At a local private school in Greenwood, kids aren’t just playing sports in gym class, but they are learning to lead a lifetime of fitness with every day exercises that’s inspiring competition.
The shift at Saints Francis and Clare of Assisi Roman Catholic School in Greenwood is due to a $20,000 grant to buy a range of indoor and outdoor equipment and curriculum. Ss. Francis and Clare is the first Catholic school in the country to win the grant through the Lids Foundation and Project Fit America, a California-based organization focused on promoting fitness education in schools.
And with the grant, the school’s physical education teacher, Steve Imel, said he feels like he is giving back to the community that rallied around him when he battled cancer.
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Outside the school on Olive Branch Road in the Center Grove area, you’ll see children working at pull up bars or a sit-up station or climbing a pole. When the weather turns, they’ll take their activities indoor and work with medicine balls, weighted hoops, stacking cups and the Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run test, also known as the Pacer test.
Students have their own goals and are challenging each other on the new equipment. Imel has a leader board of students who can score the highest on different fitness tests, such as how many laps they can get on the Pacer test or how many times can students can climb up and down the pole climb without touching the ground.
“They like to challenge each other. They like to push each other to improve,” Imel said. “They’re always asking me, ‘When can we do the next challenge? When can I get my name on the chart?’”
The equipment sits separately from the playground, and all students are trained to use the equipment properly for exercise, Imel said.
“They love the equipment,” Imel said. “They know that when they’re out there, it is exercise equipment to use at recess, not recess equipment.”
His goal with his physical education program is to not just teach students how to play sports, but to teach them how to exercise and live a healthy lifestyle, he said.
“I try and do regular sports as little as possible,” Imel said. “I’m much more interested in teaching these kids how to become lifetime learners and lead a lifetime of fitness.”
Imel said he is impressed with the reaction from both students and the parents. He hopes the new equipment will further promote the school and its programs.
“This means we’re serious about physical education here,” he said. “I think for the school, it’s a great way to advertise ourselves to parents who might be interested in sending their kids to a school like ours.”
Imel is the first full-time physical education teacher at the school, and he has made the program his own over seven years. When he battled cancer four years ago, he said the school and community rallied around him in support.
“It’s been really cool the get this grant and be able to kind of give back to the school,” Imel said.
He discovered the opportunity when researching what grants were available.
“Being in a Catholic school, we don’t have money for equipment,” Imel said. “I look for just little things here and there I can use for the program.”
This is the first large grant Imel received, he said. Only one other public school in Indiana had gotten the grant in the past, so he said he knew it would be a challenge. The process included answering many questions about the status of the school, providing pictures of the school and current gym equipment and multiple interviews, Imel said.
“I just thought this sounds amazing,” Imel said. “I knew it would be tough to get, but I thought it would be worth a shot.”
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Here is a look at the equipment and materials the school received.
Outdoor equipment:
- Horizontal ladder
- Parallel bars
- Pull-up bars
- Pole climb
- Sit-up station
- Step test station
- Vault bar
Indoor equipment:
- 1,000 Fitness Cups. These are fitness cups for explosive cardio, team work, challenge and cooperation with the kids. These cups are a PFA innovation.
- Weighted hoops.
- Medicine balls
- Weighted jump ropes
Materials
- Pacer test CD
- Six sets of Laminated Skeleton Bones
- $250.00 in Play Money
- Physical education music CD.
- Certificates, Ribbons, Starter Kits for Word Walls, and Chart and Challenge student accomplishment display.
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