Persistance pays off

After years of trying, the East Valley School District has finally landed a $450,000 federal grant to pay for new physical education curriculum and equipment over three years.

“Our health and fitness teachers are the reasons we have this grant,” said grant coordinator and East Valley High School assistant principal Tammy Fuller. “It was a grass roots movement.”

The teachers wouldn’t take no for an answer the first three times the district applied and was turned down. “They continued to push,” Fuller said. “It’s because of their passion for health and fitness. That’s why we’re here.”

The district switched to the Focused Fitness program four years ago, but didn’t have money to buy all the equipment required. The Carol M. White Physical Education Program Grant, called the PEP Grant, will allow the district to buy the needed equipment in addition to staff training.

“They had some of the curriculum,” Fuller said. “They had some of the equipment. They made do. The PEP Grant will allow us to go so much further.”

East Valley was one of 700 applicants for the grant. Only 97 grants were awarded.

Otis Elementary health and fitness teacher Shelley Smith-Houn has some of the equipment needed for the new physical education curriculum, including exercise balls and step boxes. There are enough to set up stations around the gym that students rotate through, but she is looking forward to having enough equipment to go around.

“We’ll be able to do group activities where everybody has a ball and where everyone can do the same thing,” she said. “We’ve always operated on a shoestring.”

During a recent day, students hopped, jumped and bounced their way through a series of exercises that included jumping rope, push-ups and sit-ups while balanced on a large fitness ball. Smith-Houn explained each station before the students began. “We start when the music starts,” she said. “It’ll be about 40 seconds.”

Students then wrote down which exercises they did and how hard they had worked. The new fitness curriculum, called Five for Life, emphasizes strength, endurance and flexibility. Students no longer just run laps around the gym and then play a game of basketball or volleyball. “We’re teaching more of a lifelong fitness,” Smith-Houn said.

Fourth-grader Britney Martin said her favorite activity was jumping rope. “I just like to jump rope a lot,” she said. Her least favorite exercise was doing sit-ups on the wobbly fitness balls.

The next step is to get heart rate monitors and pedometers so students can further track their fitness. How well they do on different tasks will be entered into a computer. “The kids are tracked from third grade to high school,” Smith-Houn said.

She’s thrilled that the district has finally gotten the grant. “It’s just given us a new excitement for what we do,” she said.

Buying more fitness balls and step boxes is only the beginning. Fuller said the district also plans to purchase mountain bikes and snowshoes for outdoor activities. The high school and middle schools are also set to get fitness centers complete with treadmills, stationary bikes and all the other equipment usually found in a fitness gym.

“Gone are the days of wall ball,” Fuller said. “It’s all about true physical fitness now.”