Dear IHE Academy Participants,

The Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) is excited to welcome your institution’s school health teacher preparation program team to the SOPHE/CDC Institute for Higher Education (IHE) Academy on March 20-21, 2023, with funding support by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Division of Population Health, Healthy Schools Branch. 

The goal of the IHE Academy is to enhance participants’ understanding and provide training on essential tools and resources that reflect high-quality curriculum for the preparation of health and physical educators in K-12 schools. After attending the IHE Academy, participants will be able to: 1) describe the characteristics of high-quality health education curricula for pre-service teachers; 2) integrate key CDC Healthy Schools tools and resources within their health education curricula for pre-service teachers; and 3) develop an action plan to strengthen their health education teacher preparation programs.

Establish Your Account Log In
First, create your free log in for the Academy. This is a requirement for all participants and must be completed by Tuesday, January 31, 2023.

1. If you have a My SOPHE account, you will be able to enter the Academy with these credentials. 

2. If you don’t have a My SOPHE account, click here to create your free profile as required to enter the Academy. 

SOPHE will send a follow up email with a link to access the IHE Academy eLearn website. This message will also contain instructions to schedule TA Office Hours on Tuesday, March 21, 2023. The eLearn website will host the Zoom Meeting links and meeting material so that you can easily access resources during and after the event. 

Preparation
To prepare for the upcoming Academy, please review the following materials/survey:

1. Review the Environmental Scan of Health Education Teacher Preparation Programs 2020 and fill out attached summary sheets for your program. 

2. Watch the Health Education Teacher Preparation Standards Webinar available on-demand. 

3. Watch the Action Plan Overview available on demand. 

(Note: The first part of the video goes over last year’s digital academy – though the action plan content is the same). 

4. Watch the Integrating the Social Determinants of Health video. 

5. Complete the pre-assessment survey.

It will take you about 1 hour to complete your pre-work assignments. As a friendly reminder, ensure you have saved these training date/times on your calendars (March 20-21, 2023) so you can attend all sessions: The first session will be held on Monday from 12:00 PM ET – 4:30 PM ET with a Group Dinner/ Networking event starting at 5:00 PM ET. The second session will be held on Tuesday from 8:00 AM ET - 4:30 PM ET with school health experts holding Technical Assistance Office Hours at 10:00 AM ET. We will be sending you a sign up for these office hours soon, so please be on the lookout for the email!

Day of the Event
Please arrive 5-10 minutes early as we will begin on time daily. 

We look forward to working with each of you. If you have any questions about the Academy schedule, please do not hesitate to contact the project team: Rachael Dombrowski at rdombrowski@csusm.edu; Doreleena Sammons Hackett at dsammons-hackett@sophe.org or Clarissa Montes at cmontes@sophe.org.

Sincerely,
School Health Project Team