(a) Each school shall be assigned its accreditation status based upon the extent to which the school has met the performance and quality criteria established by the state board in this regulation. (c) The quality criteria shall consist of the following quality measures, which shall be required to be in place at each school:

• (G) physical education, which shall include instruction in health and human sexuality;

The Kansas Health Education Standard are divided into four sections: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12. They were created using the national Standard as a template (available at www.shapeamerica.org) , but the benchmarks were edited to make the Standard more user friendly for Kansas teachers. Research shows that elementary students who are given nutrition, physical activity, and substance abuse resistance skills education, eat a healthier diet, exercise more, and resist substance abuse. Students in grades 5-12 who receive health education focused on the CDC’s adolescent risk behaviors also eat healthier, exercise more, resist substance abuse, avoid intentional and unintentional injury, and also delay sexual activity. The Kansas Health Education Standard Revision Committee feels strongly that health education for Kansas students should be implemented throughout grades K-12 and we encourage teachers to dialogue with their administration regarding ways to strengthen health education in Kansas schools. While the Kansas State Department of Education does not endorse any particular curricula, there are a number of affordable, researched based, K-12 health education curricula currently available to school districts at reasonable costs.

Every accredited elementary school shall teach reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, spelling, English grammar and composition, history of the United States and of the state of Kansas, civil government and the duties of citizenship, health and hygiene, together with such other subjects as the state board may determine. The state board shall be responsible for the selection of subject matter within the several fields of instruction and for its organization into courses of study and instruction for the guidance of teachers, principals and superintendents.