A group of schools in Santa Cruz County has been recognized as among the healthiest K-12 schools in the country in a 2025 national ranking.
All campuses in the Santa Cruz City Schools district were among 1,120 nationwide to be named to the America’s Healthiest Schools list put out by the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a nonprofit focused on children’s health.
The list grades schools on how well they use evidence-based policies and practices to support academic success and lifelong well-being across nine categories of physical, social and emotional health.
Bay View Elementary, DeLaveaga Elementary, Gault Elementary, Monarch Elementary, Westlake Elementary, Branciforte Middle, Mission Hill Middle, Costanoa High, Harbor High, Santa Cruz High and Soquel High were all recognized on the list.
The schools received awards in four out of nine possible categories, which included things like access to school meal programs, opportunities for physical activity throughout the school day, and creating ways for students to practice skills to improve and maintain their health.
A slate of health and wellness programs helped the local schools win recognition, district spokesperson Sam Rolens said in an email. Among them are “Plant to Plate” markets – farmers markets that are organized by and for students so they can meet the growers who produce food for district kitchens and taste seasonal produce.
The markets are part of a series of pop-up food events that help students learn about food systems, ecology and nutrition. Those events also include “blender bike activities” where students make smoothies using blender-powered bicycles, classroom tastings put on by the district’s food service staff, field trips to farms and cooking demonstrations in a mobile cooking cart.
The district has also been reducing the amount of sugar and salt used in food served in schools, Rolens said, and increasing whole foods, organic and local produce, and meals made from scratch.
New high school wellness centers that opened in the past year to offer extra mental and emotional support services to students helped district schools win points in health and wellness categories. So did the district’s annual wellness fairs, where teachers, social workers, food services and counseling teams work together to show students the connections among nutrition, physical activity and mental and emotional health.
SCCS Food Services director Amy Hedrick-Farr said in a news release that she is proud to have earned recognition for the third year running. “We are so happy to have so much buy-in across all departments,” Hedrick-Farr wrote. “Everyone works together from a belief that health is more than just the lunch we serve, the activity we lead, the emotional health supports we offer, or even our curriculum — it is the sum of all efforts in our whole-student approach.”
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