CATCH Pro Addresses National School Board Association (NSBA)

New Jersey Education Leader Shares the Secrets of Her Success in Coordinated School Health Programming

Judy LoBianco – Supervisor of Health, Physical Education and Nursing Services at South Orange-Maplewood School District in New Jersey – spoke at the 71st Annual NSBA Conference, April 9-11, in San Francisco, California. Her speech – For the Health of It! Building a Successful Coordinated School Health Program – covered what makes coordinated school health programming work.

According to Judy, a former CATCH Champion:
The CATCH program at Jefferson and Seth Boyden Elementary Schools is an amazing story. We’ve adopted not just the CATCH program, but a way of thinking. The philosophy behind the program helps us to embrace, as a school community, the importance of healthy, active children. This ideal reaches way beyond the gymnasium and health classroom. An environment that reinforces messages of health and physical activity from classroom to classroom, hallway to hallway, school to parents, and student into the community allows for children to grasp and understand the serious mission of eating right and exercising.

CATCH is about professional development, text resources, equipment and reinforcement. Beyond that, it’s a formula that advocates for health and physical education and links healthy, active children to increased academic performance.

Why did I bring CATCH to my school district? The research out of the University of Texas is what tipped the scales for my decision. The formula of CATCH that includes saturating all facets of the community with the messages of wellness has proven to help children internalize the learning and make better choices, not just while they are experiencing CATCH, but long after.

At Jefferson and Seth Boyden, our committees meet once a month, have fruit and vegetable tastings of the month and cooperate with parents and the school cafeteria to encourage children to try a variety of foods. We have a relationship with the local YMCA and after school programs that have the CATCH Kids Extra Program (an after school session of CATCH). We teach about health in our math, social studies and English classes.

I recall the concern that classroom teachers had about having yet another unit to have to teach. They were relieved to find that many of the simple concepts of the program could be infused just as I have described above. The program is about a belief in the health of children. I have seen it work and become a successful part of a school-wide program. CATCH is a success at these schools because the stakeholders are committed to the idea that health-literate and physically-educated children learn better. It is essential that school administrators and principals remain committed, supportive and vigilant in the continuation of this program over time. This support ensures that school culture will change and will become seamless over a period of years. Teachers need to be recognized for this work from the top down in order to affect change from the ground up.