Education and health advocates are brainstorming ways to increase physical activity in school without diminishing academic focus.
Participants met Wednesday during a Lexington summit.
Most educators agree more fitness time in school brings with it academic benefits. Ongoing concerns about funding and time limits in school remain prominent topics for discussion. Heather Erwin works at the University of Kentucky in kinesiology and health promotion. "You get people moving. It gets your brain more active and you can think better, you can concentrate, you can focus and those are the types of things we are pushing. There are some studies that actually look at the relationship between physical activity and test scores, but those are few and far between," said Erwin.
Also participating in a panel discussion was Prichard Committee Director Stu Silberman. He spent years as a school administrator first in Owensboro and then in Lexington. "It's easy to go in and say 'I want you to spend two hours a day on physical activity.’ And you go in there and you tell a teacher that and you leave, they're not gonna do that. They're just not gonna do it, they're gonna be focusing on that achievement piece and they don't see the connection with two hours a day of physical activity," said Silberman.
The day long meeting included small group sessions. Participants were asked to rethink the role of physical education teachers and to adopt school wellness policies.?
