Those may look like jumping jacks. They are. They’re also part of classroom learning, part of a novel program bridging kids’ health with academics in city schools.
In the photo, that’s Board of Education member Carlos Torre’s five-year-old son Kai stretching and doing those jumping jacks undaunted by big second-graders Juliana and Genesis Santana of the Hill Central Music Academy. At Monday night’s busy BOE meeting, the kids were demonstrating the success of “Take Ten.” Take Ten, a grade and subject-specific exercise program for elementary school kids, is part of a $400,000 grant awarded to the NHPS to expand health and wellness programs to eighteen K‑5 schools. Currently it is being piloted in six.
“Take Ten” involves kids in activities such as responding to addition and subtraction questions physically — that is, doing six jumping jacks beside your desk is the answer to “12 minus 6.”
That is one part of the three-part PAW program, which stands for Physical Activity and Wellness. It was piloted in six K‑5 schools last year. A second part involves the development of school wellness teams (which include teachers, security and cafeteria personnel, as well as administrators) to devise activities school-wide and to address specific children’s health issues, such as obesity. The third feature: evolution of an overall school culture that promotes health in each school as well as district wide.
Jean Zdanys, a pediatric nurse practitioner at the school-based clinic at Katherine Brennan School, is also the facilitator of her school’s wellness team. Shewas at the BOE to show some of the activities the team devised.
“Among the things we did this year,” she said, “were a student-staff volleyball game; fourth- grade classes on puberty; a workshop, mentored by Yale professionals, on adolescent issues; a session for the K to 2nd graders on ground rules to head off bullying; a healthy snack taste-testing; an after-school staff walking club; a health fair; and we also got our pre‑K kids counting to 100 while they walked around the school on the 100th day of classes.”
What got special approvals, and a groan of identification, was Katherine Brennan’s “Biggest Loser” event. It awarded a pot of about $50 (ten from each participant) to the person who lost the most weight. Zdanys took the prize with a drop of seven pounds.
The PAW program came about, explained Sue Peters, one of the project directors (she spends three days running the school-based health clinic at Vincent Mauro School and two with PAW), when the state in 2004 delivered an unfunded mandate that all kids in K‑5 receive an hour of physical exercise a day. “With many schools not having much in the way or recess or gym class, what was to be done?”
The answer was discovering “Take Ten,” ten minutes of physical exercise tied to academics in a manner grade-specific and fun for the kids, and the staff.
“To some extent,” said Peters, “the mandate and the program, for which we received $80,000 to pilot in six schools from the Connecticut Health Foundation, was driven by the childhood obesity crisis. But it’s been a big success.
“We evolved Take Ten to include these fitness teams and to make health front and center an issue in the life of school and at home. Many of our kids don’t have a parent who is showing them a healthy life style foodwise, for example. We are doing this in the PAW schools, and we have a committee making it district wide. The exercises in Take Ten are all designed for urban settings, small space, and to fit the workouts into the daily class routine.”
In her presentation to the BOE, Peters indicated that some 94 percent of teachers in the pilot were using the Take Ten at least once a day. Kids love it, she reported. It’s not gym class, of course, she admitted, and maybe the kids won’t break a sweat, but it’s a good start. Also, Peters asserted, that to her knowledge NHPS’s wellness policy is unique nationally among schools in an urban setting.
Based on the elaborations of Take Ten to include wellness teams and a district-wide promotion of healthy eating and lifestyle, the Connecticut Health Foundation granted the BOE $400,000 to roll the program out to a full 18 K‑5 schools. The system has approximately 30 schools that will ultimately be eligible.
An aspect of the program, which is close to the heart of Robin Golden, the NHPS chief operating officer, has been the removal of junk food from school vending machines and increased care in the provision of healthier school breakfasts and lunches.
Among the other findings, based on the pilot, were that more than half the teachers participating found the exercises in class contributed to less disruption and facilitated learning. Both Peters and Golden said that at least five years would be necessary to fully integrate the health programs into the daily life of each of the schools.
Those dont look anything like jumping jacks. Looks like theyre just stretching their obliques. But then maybe jumping jacks have changed since my day.