Gregg Robke

Carol M. White Physical Education Grant

A consortium of school districts in ESU 4 has been awarded a three-year $640,904 Carol M. White Physical Education grant by the United States Department of Education Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. The funds will be divided as follows: Year 1 - $278,996, Year 2 - $181,653, and Year 3 - $180,255.

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 Public Schools. ESU 4 will be the fiscal agent of the grant, and Judi Carter will be the project director.

Five school districts (Auburn, Falls City, Johnson/Brock, Lewiston, and Nebraska City) participated in a 2003 grant pilot project. Teachers from these “veteran” schools will be joined by five “novice” districts (Humboldt/Table Rock/Steinauer, Palmyra/Bennett, Pawnee City, Southeast Consolidated, and Tecumseh). The partners represent approximately 5290 students, and the distribution of funds will be equitably based on student populations of individual districts.

Project name: Path to Total Body Wellness

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.

In Year 1 of the grant, the novice physical education teachers will complete the activities that the veteran teachers did in the 2003 grant. The veteran physical education teachers will continue the activities begun in the previous project and will share their expertise. Year 2 of the project will concentrate on health curriculum, focusing especially on nutrition. During the third project year, fitness and nutrition activities will be coordinated leading to “Total Body Wellness.”

Some of the activities are as follows:

Teachers:

• become familiar with physical education and health standards

• develop and align physical education and health curriculum with standards

• learn to use tools for technological assessment, including Fitnessgram software and video cameras for video assessment

• learn to use pedometers and other tools for wellness

• plan instructional changes

• plan community outreach projects

Students:

• determine baseline personal fitness levels

• set personal fitness and nutrition SMART goals

• develop personal fitness action plans for fitness, nutrition, and total body wellness

• 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

Budget items:

• substitute teachers to replace physical education and health teachers during training days

• travel expenses for required attendance at the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools annual meeting each year

• pedometers, electronic scales, and heart rate monitors for every building

• laptop. Personal Digital Assistants (PDA’s), software, video cameras, TV’s, VCR’s, and LCD projectors for each building

• $20 per student allowance for Tools for Fitness

• $15 per student allowance for Tools for Skill Building

• $10 per student allowance for Tools for Nutrition

• curriculum materials

• professional development and services (training consultants, webmaster, external evaluator, site managers)

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