School district awarded grant to strengthen P.E. programs.

Byline: Anne Williams The Register-Guard

The Eugene School District has been awarded a three-year, $827,800 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to enhance physical education programs.

The grant is the district's second in as many years from the federal government, which has pledged dollars to battle childhood obesity and instill healthy, lifelong eating and exercise habits. Eugene schools used last year's $343,000 Physical Education Program grant to buy fitness equipment and develop a new curriculum focused on individual activities that children can continue into adulthood, rather than traditional team sports.

In its application for the newest grant, the district sought more than $1 million, grant coordinator Jim Hart said. As of Monday, he hadn't yet heard which pieces of the proposal had been trimmed.

Assuming, though, that the major portions are intact, the district will use the money to build top-rope climbing walls in each of the district's middle schools; purchase Fitness for Life textbooks for middle-schoolers; expand training to help teachers learn new curriculum and become familiar with the state's new physical education standards; weave dance into the P.E. curriculum with assistance from dance professionals; give each school a discretionary account with which to purchase P.E. equipment; and - with matching dollars from the city of Eugene - launch fitness-focused after-school programs at the middle schools.

The grant will help strengthen physical education programs, which have diminished since the early 1990s. At that time, districts such as Eugene - which had enjoyed strong local support in the form of levies - saw revenue slide as a result of a tax-limitation measure and the passing of control over education funding to the state. The district today has just more than one-fourth the number of elem- entary P.E. teachers as it did in the 1970s, according to Hart.

Through the Carol M. White Physical Education Program of the No Child Left Behind Act, the government awarded almost $69 million to 237 programs across the country. Eugene and Hermiston were the only Oregon recipients, Hart said.

Because the district already received a grant last year, Hart thought this one was "a long shot." He believes the two together have the potential to dramatically improve the district's program, even though they do nothing to help hire more P.E. teachers or give over more school hours to physical education. "If nothing else, this grant is another piece of evidence" that P.E. is an integral component of a child's education, Hart said. "Somebody just gave this district over a million dollars. Somebody considers this a priority and a very important issue."

In a prepared statement, Secretary of Education Rod Paige said children who are unhealthy are not ready to learn.

"We can change this, and we must," he said.