San Leandro Unified School District

Jefferson Elementary School a Finalist in Governor's Fitness Competition

Jefferson Elementary School students are off to a good start on a healthy life. The school is among 116 finalists in the statewide Governor's Challenge Competition , a contest designed to promote increased physical activity and better nutrition among California’s children. 

Jefferson is one of just nine Bay Area schools to make it to the finals. 

For the competition, the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports asked kids to be active 30-60 minutes a day, at least three days a week for a month. All of Jefferson's 624 students successfully completed at least one challenge this year, according to a news release.

Together the school’s students, teachers and parents engaged in more than 7,900 days of physical activity.

The effort was led by Jefferson principal Ruben Aurelio and PE teacher Kelly Ball. Jefferson has participated in the competition for the past three years, but this is the first time the school has made it to the finals. 

"Our goal was to get everyone active every single day," Aurelio said. To do this, the school gave students a variety of ways to get their daily exercise. 

A running club was started, with competitions and prizes given out every Wednesday leading up to the Run for the Schools event sponsored by the San Leandro Sports Foundation in May. Aurelio led by example, winning the competition for fastest principal at the event. 

Jefferson also had three after-school sports teams this year — co-ed volleyball, and boys and girls basketball. 

Finally, Jefferson had lots of help from Playworks , the national nonprofit group that sends coaches into needy schools to transform recess into play. Jefferson is one of two schools in the district that contracts with Playworks (Garfield Elementary is the other). 

The school pays roughly half the salary for a full-time Playworks coach through Title 1 funding, while Playworks picks up the tab for the other half, Aurelio explained.

At Jefferson, Playworks Coach Steve Kropp set up game stations at all recesses, and trained fourth and fifth grade students as "junior coaches" to help run the games. The junior coaches also encouraged positive play among their fellow students and provided motivation.

"So there’s a leadership component for the kids as well,” Aurelio said.

In addition, coach Kropp took over each class every two weeks and offered a special game time. "Kids really loved it," Aurelio said.

The San Leandro Scholarship Foundation Gives Awards to San Leandro ...

This year 172 students received close to 250 individual scholarships. All in all, students received $620,882 in scholarships, up from $570,000 last year. Scholarships given out from universities totaled $470,200. From the San Leandro Scholarship Foundation , $138,682 was distributed and from other local community groups, $13,800.

Many, if not most, of the university scholarships are renewable for the students for four years, and some are considerable amounts.

San Leandro High School is the major public high school in San Leandro Unified School District. San Leandro High school offers challenging curriculum and electives, opportunities in the arts, and an extensive variety of sports, clubs and extracurricular activities.

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