Northmont PTA Wins $10,000 from Governor’s Physical Fitness Council

Northmont Elementary’s PTA is in better fiscal shape Wednesday after being honored by Gov. Jerry Brown and the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.

The school’s PTA was was awarded $10,000 (and a gold medal) at a ceremony attended by Brown and bodybuilder Jake Steinfeld, the group’s chairman.

The Northmont PTA was named the statewide Parent Association of the Year. Its $10,000 will go to promote physical activity and good nutrition. Matt Wood, the PTA president, was present for the honor.

Other officers of the 2010-2011 Northmont PTA included vice presidents Rebecca Rude (programs), Kimberly Rinder (membership), Jennifer Buckner (parent ED), Kimberly Torres (ways and means), Beth Fagan (room parent rep) and Treasurer Liz LeBlanc.

Northmonth’s principal is Melody Belcher.

Steinfeld said: “From the Mount Shasta Fun Run and Walk in Siskiyou County to Northmont PTA in San Diego and everyone in between, each of our award winners has inspired kids to get out, get moving and have fun, and for that we’re proud to call them our California Fitness Heroes.”
  
Northmont’s PTA was recognized for its parent-sponsored run at the start
 of school each day, annual fitness camps each spring and a fitness fair that 
will become and annual event.

“I’ve always said that passion leads and everything else follows,” Steinfeld said,  “and today’s award winners have shown remarkable passion and creativity in getting California kids more active and fit.

Gov. Brown said: “The individuals, organizations and schools we honor today are champions for youth fitness in California. Their tireless efforts energize our communities and ensure the state’s children grow up active, healthy and fit.”

Here’s what the state posted as Northmont’s rationale for consideration as for this Spotlight Award:

Northmont elementary PTA’s commitment to fitness is second to none!

Each day starts with a parent sponsored run-for-fun, where kids can earn Popsicle sticks for each lap, accumulate, trade them in for prizes each quarter. High earners are recognized in front of the whole school.

We held our first annual “family fitness fair,” over 100 people attended a hands-on, evening presentation of fitness and nutrition, that included flyers, demonstrations, organic and healthy food samples and fun! We followed up with an all school presentation the next week for all the students to reinforce everything they learned, and issue challenges to the kids for snack-skipping and exercise.

In the spring we had our third annual fit camp. 6-8 weeks of 1 hour of fast-paced training and 20 minutes of nutrition talk once a week. Advanced concepts boiled down to digestible elementary school bites. It included homework, such as completing series’ of exercises (bonus points if parents joined in) bringing in wrappers of healthy snacks or nutrition guides from where they ate that week.

They learned how to run faster, jump higher, plyometrics, body-weight exercises, and all about fat, carbs, proteins and calories. They learned how to know if they were working out hard enough, too hard or need to “kick it up a notch.”

We had a local personal trainer and a few other parents come weekly for structured PE, including proper warm up, stretching and fun fitness games like Simon says—fitness style—and freeze dance.

We had a PTA sponsored ballroom dance class that showed there are a lot of ways to exercise and all they need to do is find one that works for them! Plus we worked closely with the local little league, Pop Warner, Soccer, basketball and cheerleading organizations, sharing facilities, fields and resources.

Also: Ruskin Elementary School (San Jose), Loma Vista Middle School (Riverside) and Hueneme High School (Oxnard) were announced as winners of the 2011 Governor’s Challenge Competition and as the Council’s Elementary, Middle and High School of the Year, respectively.

Walker Elementary (Santa Ana), Del Vista Elementary (Delano) and Hickman Elementary/Middle School (Hickman) were selected as the states Southern, Central and Northern Live Positively winners, respectively, due to their extraordinary efforts of promoting health and fitness during California Fitness Month in May.

All six schools will receive brand new fitness activity centers. These schools were selected from more than 2,100 schools and more than 1.4 million students who engaged in physical activity 30-60 minutes a day, at least three days a week for four weeks during the previous school year.

Steinfeld was joined by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson and Pam Kehaly, president of Anthem Blue Cross California.

Anthem Blue Cross Foundation is a founding sponsor of the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and presenting sponsor of the Spotlight Awards.

Over the past six years, the Anthem Blue Cross Foundation has granted more than $2 million to the council and most of that money has been passed on to schools, parks and nonprofit organizations in the form of physical activity equipment and cash to promote physical activity.

A full listing of the gold, silver and bronze medalists, plus the 11 regional award winning schools in the 2010 Governor’s Challenge Competition can be found at www.CalGovCouncil.org.

City News Service contributed to this report.