“Exercise grows brain cells.”
Though a simple statement, it is much of the focus of the PE4Life program presently being used in the Bradley County School system.
PE4Life is a national non-profit organization dedicated to developing a country of active and healthy youth by increasing access to quality physical education while engaging these children in a fun and interactive way. It is showing results across the country, and here in Bradley County.
PE4Life began locally with ideas being sought to connect physical education activity with academics and show the benefits of the two working side-by-side.
“One of our PE teachers brought to the office a book titled ‘The Spark’ which links academics to physical education and points out the importance of those two working together,” remembered Andrea Lockerby, Bradley County Schools director of Coordinated School Health.
This propelled the office into looking at programs that link physical activity to academics, which led local school officials to look at a program in Napierville, Ill., called PE4Life.
A 12-member team from Bradley County attended a session in Indianapolis to learn more about the program and loved what they saw. This group returned and sought ways to implement such a program here, which led to seeking a grant from United Way of Bradley County.
“We began partnering with the Bradley-Cleveland Public Education Foundation, which helped us apply for the grant, received that grant and in January 2010, we began receiving funds from that grant from United Way,” Lockerby said. The grant is made possible through the Bradley Memorial Health Endowment Fund.
There was training conducted with PE teachers locally, as well as a community presentation of the PE4Life program at an early 2010 Bradley County Board of Education meeting.
Local officials designated three schools to participate in the first stages of the PE4Life program: Walker Valley High School, Ocoee Middle School and Waterville Community Elementary School. Since the program’s inception, these schools have developed physical education activities that work with academics at the schools.
Ocoee Middle School developed a sport wall for students to use to enhance their physical and mental abilities, while also working on a fitness room at the school. OMS also had a PE4Life Family Night where parents could come to the school and learn more about the program and even participate in activities.
Walker Valley High School began action-based learning activity breaks in the classrooms. Tom Bayliss, a PE teacher at WVHS, also coordinated a cycling group for students at the school.
Waterville put up a rock wall for students, while also participating in activities such as using stability balls in some classes.
She said in the second year of the grant, the program includes development of action-based learning labs for four elementary schools: Valley View, Park View, Prospect and Charleston. Teachers there, working with the PE teachers, develop academic activities such as vocabulary and math while students are also participating in some type of physical activity. The students rotate from one academic/PE area to another during their time in the lab.
“The kids think it is fun, but they are really working their brains while they are doing these activities,” Lockerby noted.
Matt Ryerson, vice president of Community Investment Strategies for United Way of Bradley County, said United Way is proud to partner with the organizers to help promote these healthy lifestyle ideas.
“One of the most innovative elements of this unique program is the fact that it just isn’t education and it just isn’t physical activity, but it actually successfully combines the two, which creates both a better student and a healthier person,” he said.
Lockerby said there are studies that show that the brain functions at a higher level after just a short span of physical activity. Last year, Waterville Community Elementary School took this idea to heart, and had a TCAP Trot, where students and faculty walked the halls of the school for several minutes before taking their TCAP tests.
At Walker Valley High School, it was shown that following the implementation of the PE4Life program that discipline issues were nearly cut in half.
Local PE4Life organizers also hope to get heart monitors into the hands of all students in the system this year to help them keep a record of how they are progressing.
“We are seeing the benefits of this program now in our schools, and it should be something that will carry on not only throughout the students’ time in school, but into their adult lives,” she said.
Along with promoting the importance of physical activity and academics and the benefits of those two areas intertwining, PE4Life’s other goal is to promote healthy lifestyles that go beyond the adolescent and teen years.
“A big goal of the PE4Life program is developing a healthy lifestyle that you can individually carry on throughout your adult life, instead of developing team sports skills” Lockerby said. “Team sports skills are wonderful, and we love team sports, but it is equally important to promote a healthy lifestyle directed at ‘what can you do after you graduate and what can you do when you are in your 20s and 30s and 40s that you will enjoy and that you will continue doing and remaining active’.”
Lockerby said that is why it is called PE4Life.
“This has to be for life because, with technology available today where we can just get on our computer or not even have to walk to the phone anymore, we need to find something that is going to keep us active,” she added. “The big thing is motivating children to embrace this healthy lifestyle that will last a lifetime.”
Bradley County is also receiving recognition for the program, with three school PE teachers presenting the program soon at a state conference, as well as another presentation by the local PE4Life officials in Nashville in March.
“We believe in the program, and are thankful for the support of the school system administration and the individual school principals and staffs for their acceptance,” Lockerby said. “Also, thank you to the Bradley-Cleveland Public Education Foundation and to United Way for its support of this program.”
To find out more about the PE4Life program, contact Lockerby at the Bradley County Schools office at 476-0620, or go to the national PE4Life website at www.pe4life.org.
