Third grader Miracle Turner's beaded braids jangle as she runs in place alongside Principal Paul Travers. All of her classmates at Washington Elementary in Greensboro are on their feet too - running, jumping or punching the air - as they move through interval training in their classroom.
Once he catches his breath, Travers stops to explain that every student in the school starts with these aerobics for 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of mindful stretching.
This isn't track and field day. It's every day at Washington Elementary.
This year, the school was named one of America's healthiest schools by the Alliance for a Healthier Generation. The award recognizes the work the school has done over the past few years to embed health and wellness into its culture. That commitment is built into students' school day, starting with what they call "morning movement."
Pandemic prompted principal to ask, "What do our students really need?"
Travers said it’s been an evolution over several years to bring more exercise into the classroom, starting during the pandemic. He recalls that in Fall 2020, families were anxious about sending their young children back to school.
"I would call family after family after family, and they would say things to me, like 'Mr. Travers, now, you know, I'm at risk, or grandma who lives in the house is at risk,'" Travers recalled. "It really kind of helped us think, 'What do our kids and our families really need?'"
Travers himself was a former track athlete at UNC-Greensboro. He and multi-classroom leader Meg Sisk, a runner too, spearheaded this initiative. Sisk said they wanted to focus on movement after the pandemic, to get kids excited about school, and because students had grown too used to sitting in front of a computer.
"Particularly right after COVID, when we had students socially distanced in desks, they would be sitting in their seat for so long throughout the day," Sisk said.
She said they were also inspired by a local study from Cone Health that told them something about their community. Washington Elementary serves a lower-income, mostly Black neighborhood in east Greensboro.
"The Cone Health study found that people who live in our part of Greensboro had a five to 10 year lower lifespan expectancy than people who live just five miles away from here," Sisk said. "We thought 'That's so wrong. People in our community deserve to have full, healthy lives as well.'"
If they could help kids build healthy habits, Travers said they thought it would also help them throughout life - and spread to their community.
"We actually had families come in and participate in what we just saw - morning movement - and the response was, 'I need to do this every day. Can I come in to do morning movement?'" Travers said.
Research shows moderate to physical activity enhances learning
Then Travers and Sisk started to look into the research behind exercise, and quickly realized it could have other benefits in the classroom.
Research shows that when students have moderate to vigorous physical activity for about 20 minutes, their brains think more clearly for more than half an hour afterward.
"So we figured if we could embed more moderate to vigorous physical activity in parts throughout the day, then we could also help our students to be better learners," Sisk said.
Travers said that's paid off in academic gains. The students' performance on state tests increased by about 10 percentage points in recent years. The school also "exceeded growth" on state exams the last 2 years in a row, a measure that means students improved at a greater rate than expected.
Embedding exercise throughout the school day
Travers says what the school has done is more than an initiative, "it's a lifestyle" – and it goes beyond morning movement. The school started a running club; found a community partner to teach students new sports; became a pilot site for Cone Health's telehealth services in schools; recruited athletes from NC A&T State University to record exercise videos for students; held community walks; and started wellness clubs where students learn about topics like nutrition or gardening.
Washington Elementary teachers have also found more ways to incorporate movement into their lessons, for example, having students take steps or skips as they count by fives or practice times tables.
"What we believe is that if we're really going to say that health and wellness is something that we're about and we're about the whole child, it had to live and breathe within every aspect of our school day," Travers said.
Stopping to take a breath is part of all of it too. In Bianca Watkins' 4th grade class, students slow down for a stretch after finishing their aerobic circuits. The classroom's speakers switch from upbeat pop music to soothing instrumentals.
"Reach down, touch your feet or the floor," Watkins instructs, as she and the students count up slowly to ten.
Five years after implementing these lifestyle changes at Washington Elementary, Principal Travers moved to another Guilford County middle school and plans to start a similar routine there too. He said it's encouraging to know that what he and Sisk started will live on at Washington Elementary without him there.
"To me, it's more evidence that we got it right and we did what was right for kids," Travers said.
"We want other schools to know, 'Hey, you can do this too," Sisk added. "You can take parts of what we're doing and embed them in your school. These are things that are good for all children."
