CATCH Champion for January 2008

Kurt Suhr, Principal

Newport Heights Elementary School

Newport-Mesa Unified School District, Newport, California

When did you and your district adopt the CATCH Program and what prompted you to do so?

We started implementation 4 years ago. Our first year was a pilot year that involved one teacher per grade level. After piloting the program, we made a decision to move school-wide with the program due to teacher feedback on the success of the pilot year.

As a district, we were in the process of matching the minutes of the primary student's day to the upper elementary day. This brought up concern for the physical education needs of the students in primary grades. The growing dialogue prompted us to investigate our entire physical education program.

Describe notable changes since implementing CATCH and how you know CATCH is working.

The CATCH program evolves every year. Our teachers are refining their physical education lessons. Our nutrition services department continues to collaborate with our school to provide healthy nutrition options for students. One example of this collaboration would be the Breakfast Club concept developed by one of our PTA parents – Gail Standt . We had the students receive training on how to read nutrition information on the labels of food and brainstorm the type of healthy breakfast that they would enjoy eating. Then our students collectively went to the store, read the labels, and chose the ingredients for their selected breakfast. The Nutrition Services department helped the students prepare the breakfast at school. With all of the advertising our students did about the Breakfast Club morning, our entire school community showed up to eat a very healthy breakfast. Additionally, our PTA room mothers have worked with the teachers to provide healthier snack alternatives to celebrate the holidays and special events. This general culture shift in the way we approach overall health for our students is one of the most dramatic changes I have seen in the last four years.

What are the keys to your success?

Identifying and raising the funds to implement CATCH was our first priority. Our parent (Gail Standt ) reached out to many businesses and wrote numerous grants to help get the program going. To our surprise, there were businesses that lined up and wanted to contribute to the health of children. With limited school site budgets, it was refreshing to know that companies and agencies were lining up to support a school that desires to help make its students healthier.

The next significant key to success is outstanding training. We worked with the Orange County Department of Education (Director- Chris Corliss ) and Flaghouse to provide outstanding training to all teachers. The on-going training was hands-on and very informative.

What advice can you offer for those just beginning and for those who have already implemented the CATCH Program.

I recommend starting with a small group of teachers that are enthusiastic about physical education, preferably one teacher per grade level in order to get a representative cross-section of the staff.

I also recommend planning for storage for the equipment. Equipment notoriously disappears when it is in the classroom. Identifying centralized storage space or storage units that are easily accessible is critical. I recommend not placing the equipment in the classroom, if it can be avoided.

Finally, I would reach out to the community for financial assistance. With limited school budgets, it is wonderful to be able to tap into the numerous grants and funding options that currently exist to support healthy school initiatives.

What was your most significant barrier and how did you overcome the challenge?

Overcoming the “another new program” mentality that rightfully exists in the minds of educators was our biggest hurdle. It seems like every time we turn the corner another company or agency has developed “the cure” to education. California requires that 200 minutes every 10 days of school be directed at physical education. When we set out to identify a research based, comprehensive PE program, our options were limited. We chose the CATCH program due to recommendations from experts in the field. However, I made it very clear to the staff that we are just going to pilot the program for 1 year and then we will decide if it is a fit for us. After the pilot year, we conducted surveys and continually spoke with the teachers about their experience. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive which prompted us to move forward school wide. In the beginning, I too had my concerns, but now the CATCH program has truly helped define our school in the area of child health.

What has been the reaction from parents, administration, students and community?

Parents were involved from the beginning as were district administrators. We held parent trainings at the school so that parents could assist the classroom teacher with the lessons. It is wonderful to see parents support the CATCH program - especially those parents who do not typically get involved with school activities. We have found that there are many parents who are passionate about physical education and want to support the school with improving the health of our students.

The support from the district office has been amazing. The beauty of our district is that our superintendent and assistant superintendent of elementary education did not want the CATCH program to only happen at our school. When we initially started four years ago, the vision was to pilot the program at our school in the hopes of expanding it across the district. With the great success that we have experienced, it has now spread to other schools in the district and continues to grow. It has now expanded to over 2,000 classrooms in California .

What are your plans for the future? What is your CATCH vision?

We are now in a mode of maintaining and refining our current program. One aspect of the CATCH program that I appreciate immensely is that it lends itself to creativity for the teachers involved with teaching the lessons. We are continually learning how to better work with students in the area of physical education. We have also expanded opportunities for students to get involved with sports that are not as common as others. For example, we have a high jump pit that our student council operates during lunchtime and we have started to work with some high school students to train our students in the sport of lacrosse. I think the momentum has built itself up to the point where we do not see a limit with what we can do to make physical education fun and engaging for the students.

Anything else you would like to add?

The CATCH program has dramatically impacted the health of our students. At the end of the day – if we can provide students with opportunities to get their hearts pumping through engaging activities, we have served them well.

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