Using Shank's mare
Indian Hills students walk instead of play

ABOVE: Fourth and fifth grade students at Indian Hills Elementary walk past playground equipment during the Students Walking wellness program Thursday. Students spend their reccesses twice a week walking laps and keeping track of the distance they've walked. BELOW: Special education assistant Kate Tachine, right, hands out paper footprints to David Griego and Cindy Tom during the Students Walking wellness program at Indian Hills Elementary Thurday. The footprints help the students keep a tally of how many laps they've walked .— © 2008 Gallup Independent / Cable Hoover

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff Writer

GALLUP — So what kind of kids would give up part of their recess for something healthy like walking laps?

Apparently a lot of students at Indian Hills Elementary School.

The students are participants in a new voluntary health and wellness walking program started two weeks ago by Robin Gonzales, the school’s health assistant. And in just the first two days of the program, the students have collectively logged 146 miles.

Gonzales has dubbed the program the Indian Hills Walking Braves, and interested students sign up to walk during their lunch recess on Tuesdays and Thursdays, weather permitting.

“I don’t ask them to give up their recess,” Gonzales explained, “it’s completely voluntary.”

Gonzales then hands out “pacer footprints” — different colored paper footprints – to each student to signify how far they walked during recess. Those footprints get credited to the students’ class and get posted on a bulletin board outside Gonzales’ office, where the children can see which classroom is logging the most miles.

Thus far, Ms. Van Dorpt’s class is in the lead for the kindergarten and first grade, Ms. Montoya’s class leads the second and third graders, and Ms. Beno’s class has the top walkers for the fourth and fifth grade.

“The kids are really excited about it,” Gonzales said. “You can hear them talking about it in the hallway,” she added.
Gonzales said she decided to start the walking program as a positive way to combat the growing rates of obesity and diabetes among children. It’s a problem, she said, both locally and nationally.

The classroom that logs in the most miles walked will receive a party on the Friday before Thanksgiving. However, Gonzales said, it’s not going to be one of those typical school parties featuring pizza and sugary drinks. Instead, Gonzales is billing it as a “Healthy Party” with healthy fare. Although she admitted she thought it was “going to be tough” to sell the idea of a party featuring fruit, veggies, pretzels, air popped popcorn and 100 percent fruit juice to kids, Gonzales said the students are looking forward to being in the winning classroom.

Gonzales said she is sticking to her plan to only reward the top class — rather than all participating classrooms — as a way of teaching the students that goals need to be earned through work.

The students can, however, get a little mileage boost from both their teachers and their parents. Teachers can walk laps for their classroom, Gonzales said, and parents can also log in miles by walking at school.

The walking program is a pilot program this semester. If it is successful, Gonzales said, she may expand the number of walking days next semester. She is also talking with officials from the Indian Health Service about the possibility of bringing a wellness program — designed for children — to Indian Hills Elementary in the future.