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Regional Award Winner
Regional Award Winner
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Columbus Tustin submitted the following three essays for consideration of the Governor's Challenge Competition Grand Prize: Essay 1 - Commitment to Promoting Healthy Eating on Campus Among health advancements made in previous years, our school continues to endorse healthy foods on campus. Students are provided with superior alternatives, such as fruits and vegetables included with every meal. In addition, our school cafeteria has traded fried chips, whose high quantity of sodium was hardly healthy, for a safer alternative: baked chips. These baked chips not only have a lower sodium level, but are appetizing and just as popular as regular chips. Breakfast served at Columbus Tustin Middle School has also progressed; healthier options are offered on a daily basis, including bagels, milk, and cereal. Students at our school are slowly learning how to adapt to, and make use of the healthy foods provided by the school; they are realizing how sugary and fattening foods are choices that should rarely be considered. Our school has also found different ways to promote the consummation of healthier choices. For example, we have been selling Juice It Up! smoothies every Wednesday. Each of these smoothies contains great quantities of fruits, and often several different types of vitamins and minerals as well. They are very popular among students, and are a great step forward in keeping our students healthy. Columbus Tustin Middle School staff and faculty have also put in effort in encouraging healthy foods. The principal of our school, Mr. Crow, also does a grand job in setting a model example of eating healthy and staying physically fit. He often mentions how he often he exercises to students as he monitors the campus, as well as the important of eating well. Mrs. Mackenzie, the home-economics teacher, instructs the students how to cook healthier options; she also teaches the basics of nutrition, and the impressive significance of it all. Although we are far from being a completely healthy, fat-free environment, our school is working towards this ultimate goal. Everyone at Columbus Tustin works hard, tries hard, and plays hard; we have done an fine job in consuming a great deal of healthy choices on campus. With the students constantly encouraged by all those around them, Columbus Tustin will surely be a healthy environment in years to come! Essay 2 - Support of Students’ Physical Activity and Fitness Fitness first! Parent and student knowledge of physical activity has steadily been growing, but many families still have limited information about fitness and exercise. Columbus Tustin has committed itself to educating every student in fitness so that they can successfully spread their newfound information with their families. The school offers several tutorial classes to give students a chance to experience a different form of exercise. These tutorial classes are approximately 30 minutes long and include selections such as; weight lifting, basketball, salsa dancing and soccer. With these extra courses, students are able to recognize that exercise isn’t just running and push-ups, there are endless possibilities for life-long enjoyment. Columbus Tustin has also encouraged students and their families to partake in out-of-school festivities. The Dinosaur Dash put on by the Tustin Public Schools’ Foundation is a fun event where families can register for different length runs. The Dinosaur Dash was a hit at Columbus Tustin; students and staff had a great time jogging in a 2k, 5k, or 10k run. This year the physical education staff created The First Annual Fastest Mile Invitational which had a large number of participants and inspired other students to speed up their own mile time. The after-school sports program at Columbus Tustin also attracts countless students every year. The variety of sports offered give students a chance to try a new sport each semester. The dedicated teachers at Columbus Tustin volunteer their time to coach students in the sports they have expertise in. Sports offered include cross-country running, basketball, soccer, track and field, and volleyball. Lastly, Columbus Tustin has put on student/staff competitions and sport tournaments for talented students and teachers to show off their skills. This year alone, we have had a student versus teacher basketball tournament, volleyball tournament, a student free-throw tournament and more. These spirited activities encourage students to get involved with their school and fitness as well as influencing less active students to work at their own talents. Many of our teachers here at Columbus Tustin set excellent examples as to how to fit exercise into our daily lives. Our Principal, Mr. Crow swims three mornings each week as well as playing on a basketball team throughout the year. Mr. Dunmeyer rides his bike to and from work which is about 30 miles a day and Mrs. Post walks four miles a day to work. Several of our staff members participate in organized sports and coach our after-school teams. Essay 3- Need For a New Fitness Center A new fitness center at Columbus Tustin Middle School would help substantially decrease obesity at our school. Some of out students are struggling with weight problems and a new fitness center would create an opportunity for those students to work out in a more private environment with equipment more suited to their needs. Another group of students that would considerably benefit from this fitness center would be our students with disabilities. Many of our students are on a modified physical education program and could achieve many more fitness goals if they had a fitness center with equipment geared for their needs. Making fitness easier to manage would be a great incentive and these students would have a greater chance to succeed with their fitness goals. Some people at our school and in our society view exercise as boring and too difficult. If we can make exercise fun for our students, they will be more willing to exercise with greater consistency and finally see the rewards that exercise has to offer. Especially at the middle school level, students expect to have fun and need to see the relationship between what they are expected to do and how that relates to the real world. This fitness center would absolutely motivate students to reach this much needed goal and keep them thinking about fitness for life! When kids are allowed to experience this phenomenon, they can help their parents stay in shape. Our students can be role models to their community and lead the way to forming a less obese, healthier world. Also, instead of being bored and getting into trouble, students can focus their energy on working out and getting their daily exercise. This could reduce violence in our schools and it could reduce the gang mentality in the community before mistakes are made that can not be fixed. |
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