The 2017 Wellness Annual Report

The Statewide Online Tobacco Prevention and Intervention Teacher Training Project created in the 2010-2011 school year was based on findings and recommendations from the School District’s course for Palm Beach County teachers. The Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) stated, “As a leader in Florida with establishing online tobacco prevention teacher training, Palm Beach County has laid the foundation to create a statewide online component in support of the funding priorities.” Therefore, in June 2010, the FLDOE asked The School District of Palm Beach County to offer a “Statewide Online Tobacco Prevention and Intervention Teacher Training” course to all 67 school districts in the state of Florida. The 2015-2016 school year was the 6th year for the statewide program. After teachers complete the content portion of the course, they are provided grade appropriate lessons in three core topic areas: Health Effects, Refusal Skills, and Media Literacy. They are then required to teach six lessons, two under each of the core topic areas. They can receive up to 60 in-service points once they have completed the course, including teaching the lessons.

This year was the first year for several changes within this program.  First, based on suggestions from the Florida Department of Education, the name changed to the “Florida Tobacco Prevention Training for Educators: An Online Professional Development for K-12 Educators”, to be more inclusive of the goals and objectives and allowing for a more descriptive title for all Florida educators. Second, a slightly trimmed version of the original course, a 30-point professional development unit, was added to encourage more educators to take the course with less stress and assignments, but offering 1/2 the Professional Development certificate renewal points. Finally, a push was put in motion to actively encourage more educators from across the state, through all 67 districts, to participate.

The 2016 year-end evaluation report by W. William Chen, Ph.D, CHES, Department of Health Education and Behavior, University of Florida, and his colleagues, concluded that teachers who took and completed the course and their students demonstrated statistically significant improvements. Results of evaluation indicated that a total of 786 teachers and instructional personnel enrolled and participated in the Florida Tobacco Prevention Training for Educators: An Online Professional Development for K-12 Educators in 2015-16 and 313 completed the training course and taught at least 6 lessons to their students. This output has not only satisfactorily met but also exceeded the primary goal and objectives established by the project. In addition, the secondary level objectives of reducing the number of teachers/instructional personnel who enrolled but never accessed the training program and decreasing the numbers of participants who started the course but do not get to the half-way point were also achieved satisfactorily. The secondary level objective of maintaining the number of school districts in at least 40 districts also had some success. The project has reached a total of 49 school districts this year. The evaluation results also showed the number of students who were impacted by trained teachers/instructional personnel was estimated at 22,386 students. The ratio of students impacted by each teacher/educator was 71 to 1. This evaluation also assessed the cost benefit relationship and found the training program had a strong cost benefit relationship. Based on the funding level of the program and the number of teachers/instructional personnel participated in the training program, the cost for enrolling a teacher was $362.50 and the cost of training a skilled teacher was $910.50. Most significantly, the cost of educating one student and preventing tobacco use was estimated at $12.73.

The intensity and rigor of 60-point courses grown to the point where it has been compared to a 3 credit undergraduate college course, with more than 140 content items in fourteen chapters, along with a comprehensive test before the six lessons are taught to students. Comparably, the 30 point course has over 110 content items within the twelve chapters, reducing the theoretical work load, but maintaining the six lesson requirement for students.

Our integrated marketing campaign has had a major impact in the success of the program. Adding to the established Blog, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest sites, the Florida Tobacco Prevention Training for Educators now features sites on Edmodo, Linkedin, has their own YouTube Channel and monthly newsletter. Educators from around the world are able to access tobacco prevention resources from any of these areas whenever relevant stories and opinions are posted, but program graduates have an additional resource from the website at

www.tobaccopreventiontraining.org