Thursday, June 20, 2013
Forbes Magazine recently ranked Stockton as the second most miserable city in America. HealthyCal contributor Tony Wilson files this video report taking a look at how the city fell so far so fast. A big reason: Stockton rode the housing boom to the top, then fell badly when the market collapsed.
Main Street, SBA from Tony Wilson on Vimeo.
Kenneth Dyar
The evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that quality physical education, which includes a focus on physical fitness, enhances student academic achievement. California, Texas, New York and other states have run similar studies linking student physical fitness with improved performance on standardized tests.
There’s absolutely zero evidence that increasing time in the school day for physical education has a negative impact on student achievement. We did not find one single study to support replacing P.E. time with more seat time.
In Delano, the change for us came after the first “Fitnessgram” test results were revealed in 1999. That year only 7 percent of our 7th graders could pass that test. So to flip that, 93 percent failed. So I threw out the traditional P.E. curriculum and I rewrote it to have a fitness focus and to address the individual needs of each child.
We had no gym at the time, no real equipment, our kids wore their street clothes to PE. But just by changing our focus we went from 7 percent passing the Fitnessgram in 99 to 44.4 percent in 2002, just four years later.
We made sure our kids spend at least 50 percent of their P.E. class time in moderate to vigorous physical activity. They get P.E five days a week. And they get way more than the minimum number of minutes required in the California education code. In addition to student fitness improving, we also saw a decrease in discipline referrals on campus, and in the last four years the API at my middle school has increased 81 points, even though we have increasingly added more physical activity time during the day, thereby reducing academic seat time.
Our school board and superintendent have been strong advocates for our wellness program and we now have a $4 million gym with a state- of-the-art fitness lab, heart rate monitors and pedometers for every child in our P.E. classes, and the PE program I wrote for our middle school has been extended to every school in our district.
We have also extended this philosophy in new areas. We have brought movement into the classroom to provide brain breaks and reinforce core conduct through physical activity. We developed an after school recreational sports program that is offered free of charge to our kids. And we partnered with various entities in our community to increase physical activity opportunities for everyone.
Our program has been honored by the National Middle School Association, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, and the California Department of Education when I was named California Teacher of the Year in 2006.
In 2008 we were named middle school of the year by the governor’s Council on Fitness and Sport, and in 2009 the governor’s Council named us district of the year for the Central Valley.
Delano is a small agricultural community with high levels of poverty, high levels of unemployment and few financial resources. The stereotype would say we couldn’t do what we’ve done in our town. But we have done it. And if it can happen in Delano, it can happen anywhere.
Kenneth Dyar is Coordinator of Physical Education, Wellness, and Athletic Competition for the Delano Union School District. This story was adapted from his presentation Feb. 24 to the governor’s obesity and wellness summit in Los Angeles.
By Kevis McGee
Photographs of my community.
Boarded House
In this picture, I see a boarded up house. It’s a cold fact we have to face when our houses gets boarded up. I believe this is a problem and a strength at the same time. I think the City uses boarded houses as an example to keep people from doing bad things in their houses. There isn’t really anything we can do but make sure we aren’t doing bad things in our houses.
Tagged-Up Stop Sign
In this picture, I see a tagged up stop sign. We go outside everyday and look at graffiti like it is a normal part of the world. In other words, we look right over them! It is a problem because it marks the areas that are bad for us to go in. We should be able to go anywhere we want. We should set cameras up and have more patrol units around these heavily tagged areas.
This photo essay originally appeared at www.theknowfresno.org, a youth media project supported by New America Media and the California Endowment.
By Arena Phaphilom
Fresno.
Walking To School
This is a picture of the backside of a crosswalk sign near a school. This particular sign has tagging all over it. Youth, like those pictured in the background, see tagging and graffiti everyday, on just about everything. These days, it’s very hard to walk to school without seeing graffiti. Many youth join tagging crews to mark up street signs and other things in order to claim their turf. These tagging crews have brought so much violence between youth. Youth in tagging crews often quarrel with other youth in other tagging crews about their tagging names, turfs, and much more. If youth that joined tagging crews had better things to do with their time, they probably would not join tagging crews.
Broken Beer Bottle
This is a picture of a broken beer bottle on the sidewalk, just a block away from a school. Youth have to walk on sidewalks, such as this one, in order to get to school. It can be hard walking to school when there is broken glass all over the sidewalks. I’m not sure if this beer bottle was put there by an adult or youth, but this picture also shows that alcohol has become a big problem for youth and adults alike. This problem would probably not exist, or be this bad, if it weren’t for liquor stores. There are liquor stores that are in walking distance from schools. This problem wouldn’t be so bad if people really did drink responsibly. It’s hard to stop people from drinking, but we can teach them how to drink more responsibly.
Safety First
This crosswalk sign serves as a warning to drivers to let them know that there may be children, youth or others crossing the street and to drive slowly because they are entering a school zone. It makes it safer for children and youth to cross the streets, yet there are still many drivers who ignore these signs and drive fast, which makes it dangerous. Some drivers, even upon seeing youth standing and waiting to cross the streets, still drive fast and ignore the speed limits in school zones. I don’t know what we can do about this, but I also just realized that there aren’t enough cross walks by my high school, Edison. I can only think of 2 painted cross walks.
This essay was produced for TheKnowFresno.org and is part of photovoice project for the Fresno Building Healthy Communities Initiative of The California Endowment.
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