West Virginia
All West Virginia elementary and middle school students get 30 minutes of daily physical activity, and more than 100,000 benefit from improved teacher trainings.
Two years of teacher trainings are showing results for proponents of increased physical activity. In June 2016, West Virginia became the first state in the nation to enroll all of its 441 public elementary schools in the national physical activity initiative, Let’s Move! Active Schools. This accomplishment comes less than two years after the addition of a physical activity requirement in West Virginia Board of Education Policy 2510External
Impact
More than 900 classroom teachers and administrators throughout the state received hands-on training from national and state experts. They received resources, including videos and toolkits, about how to integrate physical activity into the classroom curriculum. Physical activity trainings at the two-day KidStrong ConferenceExternal
Researchers at West Virginia University and Marshall University gathered data from surveys completed at some of the trainings and will evaluate the trainings’ strengths and weaknesses. However, state leaders are already hearing positive comments from teachers about improved student behavior, attendance, and test scores. A next step is to have more schools complete the Let’s Move! Active Schools Assessment and make changes based on the assessment findings to make their schools a more active place to learn.