Students at Cayuga Heights Elementary
School (CHES) in Ithaca, NY, walked 18,086 miles during a
10–day period in 2004. How do they know? Someone’s
counting. Roseanne Moresco, physical education teacher at
CHES, started counting in 2002, the first year she enrolled
her school in NY State’s “Healthy Steps”
program. Every year since then, more kids and parents enroll,
and the footprints multiply.
“Healthy Steps” is a program launched by The
New York Statewide Center for Healthy Schools. Based on the
recognition that active bodies promote active minds, the Center
encourages children -- and their teachers and parents -- to
walk more. All elementary schools in NY are invited to join
in. The group provides coordinators like Roseanne with simple
ways to record results, and as further incentive, gives awards
to the top-walking schools after each October 10-day period.
What motivated Roseanne to start counting? “I
wanted to support what I was teaching kids – to be healthy,
active and to enjoy it.”
Everyone at CHES is walking and clocking steps.
All teachers and staff in the school have pedometers. Each
class has its official pedometer, which rotates among classmates
during the 10-day period to record the miles they walk at
home, too. Pedometers give instant feedback and gratification,
Roseanne said, as the school community marches through the
10-day period
This movement didn’t happen overnight.
Getting the hang of logging the steps and miles takes some
practice. And the more they walk, the bigger the job of logging
and calculation. This presented another opportunity to some
5th-graders, who will soon apply their math skills to the
job of recording their school community’s steps.
Enthusiasm at CHES for “Healthy Steps”
inspired Roseanne to initiate another program this year --
“Walk-to-School Day,” a campaign that has spread
across the U.S. and to 20 other countries. Walk-to-School
Day at CHES was October 6, 2005. Adults driving children to
school were urged to park a block or two away and walk to
school with their children. Students who rode the school bus
got to walk a prescribed route around the school yard with
some of their teachers before entering the building. The goal
is to develop safe walking habits and to make the community
more livable by minimizing traffic and creating enjoyable,
active time with friends, teachers, and family.
Roseanne is not stopping there. As she waved
a thick stack of survey replies over her desk, she explained
the move afoot to create safe walking routes to Cayuga Heights
Elementary School. She sent a 10-question survey home with
students, asking what concerns families about letting their
children walk to school and if they would like to volunteer
to be walking escorts. She already shared the encouraging
results with her principal and will share the results with
the chief of police and the mayor. Together they will assess
sidewalks, intersections, speed limits, make some targeted
improvements, and plot the safest routes to CHES. If this
sounds too good to be true, consider the encouraging news
that the “Safe Routes to School (SR2S)” initiative
was just funded $612 million in our federal transportation
bill. Community schools like Cayuga Heights Elementary can
tap these funds to improve roads and pathways near the school,
to educate travelers, and to enforce safety laws. At CHES,
volunteer parent escorts have already stepped up. They will
take a safety course with the police, and the parades to CHES
will begin!
As I exited the school after talking with Roseanne
and her student teacher, Amanda Illinger, I spotted some “moving’
and groovin’” pencils given to all the CHES walkers
by the NYS Healthyhearts4kids program. (Last year, each walker
got a very cool water bottle.)
Then I passed the principal, Patrick Jensen,
who checked his pedometer for my benefit: 23,420 steps in
the last two days. Cool.
If you want to follow in Roseanne’s
footsteps, contact her at rmoresco@twcny.rr.com
Pertinent links:
information@nyshealthyschools.org
www.nyswalks.org
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