This is encouraging....

From the Carroll County Times

Schools' fitness challenge draws more students

By Karen Kemp, Times Staff Writer
After a record number of students participated in the school system’s annual physical fitness challenge this fall, health and physical education teachers want to continue to improve their students’ activity levels.

Project ACES, which stands for Active Children Excel in School, challenges elementary school students to do 60 minutes of physical activity each day during a two-week period in October.

A total of 9,590 students from all 23 public elementary schools and three private schools in the county — Carroll Lutheran School, North Carroll Community School and Gerstell Academy — participated this year, up from 8,968 in 2007.

Seventy-nine percent of the elementary students in the county turned in activity logs, and 84 percent of those students met the exercise goal. Last year, 75 percent of elementary-age students participated.

When Project ACES was started in 2000, only 1,036 students from 11 schools took the challenge.

While participation rates decreased at some of the schools this year, many saw significant increases.

Making the challenge mandatory for the first time at Manchester Elementary School may have helped its participation rate jump from 67 percent in 2007 to 88 percent this year, according to health teacher Lisa Kumpar.

“You can’t force a child to do their homework, but we made it an assignment,” she said.

At Sandymount Elementary School, teachers used incentives to boost student participation, according to health teacher Lori Hayman. Students who met the challenge received an extra half hour of physical education class for one week, but they were not required to participate, she said.

This year, 74 percent of the students turned in their forms compared to 56 percent last year, and many students went well beyond the 60 minutes per day minimum, Hayman said.

“Anything from housework to soccer practice is counted as [physical] activity,” she said.

A total of 761 teachers and staff took the challenge as well.

With 93 percent of its staff reaching the exercise goal of 60 minutes or 8,500 steps per day, Linton Springs Elementary won the title for Carroll’s Healthiest School once again. Last year, 91 percent of the staff met the challenge.

carrollcountytimes.com.