For six years, the Mileage Club at Highland Elementary has offered students a fun and rewarding way to get some exercise before school starts. As physical education teacher, John Steele has always envisioned a program that promotes physical activity.
Mileage Club is an incentive-based fitness program offered to students, teachers, and parents. As they are walking or running around the track, participants strengthen their bodies, control their body weight and reduce stress levels. The program is held on the playground at 7:35 a.m. during morning recess.
After a brief hiatus due to COVID, the club is back in full swing. “The vision for Mileage Club is to increase physical activity in our school as well as the community around HES,” says Steele. “I am a firm believer that we all perform better when we are active.”
The students also receive rewards as they accumulate miles, with 10 laps around the track equaling one mile. The rewards students earn are charms or tokens that can be attached to a bracelet they are given after completing each mile.
Steele says he’s eager to recruit more participants now that COVID doesn’t restrict the program. “I would say this year the numbers are down because it is new to some students,” says Steele. “I’d like to get back to the level of involvement we had during our 4th year of the Mileage Club. We had a lot of participants and parents participated, too.”
One thing Steele hopes to accomplish this year with his Mileage Club is to attract more teachers and parents. He believes that their participation will ultimately lead to more students joining the club and finding value in physical activity. “I believe we are all role models for our students,” says Steele.
“I encourage community members/parents to join because physical activity is contiguous,” says Steele. “If students believe you value physical activity as a parent or as a community then the students will value physical activity more.”