HEAP consists of a variety of tools which help the teacher determine whether a student has truly mastered and acquired a health skill(s). Tools consist of:

  • Health Education Lesson Planning Template
  • Performance Task Samples and Templates
  • Anchor Papers (short and extended response)
  • Scoring Rubrics
  • Searchable Database of Assessment Items (level of difficulty, etc., over 1440 items)
  • Web-based Assessment

An additional tool is the HEAP of Books which uses story books/trade books/readers/novels found in the K-12 classroom or media center that are used in conjunction with other subject areas. Instruction can be enhanced to include health education concepts and skills that are located in any type of book a person reads, whether fiction, non-fiction, or an instruction manual.

Training in HEAP or HEAP of Books

Training is provided through public school districts or as a pre-conference to identified health education related statewide conferences. Currently, the Office of Healthy Schools is able to provide at no cost to the district: training materials, reimbursement for substitute teachers, travel reimbursement for pre-conference trainings which require travel outside of the district, a stipend for non-contact hour trainings, and 25-60 in-service points for teachers interested in completing an additional assignment.

For additional information, please contact Antionette Meeks, EdD, CHES, CAPP at or 850-245-0480.

Other Training Opportunities:

Some national professional organizations, such as the American Association for Health Education and the American School Health Association offer continuing education opportunities as well as annual conferences supporting the health educator’s professional development needs.