Class Act: Sierra Vista’s fitness revolution

When George Velarde arrived at Los Angeles County’s William S. Hart Union High School District to chair the physical education department at Sierra Vista Junior High School in 2002, student performance on state fitness assessments was— in his words—“kind of embarrassing.”

Not only were Sierra Vista’s 1,300 seventh- and eighth-graders scoring below the state average on the state’s six fitness standards, they were less fit than other kids in their own district.

“I told my principal that if we were to have any credibility as a department, we would have to make student fitness the No. 1 priority,” Velarde recalls. “He looked a little stunned.”

Velarde laid out a radical and ambitious proposal to introduce what he called “new PE” at Sierra Vista. Instead of focusing on traditional team sports like baseball, football and tennis—sports that generally attract the athletic elite—Sierra Vista would stress individual fitness to energize what Velarde calls “the other 90 percent of our students.”

With the support of the district school board, his principal and superintendent, the school’s parent advisory council and his faculty colleagues, Velarde launched an ambitious fundraising and public awareness campaign to transform one of the school’s two gyms into a state-of-the-art fitness center.

In the seven years since, the playfully named “No Child Left on His/Her Behind” campaign has paid off big time. Sierra Vista has raised $650,000 in grants and donations to equip a fitness center that Velarde says “is the heart of our PE program and the heart of our school.”

Last year Sierra Vista students scored well above average for both the state and the district. In fact, scores were among the best of all junior high schools in California.

The Sierra Vista Fitness Center, which opened in 2004 and has been expanding ever since, is a high-tech wonder that has enough space and equipment to accommodate 150 students at once. Divided into cardiovascular, “ExerLearning” and circuit training/weight room sections, the center offers kids a chance to work up a sweat on elliptical machines and spin bikes; try their latest “Dance, Dance Revolution” electronic game moves; practice virtual boxing, baseball, golf or mountain biking; race against their classmates on computerized rowing machines; climb on a traverse rock wall (it’s horizontal rather than vertical for safety reasons) or pump some iron.

The center gets plenty of after-hours use as well—it’s open to participants of the local Boys and Girls Club, thanks to a partnership between the city and school district. “We don’t just shut the doors when school’s out,” Velarde says.

“We still teach traditional team sports,” he continues. “But we don’t make those sports the main focus of our program. We teach students about the muscle groups, nutrition and how to read labels. We help them set and reach individual fitness goals to improve overall health.”

The beauty of the new PE, supporters say, is that it’s designed to involve all students—not just the fit and naturally athletic, but also the adolescent couch potatoes who haven’t yet learned to love exercise. Sierra Vista also offers adaptive exercise classes for students with special needs.

Velarde says discipline problems are down, attendance and self esteem are up and students who used to hate gym class are engaged. Perhaps even more important, students are developing habits that Velarde hopes will keep them active and fit well into adulthood. “Kids are having so much fun we have to drag them off the machines,” Velarde says. “They love technology and gadgets. We gave them what they wanted.”

Students wear heart monitors and are graded on the amount of time they spend in their respective “fitness zones,” Velarde says. The school tracks their progress and reports home to their parents three times a year. “We’ve been able to move from subjective to objective grading,” he says.

Former Sierra Vista student Erica McKenna, now a sophomore at Canyon High School, plays soccer and is on both the track and cross-country teams. She says she loved Sierra Vista’s fitness program. “It makes PE fun,” she says. “You work out and exercise without even realizing it. You may be playing a video game, but you’re also breaking a sweat.”

In December, Sierra Vista will receive a Golden Bell Award for the program at the California School Boards Association’s Annual Education Conference and Trade Show in San Diego. The school has already won honors as a national demonstration school, and the campus hosts visitors from all over California and the nation who come to see the new PE in action. Earlier this year the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports awarded Velarde a Gold Medal for being the state’s top PE teacher.

Toolkit

WHO:  William S. Hart Union High School District/Sierra Vista Junior High School
WHAT:  New Physical Education practice and philosophy centered on new state-of-the-art fitness center
WHEN:  Since 2002
WHERE:  Los Angeles County
WHY:  Enhanced student fitness
HOW:  Using the latest high-tech tools as a lure, shift focus from traditional team sports to individual fitness
MORE:  www.hartdistrict.org/sierra