BENDORF ELEMENTARY: Presidential power

Local school earns lifestyle award for the fourth year

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By KEVIN STOTT

VIEW STAFF WRITER

Only one school in the United States has successfully completed the Presidential Active Lifestyle Award for the last four years -- Bendorf Elementary School.

The school, located at 3550 S. Kevin Way in southwest Las Vegas, started participating in the program, which is part of the Presidential Champions program, because of physical education teacher Shawn Seiler, who has become the program's steward.

Seiler talked about the process involved in monitoring the students' fitness.

"The kids have to keep a log," Seiler said. "They're supposed to do 60 minutes a day five days a week and they do it for a six-week period. They log it. And then they do it for a second six-week period. And 33 percent of the school has to do that to be eligible for the award. So any school can get the award, we've just happened to have done it and made it a priority to do it the past years. It's set up just to keep the kids active."

The program guidelines stress logging any kind of physical activity, including walking, gym class, chores and sports to try and get participants in the habit of realizing that many forms of activity can be classified as exercise.

Seiler said his students are starting to understand that many things they took for granted are actually a form of activity.

"I've had kids ask me, 'Hey, this weekend I couldn't do much because we were working on the yard all weekend -- we were landscaping our yard,' " Seiler said. "And I'm like, 'That counts. You were active.' "

Despite being the architect behind the school's participation in the program, Seiler gives all the credit to the student body.

"I facilitated it. The kids did all the work," he said. "It's one of those (programs) that looks good and gets the kids motivated to go out and be aware of their health."

To make winning the award a memorable thing, Seiler has asked some pretty prominent people to come out to the school and present the kids with certificates and patches.

"We're going to have some Air Force pilots come out this time," Seiler said. "I've got some guys from one of the fighter squadrons coming out to give them the award. Actually we had Gov. Guinn come out two years ago to present us with the award."

Bendorf principal Jerre Moore said the Active Lifestyle program has evolved into a pretty big deal at her school.

"As you know, exercise and keeping physically fit obviously impacts not only physical fitness but mental fitness, too," Moore said. "So by encouraging kids to do this outside of the school, that's certainly going to benefit not only kids but it's going to benefit them at school, too, because physically fit kids obviously learn better.

"The purpose to me of us in education is we're developing lifelong learners. So by starting this at a very, very early age you're hopefully developing lifelong learners into being physically fit, because nationally we've developed an obesity problem."

Moore said she hoped shedding some light on her school's accomplishments will prompt others to try the relatively untapped program.

"We're the only school in the United States that has won this four years in a row," she said. "Of course you want kids to excel but while that part is nice, all that's going to do is motivate other kids to want to do that when they see kids getting awards."

Taking a page out of television chef Emeril Lagasse's playbook, Moore said she plans to spice it up bit next year.

"Next year we're going to kick it up a notch to where we're going to do walking with the P.E. teacher in the morning before school," she said.

Moore said keeping the message of accomplishment positive is an important thing for young minds.

"When you have positive reinforcement in the beginning, with any human being it's like water dripping off a rock," Moore said. "But enough positive reinforcement actually rewires the brain. So this is just another form of positive reinforcement. It becomes intrinsic because they feel good about themselves because they have accomplished something."

After being recognized four straight years now, Moore said her school always will be pursuing the award.

"It's really become a tradition. There's no way that we would not do it," she said. "And it's so simple to do. But you know if we are the cheerleaders and get kids excited about it, they want to do it. But if you don't say anything about it, then they'll never want to do it."

Schools or students interested in finding out more about the Active Lifestyle program can check out the President's Challenge Program Web site at www.presidentschallenge.org or call (800) 258-8146 to request a copy of the Active Lifestyle log.