Los Angeles
Regional Award Winner
Regional Award Winner
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Charles W. Eliot Middle submitted the following three essays for consideration of the Governor's Challenge Competition Grand Prize: Essay 1 - Commitment to Promoting Healthy Eating on Campus Eliot promotes healthy eating through a back to basics mindset, “You are what you eat; eat well to be well.” For years, Eliot was strewn with crumpled bags of Hot Cheetos, empty Coke bottles, half eating pizza slices and candy rappers all purchased at our overcrowded Canteen. The cafeteria remained scarcely populated by desperate students unable to bear the canteen lines. Eliot was plagued with lethargic and hyperactive, uncooperative and obese students who felt no compulsion to change their eating habits. The academic climate was dreary and discouraging. Beset, we changed our mindset, campus and nutritional expectations. We wanted the kids to be well, thus nutrition was the first area to be addressed. All the soda machines were removed. The Canteen was closed; no more ‘Snack food’ (aka Junk Food). We offered two lunch times removing the ‘need’ for FAST FOOD. The Cafeteria spruced up the menu with healthy alternatives like Chef Salads, Fruit and Sub Sandwiches giving our predominately Free/Reduced lunch population opportunity to have fresh healthy meals. The Cafeteria was redecorated (paint, flooring, and furniture) enhancing and encouraging students to eat well – the walls were decorated with a Nutrition Mural. The bus schedule was altered providing time for students to arrive early for a healthy nutritional breakfast. Our PTA abandoned Candy Sale fundraisers for Jamba Juice. We enlisted the professional services of nutritionists and chefs from Nutrition Network to provide 10-week after-school enrichment cooking classes. The Sheriffs’ PAL program provides similar healthy eating and nutrition classes for at-risk students. Students acquire nutritional skills needed to change their own eating habits as well as their families. Eliot’s’ Physical Education, Nutrition Elective and Science classes offer nutritional education to the entire student body. Overall, Eliot’s’ culture and climate have drastically changed as our eating habits have changed. Essay 2 - Support of Students’ Physical Activity and Fitness Eliot supports its’ diverse at-risk students’ physical activity and fitness. Our goal is to meet the students where they are physically and use fitness, sports, recreation and adventure to take them beyond their expectations physically, emotionally, and socially. We expect our students to be active. We have altered our Physical Education curriculum focusing on Standards Based curriculum emphasizing individual skills and lifelong fitness rather than sports or competition. Each lesson is designed to keep students moving and laughing while they learn. The mindset is ‘physically’ educate the child and edify the family -- developing a healthy active community. Our school focused on raising the scores for all the students in each area of the FitnessGram. The teachers took courses to better prepare students, every student maintained a Personal Fitness Portfolio throughout the entire school year to track their progress and actively participated in the Governors Challenge, and the administration provided various programs increasing physical activity and fitness on campus for both students and teachers. • Fitness Weekly Weight Training Sports Exploration Elective FitnessGram Practice Personal Training (for teachers) • Competitive Athletics Basketball Soccer Flag Football Spirit Team • Recreation Open Gym: lunch-time Indoor Soccer and afterschool basketball Lunch-time sports equipment distribution LEARNS afterschool Yoga and Dance classes Specialized Salsa Dance Program: Contra Tiempo Dance Company LA County Sheriff’s Bootcamp and Self-Defense classes Outward Bound: 8th Grade Fun Day, Ambassadors Teambuilding LEARNS afterschool Recreational Sports Program Special Education Dance Classes • Adventure Quarterly Adventure Races 6th Grade Day-Hiking Trips Ambassadors Club Outward Bound Hikes Sheriff’s PAL program Nature Hikes • Activities Student vs. Teacher Basketball and Softball games Red-Ribbon Relay Races Governors’ Challenge Given the ethnic and cultural composition of our student body recreational sports, athletics and fitness are vital for a healthy school climate. Essay 3- Need For a New Fitness Center Eliot’s need for a fitness center stretches far beyond our classroom walls and outweighs many of the academic concerns that plague our school. It’s simple – our students need to develop healthy bodies to train their minds adequately. As an inner-city school with a large at-risk population, sufficient physical activity is imperative. Many of the students rely on our schools’ ability to meet their basic needs (nutrition, physical and social education, emotional and mental health, and academic development). We have made leaps and bounds at Eliot in addressing student obesity, inactivity, and nutrition. We’ve got the kids moving – “YEAH!” …but now “Where do we go?” Our current ‘Fitness Center’ is a hodgepodge of donated free-weights and broken cable weight training equipment. The room is VOID of any technology aside from a broken fan propped up in the corner. The facility is damaged, dysfunctional, and obsolete; communicating to our students that their physical health and education is not of utmost importance. We believe a Dynamic Fitness Center would encourage our students and parents to take pride in themselves, to take responsibility for their personal fitness and well-being. The hope would be for our community to shape up around the Fitness Center viewing the facility as a neighborhood health club. A fitness center at Eliot would create opportunities for our students, their families, and teachers to develop healthy relationships, bodies and minds – it would literally ‘Shape Our Future’. We at Eliot try to meet the students where they are physically then take them beyond their expectation; a Fitness Center would drive students to surpass these expectations effectively and efficiently. Eliot’s need for a Dynamic Fitness Center is vital to the overall well-being of each student, the academic culture and climate of the school, and the moral of our community. |
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