by Darren Diekmann
news@thenewsleaders.com
Pleasantview Elementary School just recently became part of a project by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that highlights several locations from across the country that have reduced obesity in their schools and increased overall health for kids.
Two photographers were at Pleasantview two weeks ago working on the local part of the project documenting three ways the school provides ways to make the healthy choice the easy choice for kids. These photos will help tell part of a story that shows how the school has been an important part of a 28-percent reduction of childhood obesity in the St. Cloud area, according to a six-year study, said John Inkster, the coordinator for Better Living: Exercise and Nutrition Daily. BLEND has partnered with RWJF and Pleasantview to bring the elementary school into the larger project.
Josh Kohanek, a freelance photographer from Minneapolis, was in charge of the photography. He was contracted by a firm called Burness that is managing the project for RWJF.
The first part of the photo shoot for Kohanek and his assistant was to capture Pleasantview’s fourth-graders during gym. On this day the students played a game of Mosquito, a form of tag that requires students to divide into teams differentiated by vibrant colored jerseys of yellow, red, blue and green. Kohanek shot photos of the game in action but also placed the players in still positions for better effect and later arranged students in spontaneous play, such as four boys hanging from a large tree limb and a couple sets of girls on piggyback.
The Pleasantview gym class was highlighted because of the extra effort the school puts into it.
“We integrate a lot of the curriculum from other classes into this class such as vocab words or different math skills. When we do bowling, we teach them scoring and use the iPads to integrate technology into the bowling unit and other units as well,” said gym teacher Sarah Dalton.
They also emphasize winter activities and sports, such as sledding and cross-country skiing, not often available to most elementary students.
“We have the equipment here, which is pretty rare,” Dalton said. Much of the funding for the equipment is raised by the school itself, she added. This adds up to a gym program that gives students a way to keep them more active and engaged throughout the year.
Later the photographers highlighted the school’s student-safety-patrol program. The entire Pleasantview kindergarten class was employed to help the fifth-grade safety patrols demonstrate safe street crossing. Most motorists waited patiently as Kohanek took dozens of photos from different angles and distances of different combinations of groups passing between crossing lines and the safety flags of the patrols.
The older students conducted themselves with precision while the younger students performed their roles with surprising order and seriousness considering their age. Kohanek frequently reminded them to smile and joked with them to lighten the scene.
Having students rather than adults as safety patrols is what makes this program noteworthy, said behavior interventionist Abby Lyon.
“So it’s older students being some of those first faces the younger students see in the morning,” she said. “And it shows our school is community focused.”
RWJF is also strongly interested in the training of the students. For a time safety training was done only at the school. But during the last two years, with grant money secured by BLEND from the MnDOT program Safe Routes to Schools, the students get extensive training at Legionville Safety Camp near Brainerd.
It was this safety-patrol training and earlier partnerships of Pleasantview with BLEND in Safe- Routes projects like the safe sidewalk from Pleasantview to the middle school completed a few years ago that made this area even more attractive to RWJF.
The final part of the shoot was a highlight of the lunch program. A reason for the interest is Pleasantview’s program makes an effort to go beyond the nutritional standards, said Julie Dombrovski, food service manager and head cook.
“We put a lot into it,” she said, “and try to go above and beyond, provide a wide variety. And we work hard so it does taste good and they do like it.”
This day they had French toast sticks.
“They love the breakfast for lunch choice,” she said.
This local project includes the entire St. Cloud area. So the following day Kohanek went to the BLEND Kids Health and Fitness Expo at St. Cloud State University where they met up with other local kids for more documentation of the area.
The larger national RWJF project, “Signs of Progress,” tells the stories of places where childhood obesity is declining, and elevates them as examples for the rest of the country, wrote Sara Binder, project manager for Burness.
So far the project features 10 locations, mostly on the East coast, but contains information on several others.
Burness learned of BLEND’s work and the declining obesity rates in the St. Cloud area in late 2014 from an article in the St. Cloud Times.
“Since then we have stayed in contact with the folks at BLEND about the work they’re doing,” Binder wrote.
You will soon be able to read the Pleasantview-St. Cloud area project and two other new locations, Southern California and Cherokee County, S.C., on the RWJF website: http://www.rwjf.org/en/library/collections/signs-of-progress.html.
The publishing dates for the local story and the others are not certain, but are expected to be in the next two months. Burness is also putting together a promotional plan to spread the news of the progress of overall childhood health in St. Cloud and the other regions.
Fifth-graders Connor Johnson and Creed Bonosky instruct a patient group of kindergartners on safety.
Josh Kohanek tries to get the perfect photo of kindergarteners crossing.
Jordan Lee (bottom left), Campbell Arndt (top left), Sienna Petermeier (top right) and Kennedy Mages take a break from the games to pose for photographer Josh Kohanek.
Forth-graders Jordan Lee (bottom left), Campbell Arndt (top left), Sienna Petermeier (top right) and Kennedy Mages take a break from the game to pose for a photo.
