Schools begin third year of grant

The consortium of school districts in ESU 4, who were awarded a three-year Carol M. White Physical Education grant by the United States Department of Education last year, will begin the third year of the project in the fall of 2007. Grant funds for Year 3 activities will be $204,209.42.

One of the focuses of the third year will making connections between health/nutrition and fitness. Teachers from ten school districts (Auburn, Falls City, Humboldt/Table Rock/Steinauer, Johnson/Brock, Lewiston, Nebraska City, Palmyra/Bennett, Pawnee City, Southeast Consolidated, and Tecumseh) will be trained to help students write Total Body Wellness SMART goals that combine both fitness and nutrition. A second focus will be video assessment in the physical education classes. Each school will receive camcorders, televisions, DVD/VCR's and related supplies. Along with the video assessment, teachers will receive class sets of heart-rate monitors to aid in the assessment of student fitness levels.

Eighth grade students work out in the fitness room. As part of the grant project, Falls City Middle School added an eighth grade exploratory class in fitness.

Physical education teachers will continue with activities they started in Years 1 and 2 of the grant. Teachers will also add new activities. Some of the projects are as follows:

Teachers
• become familiar with physical education and health standards
• develop and align physical education and health curriculum with standards
• use tools for technological assessment, including Fitnessgram software and heart-rate monitors
• use pedometers and other tools for wellness
• videotape classes to assist in evaluating student fitness progress
• plan instructional changes
• plan community outreach projects

Students
• determine baseline personal fitness levels
• set Total Body Wellness SMART goals
• develop personal fitness action plans for fitness and nutrition
• share progress with parents
• conduct formative and summative evaluation of personal fitness
• increase activity minutes in physical education classes
• monitor out-of-class activity levels by keeping a fitness log
• take part in nutrition activities, such as planning menus, checking nutritional values of food items, completing What Do You Eat? interdisciplinary units, keeping daily food intake logs
• complete community outreach projects, such as making community “step” guides, adopting a parent/adult partner for Pedometer Day, presenting lessons learned at community meetings

The grant, entitled Path to Total Body Wellness, focuses on the following goals:

Teachers will develop, expand, and enhance standards-based curriculum and assessment, model healthy fitness and nutrition skills and habits, and change their instruction to reflect best practice.

Students will understand, improve, and main their physical well-being as they receive instruction, participate in activities, analyze assessment results, and set personal goals promoting increased physical activity and good nutrition habits which establish wellness.

The grant proposal was written by Margaret McInteer and Mitzi Hoback of ESU 4, Judi Carter of Falls City Public Schools, and Linda Engel of Nebraska City. ESU 4 is the fiscal agent of the grant, and Judi Carter is the project director.