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ABOVE: Eighth-grader Mayra Martinez exercises in the Wellness Center Friday during P.E. class. LEFT:Nayeli Vera Garcia, Lincoln College Preparatory Middle School eighth-grader, uses exercise equipment in her school’s Wellness Center Friday during P.E. class. Photos by Emily Randall
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Two Kansas City public schools are on the forefront of physical education.
Woodland Elementary School and Lincoln College Preparatory Middle School’s physical education programs have garnered national recognition. The two schools together comprise one of six training academies in the nation for PE4life, a nonprofit organization that promotes increasing access to quality physical education and partners with school districts to offer best practice principles in teaching lifetime wellness.
At Woodland, at Ninth Street and Woodland Avenue, the innovative P.E. program includes physical activity for every child daily, rotating between gymnasium activities, fitness center workouts and swimming in the school’s pool.
“One of the main benefits I think for these little kids — kindergarten through fifth — many of them cannot be outside their homes to play,” Woodland P.E. teacher Elaine Alexander said. “So the activity they get here is all they really get because it’s a safe environment.”
Alexander added that the swimming component makes Woodland stand out among other schools. The Woodland pool is one of very few functioning pools in the district.
“Kids stop being afraid of water,” she said, adding it is especially important for racial minority children to learn to swim, as their drowning rates are higher than that of white children.
Over at Lincoln Middle, located at 23rd Street and Brooklyn Avenue, sixth- through eighth-graders follow a similar P.E. program. The children have P.E. four days a week, with health class the fifth day. One day a week, the children spend their P.E. class in Lincoln’s high-tech Wellness Center. The center contains 10 Strive strength-training machines, along with cardio machines and Nintendo Wii-like video game workout stations.
The strength-training stations are connected to FitLinxx, a digital personalized training system. P.E. teacher Martha Brewer logs children into the system, and as they move from station to station, FitLinxx records how many repetitions the pupils complete, how much weight they lift and the progress they make.
Eighth-grader Nayeli Vera Garcia said using the Wellness Center is her favorite P.E. activity. She said she likes that it isn’t just playing games and that she is getting stronger.
“This is something I don’t really get to do [outside of school],” Nayeli said.
Once a week, the middle schoolers have free activity time called Heart Wednesday. The children play basketball, climb on the school’s traverse climbing wall, play on Sport Wall — a light-up game installed on the gym wall that keeps kids jumping and moving, or other cardiovascular activities in the gym, which has a brand new floor. Each child is trained to use a heart monitor and attempts to keep her heart rate in the target zone throughout this activity.
Lincoln Middle P.E. teacher Martha Brewer said research has shown physical activity benefits learning, and she believes Lincoln’s daily P.E. is a major reason its pupils score high on state tests.
“The greatest gift we can give any child is to allow them to grow,” Brewer said. “Exercise grows brain cells.”
Woodland and Lincoln Middle have garnered additional attention beyond their P.E. programs in recent weeks, however — they are two of 29 schools included in the current “Right-sizing the District” school closure proposal.
Under the current proposal, which School Board members will vote on tonight, Woodland would close, sending its pupils to Garfield and Whittier elementary schools, and Lincoln Middle would consolidate into neighboring Lincoln College Preparatory High School as a part of the effort to save the financially-strapped district $50 million.
Brewer said she worries about what would happen if the 18 middle school P.E. classes — every child at Lincoln Middle currently takes P.E./health daily — shared a single gymnasium with existing high school P.E. classes. She’s concerned about having enough space, and she doesn’t envision there being ample room at the high school to bring over the
climbing wall and sport walls from the middle school.
“We stand to lose so much,” Brewer said.
Anne Flannery, president of PE4Life, which is headquartered in Kansas City, said regardless of what happens after the board members vote tonight, the Kansas City, Mo. School District will continue to be a key partner with her
organization. She has met with Covington and his staff, whom she said were eager to expand the PE4Life philosophy in
the schools.
“We want to continue to work with the district,” Flannery said. “We’re looking forward to the resolution of this so we can focus on this [expanding].” |
