| DeKalb County School System |
3770 North Decatur Road
Decatur, Georgia 30032
phone: 678-676-1200 | fax: 678-676-0785 |
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Knollwood ES Assesses PE Curriculum with Heart Rate Monitors
Fifth graders at Knollwood Elementary School are now one of 18 schools in the DeKalb County School System to implement a series of tests that will help to assess the effectiveness of the school’s physical education (PE) curriculum. With permission from parents, students strap heart rate monitors to their chests during PE class for minute-by-minute readings to determine how much workout time increases heart rates – measuring from low to vigorous activity.
Located in the Belvedere area of DeKalb County, Knollwood is the target elementary school of the Healthy Belvedere initiative sponsored by The Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Georgia and managed by The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. Healthy Belvedere, a neighborhood effort to reduce health disparities associated with chronic illnesses, supports the Knollwood PE assessment with equipment donations including new PE equipment for the gymnasium and a new heart rate monitors.
The current physical education curriculum used at Knollwood and throughout DeKalb County was developed as part of the Georgia Performance Standards and is scheduled to change next year. According to Shannon Williams, Assistant Director of Health & Wellness for DeKalb County Schools, the baseline heart rate was first taken at the close of the fall semester. Student heart rates will be measured against these baseline rates again in February and in April of 2010 while commercially available PE curricula are being implemented. Testing the student heart rate levels against the San Diego, CA SPARK curriculum, founded in 1989, and the Michigan Fitness Foundation program, founded in 1994, will help the system determine which curriculum will be best for implementation in the next school year.
“Because the standards will be changing next year, this is a great time for us to asses what is best for our students and teachers,” said Williams. “The goal is to get the students as active as possible during the short time they have physical education.”
While changing school policy can be a long and difficult task, Williams is working to improve the quality of the system’s PE program by researching school districts across the country to find the best curriculum available to DeKalb County students.
School districts throughout the U.S. are challenged with giving their students appropriate levels of physical activity. Pressure to focus on standardized testing limits the time available for exercise. Kaiser Permanente and Healthy Belvedere are working with Williams and her team at Knollwood Elementary to improve both the quantity and quality of physical education and recess.
The Healthy Belvedere Community Health Initiative is a neighborhood effort to reduce health disparities associated with chronic illnesses through environmental and policy changes. Healthy Belvedere is based in southeast DeKalb County. The service area is formed on the north by Memorial Drive, Columbia Drive to the east, Glenwood Road to the south, and Candler Road to the west. The initiative is a partnership between Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Georgia, The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, and Belvedere community stakeholders. Kaiser is investing over $1 million in Belvedere over a five to seven year period and the Community Foundation manages the initiative. |
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