Inline Skating Notebook

High School Adds Inline Skating

Rolling into fitness

L-S High School adds inline skating class

by BRIAN WALLACE, staff (May 19, 2008)

Lampeter-Strasburg High School plans to get its juniors and seniors on eight wheels this fall to help improve their fitness.

The school has received a $5,000 grant to purchase 50 sets of inline skates, helmets and safety pads for a new inline skating physical-education program.

Mark Trach, chairman of the school's physical-education department, and school nurse Teddi Book came up with the idea for students who dislike traditional exercise programs.

L-S High School offers walking, jogging and weight training in its phys-ed classes, along with golf, football, basketball, soccer and other team sports.

Some students don't like sports and are bored with walking or running, Trach said. Inline skating is a good alternative because, "It's a great aerobic activity, and it's more fun than jogging."

A person can burn 600 to 800 calories by skating for an hour, said Trach, who enjoys inline skating along the trails near his home in Overlook Park.

The program will be offered only to upperclassmen. Students will receive training on safe skating and stopping techniques before hitting "the rink" - the auxiliary gymnasium.

"I'm envisioning a Rollerblading day where we put some music on and let them skate for an hour," Trach said.

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He said he also hopes the program inspires students who have never tried inline skates before to get their own set of wheels and safety gear and start using them at home.

At least two other Lancaster County schools - Reynolds and Ephrata middle schools - offer inline skating programs for their students. Trach could not say if the L-S program will be the first of its kind at a county high school.

L-S High School was one of 75 schools in the state to receive a grant through the Highmark Healthy High 5 School Challenge, which awarded $605,000 this year.

Funded by the Highmark Foundation, the program supports efforts to improve student fitness, nutrition and self-esteem and reduce bullying.
E-mail: bwallace@lnpnews.com
LancasterOnline.com: Rolling into fitness

Re: High School Adds Inline Skating

On June 18, 2008, I will be teaching 38 PE (Physical Education) teachers in the Oakland Unified School District how to run a skating class as PE. They plan to present skating as part of their P E curriculum as well. In time this could lead to skate racing as an intramural sport. This is one of the examples of how we can generate interest in skating thal will lead to growth.

Keep Rollin',
D. Miles Jr.
The GodFather of Skating http://www.cora.org

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It's great that we are getting PE classes involved in teaching classes. I was wondering though, would these teachers be considered certified instructors? I know that as a PE teacher, I'll be pushing for funding for a skating program, but at the same time, I can say that I'm also a certified instructor to teach the skills. Will and should other PE teachers get certified so that they're teaching the correct progressions? I know that I've run clinics for other school PE teachers to show them how to skate so that they can teach it in their classes, but after teaching them, I wonder if they should also be certified. What's your thoughts?

Doug Sham
Silver Bay, NY

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Enabling people to skate should be the primary goal; a requirement for certification would keep some people from enabling others to skate. Best to help PE teachers, and everyone, to learn how to teach skating well, to help them every way effective, including clinics, documentation, critiques, informal comments, etc, and ideally to do this such that cost isn't an issue.

Jim White

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Jim, I agree fully, but then what's the point of getting certified or staying current with our certification if
we're just teaching other's how to teach and not get certified? I understand completely that I'd want to teach my future instructors the correct progression of skating and safety. I think it's great that we do it. I just want to know if it's alright that I'm not an examiner teaching my teachers or other's how to teach?

Doug Sham
Silver Bay, NY

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I had this delimna 10 years ago when the first skate in school programs were starting. I had a phys ed teacher that came to take one of the courses I was teaching through the local community college. Rollerblade had made her school one of the first schools in the country to offer skate in school. PE classes are looked at
differently in terms of the instructor. A PE teacher is covered by the school district if anything happens while they are teaching. They do not promote themselves as certified skating instructors.... they are PE teachers who are expected to teach a broad set of PE skills. Skating is one of them . The funny thing about the PE
teacher that took my class was that one of the kids on my demo team was in her gym class, and she used Justine to teach the other kids, which is what Team Mercury members did after every performance anyhow.

Amy

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As you know, I am always on a never ending quest to develop skating. On June 18, I will present a seminar to 38 PE teachers so far from the Oakland Unified School District that lays out the plan where they help to accomplish this. It is based on the concept that a PE teacher can become a certified instructor as a means of adding to their scope of range of teaching PE. I plan to lay out the ICP to them, encourage them to become certified, and then lay out a format they can follow to create an organized skating curriculum. Eventually this should lead to intramural skating sports that will expose young skaters to speedskating. That's down the line, but I'm in for the long haul.

This begins by teaching the teachers the proper level 1 skating techniques. This is the hook. I will get them excited about skating, but they will have to become certified in order to implement the plan. As the school districts begin to acquire skates and start a program, PE teachers with certification in inline skating could become in demand. If you think of it from the point of view of the teacher, this will put them on the leading edge of providing 21st century challenges to reach and motivate today's youth.

I am going to try to create some new allies through these teachers and a new path to help grow our sport. I am getting interest from the San Francisco School District as I am taking my skate school to Burton High School and ISA High School doing skating as PE beginning next week.

D. Miles Jr.

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Hiya D! Did you mean USSG?

I totally agree with getting schools involved with skating classes. The difference between having a PE teacher run a class with skating and a certified instructor teaching kids to skate is like having a DJ and skate guards oversee a rink session versus having kids take one of the classes, or a private lesson, from a certified instructor.

We all know kids put skates on and roll. It happens everyday all over the country. I'd love to see "session" skates at every school in the nation - even better if they piped in great music. ;-)

But, if kids truly want to learn skating skills - in a progression designed to give them a great foundation for better and more difficult skating skills and to make them better skaters, those PE teachers who truly want to TEACH the kids the skills to learn the basics should get certified. :-)

BTW, anyone can go to a gym and lift a weight - but the folks who I see lifting properly have worked with a certified trainer at some point. :-)

My 1 cent.

Heather Lacayo
former roller rink DJ/skateguard/manager
former certified personal trainer/fitness manager
current certified instructor/examiner USSG

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I am totally talking about USSG. I guess I'm still stuck on the ICP as the name of it. My bad.

D. Miles Jr.

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One of the problems is that PE teachers are only using skating as a "unit"... in other words, they skate sometimes... run others... basketball others... Schools are not going to spend the money to get teachers certified to teach a few weeks out of the school year. I tried to talk the school district that was first involved into getting the PE teacher certified, but they said that the teacher was not there to give professional instruction in skating.. She did tell kids that there was a skate school out there if they wanted to learn more advanced skills, and I did get a few students from it.

Yes, it would be great to see PE teachers as certified instructors, but the bottom line is money. School districts are pretty stingy with it. These teachers are not going out and teaching lessons in the community and passing themselves off as certified. They are teaching strictly in the school situation. I do know a few PE teachers who happen to be certified, but they were certified and then got their schools to use skating in PE classes.

Amy

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That's great to hear about your work with the schools D. I hope it all goes well. I would love if all teachers got certified, but I do agree with Amy about many schools lacking the funding for their teachers to become certified. I wish you luck. Amy, as a PE teacher, I know that we can create units where we would teach skating for 5 classes so that we could actually teach the full progression of skills 1. Many schools are based off of "gym" classes where you'll have one class of basketball, then the next class would be soccer, and so forth. However, there are schools out there where we have unit plans to teach all the skills of a sport and then maybe play a modified game using those skills. I would hope that if a teacher does get the money to buy enough skates for their students, then they would teach the skills to make skating safe and fun.

Doug Sham
Silver Bay, NY

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