Alliance for College-Ready
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Healthy Bodies, Strong Students
The spectacle of 80 students stroking across the Coliseum swimming pool is “awesome,” says physical education teacher Jaye Lieberman.
The young swimmers are students at College-Ready Academy High School where swimming is required P.E. When class began in September, more than 40% couldn’t swim. You should see them now.
The sports may differ within the Alliance network of charter schools, but the intensity does not. A cross-country team is emerging at Heritage College-Ready Academy. Nearly two-thirds of the students at Huntington Park participated in the Soccer Tournament. One former couch potato turned fitness buff dropped three jean sizes since September. Another Alliance convert learned to love jogging at school so much that he runs with his mother on the weekends.
“I tell kids that this is their Bally Total Fitness,” says HP’s physical education teacher Janelle Ocampo. The running track is limited by a church parking lot, but the physical benefits for her students and all Alliance teens are doubled because of block scheduling.
“P.E. is nearly two hours. We have lots of time for cardio workouts, stretches, and sports training such as a recent unit of volleyball. That followed our soccer success in which 110 kids competed,” Ms. Ocampo explains. “The whole school was cheering.”
As Heritage P.E. teacher Jose Tapia coaches his class in flag football, he agrees. “We are meeting state standards and improving the health of our kids,” he says. “Ten students here are already running a six-minute mile. I see a track team in our future.” The University Athletics Department has given equipment and a changing room to the Heritage P.E. program.
Alliance P.E. students also have a classroom component. “Being college-ready applies to P.E., too,” says Ms. Ocampo who teaches the history of sports and rules in a classroom once a week. Mr. Tapia will begin a class in health and nutrition in January. Excelling in P.E. also has a positive effect on other classroom activities. At CRAHS, academic teachers report to Ms. Lieberman that the confidence and energy of the new swimmers spill into their work in core classes. Could they be “diving” into their studies?