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Putting some PEP into physical education
Posted: 10/15/2009 12:01:41 PM
Columbus High School students perform on Bosu Balls
purchased with federal grant money.
A federal agency gives out more than $75 million in grants a year for physical education programs across the country. This year, Wisconsin was awarded more than $3.6 million of that money, far more money than any other state.
In fact, Wisconsin traditionally has been at the top in terms of successful annual applications to the Carol M. White Physical Education Program (PEP), part of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools.
The millions coming into Wisconsin go to fund treadmills, kayaks, mountain bikes, and dozens of other kinds of fitness equipment. While the program is not just for schools (some towns and nonprofit agencies receive grants), Wisconsin’s recipients have been almost exclusively school districts.
That money means different things for different districts. In Dodgeland, PEP grants funded a fitness center that’s used by the community. In Waterloo, grants were used to rewrite the physical education curriculum.
In Columbus, a lot of changes are happening in and around physical education – from new mountain bikes to a soon-to-be-constructed rock wall. The district, in its second of three years under the grant, was awarded roughly $300,000 a year.
Fitness centers at Columbus’s middle and high schools were upgraded with treadmills, elliptical trainers and exercise bikes. New curriculum was added, covering suicide prevention and substance abuse of drugs, alcohol and steroids. Just this summer Columbus bought 60 Trek bicycles, split between the middle and high schools.
And the grants didn’t end with gym class. Columbus bought salad bars for cafeterias, removed junk food from vending machines and added a healthy cooking class at the high school.
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Health and physical education teacher
Jason Adams uses an array of new
equipment to transform traditional gym
class into a wellness program. |
At Columbus High School, health and physical education teacher Jason Adams takes students through aerobic exercises on machines, strengthening routines on devices such as Bosu Balls and sports such as indoor golf on some days and health classes such as decision making on others.
For physical fitness, Adams is using a $15,000 computer and sensor system to track each student’s progress through the year (including weight and strength) and has heart rate monitors to make sure all students reach specific target heart rates he set for them.
It’s a big jump from the badminton and dodgeball games of the past, but new physical education methods require new thinking. What the PEP grants do, Adams said, is help educators to teach kids a path to lifelong physical and mental wellness.
“Instead of just focusing on fitness, fitness, fitness, they create a wellness plan,” said Adams, who’s also a personal trainer outside of school hours.
In many districts, equipment brought in with grant money is opened up for use by the community. In Columbus, the future rock wall will be available for community use during certain hours, much like a pool would be. Adams said the district also is planning to lend out some of its equipment, such as disc golf materials.
“We’re going to go to town for the community with this,” Adams said.
The PEP grants are aimed at improving lives in the long run but in Columbus it’s already saved a life in the short run. All students go through CPR training, funded by the grants, and last year a student used the Heimlich maneuver on his grandmother just a week after learning it in class.
The PEP grants come with a lot of work for staff, not just in terms of deciding what curriculum to implement or what exercise equipment to purchase. The grants require lots of documentation, such as tracking student activity time, to make sure that those in primary grades have at least 175 minutes of exercise week and those at the secondary level have at least 225.
The districts must also report out their findings to the Department of Education as well as the state Department of Public Instruction.
