K-12 Wellness Program

  Denise Domnarski
Director of K-12 Wellness Department
Email:  [email protected]


Office located at: Needham High School
609 Webster Street, Needham, MA 02492

Tel: 781-455-0800 EXT:22140: Fax: 781-455-0895


Our mission is to utilize a wellness approach to teaching K-12 students the knowledge and skills necessary to make lifestyle decisions that will promote optimal health and well-being throughout their entire lives.

The K-12 wellness program is comprised of Health Education, Physical Education, and Experiential Education. The curriculum in each of these disciplines emphasizes students’ responsibility for their own health and well-being based on a six- dimensional wellness model (social, emotional, physical, intellectual, spiritual, and occupational/leisure). Throughout their K-12 experience, students develop skills and knowledge that will help them to nurture and care for themselves in each of these domains.

The National Wellness Institute defines wellness as the active process of becoming aware of and making choices toward a more successful (healthful) existence. Personal wellness occurs when one commits to a continuous, lifelong process of developing a lifestyle based on healthy attitudes and actions. The wellness process consists of increasing awareness and choosing options that result in growth and balance among six primary areas.

Emotional Well-Being: The ability to feel and express the full range of human emotions and to control them rather than be controlled by them

Intellectual Well-Being: The ability to gather, process, recall, and exchange (communicate) information

Occupational/Leisure: The balance between work and play and the ability to find satisfaction and enrichment through one’s work

Physical Well-Being: The optimal functioning of the body’s major physiological system (e.g. Cardiovascular, digestive, endocrine, musculoskeletal, reproductive, etc.) and the avoidance of unhealthy habits and practices

Social Well-Being: The ability to connect with others, relationship to others, relationship to the environment

Spiritual Well-Being: The maturation of higher consciousness through strong nurturing relationships with both the self and others; the development of a strong personal value system, and a meaningful purpose in life





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