A first-of-its-kind health impact assessment of K-12 school design and its influence on student health. The document provides an analysis and set of recommendations to positively effect health in schools from multiple perspectives: school siting, transportation, nutrition, and physical activity.

Incorporating healthy food and active play into community- and school-based out-of-school time (OST) programs is an integral component of a comprehensive strategy to prevent childhood obesity and model lifelong healthy behaviors. The Public Health Law Center has developed this set of resources to inform and support policy efforts to advance these goals.

Minnesota law specifies how different types of traffic should behave when traveling throughout the state. The ability of pedestrians and bicyclists to safely and effectively travel depends on all forms of traffic understanding and following these laws. This fact sheet identifies essential rights and responsibilities of different types of traffic that support safe pedestrian and bicycle travel. 

High speed roads and wide crossings can cause walking or biking to school more dangerous and less enjoyable for students, making students are far less likely to be allowed to walk or bike to school. Establishing safe school-zone speed limits is one way to make walking and biking routes safer, providing students with opportunities for increased physical activity. This fact sheet discusses how school-zone speed limits are established so that local authorities can develop strategies to enforce these speed limits, making roads safer for children to walk or bike to school.

Minnesota’s Complete Streets law allows a local government, including a county, city, town, or regional park authority, to request a variance from state aid design standards when using state funding for a local Complete Streets project. The law requires the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) to evaluate all Complete Streets variance requests using specific Complete Streets guidance publications. This fact sheet provides information about Complete Streets and a basic flow chart of its state aid variance process.

Minnesota law gives liability protection to landowners who allow the public to enter their land for recreational purposes without charging a fee. This fact sheet discusses how Minnesota’s Recreational Use Statute provides landowners with broad liability protection so the public can access and make recreational use of natural resources on private property.

Bike share programs provide the public with the opportunity to rent bicycles for transportation and exercise without the expense and responsibility of owning a bike. However, bike share programs can create liability and safety issues. This fact sheet provides an overview of the liability issues that can arise and how a bike share program owner or operator can minimize risk of liability.

This resource outlines liability protections and risk management strategies for schools who allow community recreational use of school property.

This resource identifies how waivers and releases can be used as part of a comprehensive risk management strategy for liability relating to recreational activities.

This resource outlines the 2012 Minnesota Legislature that created a new immunity limiting school district liability for recreational activities on school properties.

This resource outlines Minnesota statutory damage cap laws and how these limit how much someone can recover from a municipality.

This fact sheet outlines liability protections at the federal and state level when donating food.

Strong school wellness policies can help schools achieve their health and wellness goals. The Public Health Law Center developed a series of sample school wellness policies to fit in the Minnesota School Boards Association’s model school wellness policy. This sample outlines language to ensure physical activity and food are not used as a punishment or reward.

With daily snacks and frequent holiday and birthday parties, many snack and celebratory foods are served in schools. Usually, though, foods served as snacks and during parties are unhealthy (such as pizza, sugary drinks, cake, ice cream, or candy). Providing healthy classroom snacks and celebrations is a way to take advantage of snacks and parties and create opportunities for students to learn about healthy eating. Updated July 2017.

Healthy fundraising involves the sale of healthy foods and non-food alternatives. This fundraising can support nutrition education that is being taught in the classroom. Updated July 2017.

Strong school wellness policies can help schools achieve their health and wellness goals. The Public Health Law Center developed a series of sample school wellness policies to fit in the Minnesota School Boards Association’s model school wellness policy. This sample outlines language for Farm to School policies.

Strong school wellness policies can help schools achieve their health and wellness goals. The Public Health Law Center developed a series of sample school wellness policies to fit in the Minnesota School Boards Association’s model school wellness policy. This sample outlines language for active recess policies.

Child care providers are in a unique position to address the childhood obesity epidemic and tobacco-related health hazards. The Public Health Law Center has developed a series of resources designed to inform and support Minnesota efforts to cultivate child care settings that promote healthy eating, positive exercise habits, reduced screen time, and tobacco-free environments.

This fact sheet provides an overview of collective purchasing approaches used by schools in the operation of federal school nutrition programs.

This policy brief provides public health officials and other school stakeholders with an overview of legal and practical considerations impacting federal school nutrition programs.

This fact sheet explains how sugary drinks contribute to obesity.

This fact sheet identifies the key points of access to drinks within a healthcare facility.

This fact sheet explains how healthcare facilities are uniquely situated to both lead and benefit from healthy beverage programs.

This fact sheet discusses some of the common misperceptions about the potential financial impact of healthy beverage programs.

This document provides public health advocates, policymakers, and community organizers with an overview of key policy and legal strategies being pursued to reduce or prevent obesity by increasing access to healthy food.

Concerns about liability can keep schools from implementing policies that might be beneficial to students or community members. This fact sheet provides an overview of liability and how Minnesota schools can use the law to protect themselves when implementing healthy eating and physical activity policies.

The Public Health Law Center has created a series of fact sheets with sample language for school wellness policies, specifically for Minnesota school districts and langauge relating to Healthy Fundraising.

The Public Health Law Center has created a series of fact sheets with sample language for school wellness policies, specifically for Minnesota school districts and langauge relating to Healthy Classrooms.

The Public Health Law Center has created a series of fact sheets with sample language for school wellness policies, specifically for Minnesota school districts and langauge relating to No Food as a Reward/Punishment.

This policy brief reviews the scientific evidence linking consumption of sugar drinks to obesity. It then evaluates the use of pricing policies as a tool to reduce consumption of these beverages and improve weight, while discussing potential drawbacks and likely industry opposition to these policies. Finally, this analysis summarizes some of the most recent national and state initiatives and considers future developments in the implementation of pricing policies to reduce the consumption of sugar drinks and improve weight in the United States.

The Act strengthens school food nutrition standards, increases access to and funding for school meals, and increases technical assistance to schools. It also strengthens school wellness policies, improves farm to school programs, expands afterschool meals programs for at-risk children, and establishes certification standards for food service personnel. In addition to this summary, the Public Health Law Center has created a set of fact sheets outlining several key areas of the Act, including how to submit comments to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

This fact sheet provides an overview of liability protections for municipalities (including cities and school districts) when creating recreational maps.

These checklists are useful tools in the policy drafting and review process. The first checklist contains the steps in policy planning and drafting. The second checklist contains the elements that should be included in a policy. The final checklist contains questions for review of the policy to ensure that it is effective and comprehensive. Not every item will be relevant to every policy, but all should be considered.