June 19, 2017 -- Elementary students across Cleveland Heights-University Heights schools are - like most children their age - full of energy. Parents and staff members have put that energy to good use by engaging our district’s children in a variety of running clubs.
From Girls on the Run programs at Boulevard, Fairfax and Oxford, to run clubs at Canterbury and Roxboro to a lunchtime running group at Noble, students have learned one of the most challenging lessons of both athletics and of life: how to stick with something when it's hard.
Fairfax’s Girls on the Run group, led by gym teacher Alice Stratton and counselor Melinda Stoicoiu, made sure that lesson was front and center. Using the curriculum provided by GOTR, the group of eleven 4th and 5th graders (plus one third grade sibling) met every Monday and Thursday afternoon from March through May.
“This was not just about running,” said Stoicoiu, who spoke highly of the curriculum and training provided by GOTR. “It’s really about relationships.” At their 75-minute sessions, they would discuss issues like bullying, gossip, leadership, friendship and self-confidence, as well as how to set and reach personal goals and how to overcome challenges. They also took action beyond just running, by cleaning up trash along Lee Road and planting flowers on the school grounds.
The highlight of the spring session was a Girls on the Run 5K held at Infocision Stadium in Akron on May 20. All eleven members of the team gathered at Fairfax early on that Saturday morning to be taken by bus to Akron where they participated in the race together.
Rising sixth grader Harper Walker, who’s participated in GOTR for the past two years, said that it was fun and . . . tiring. “Our motto was, ‘No girl left behind,’ so we all finished the race together.”
Boulevard’s Girls on the Run group meets in the fall instead of the spring because “we want the girls to benefit from their newfound confidence and from the relationships they’ve formed with each other and with staff” for the entire year, according to fourth grade teacher Sherri Bellini. With a team of ten adults participating, they plan to have two complete teams next year, one for fourth graders and another for fifth.
This past November, the Boulevard group participated in the GOTR 5K in Mayfield Heights, sharing a bus with the team from Oxford Elementary.
Oxford PTA also hosted its own Color-A-Thon race on May 20, in conjunction with the school’s Carnival, part of a weekend’s worth of activities coordinated by the Noble Neighbors that take place throughout the northern end of Cleveland Heights.
Also on May 20, Roxboro Elementary hosted its fifth annual Run Like It's Recess. The Saturday morning event featured a 4-mile race, a 2-mile race and a Kids’ Fun Run on the middle school track. This year’s race attracted 300 runners, triple the number who participated the first year.
Race photos courtesy Gabe Schaffer
Race organizer and PTA member Roxanne Bain is proud of “the steady increase in both participation and money raised. I love this event and am glad it’s becoming a community tradition.”
The elementary school hosts its own Run Club, organized by Bain and fellow parents Kelly Nolan and Mary Sasmaz. Thirty-five 3rd through 5th graders met on Wednesday afternoons for seven weeks in the spring to run at the track, complete obstacle courses, play games and even get dirty on the trails along Doan Brook.
According to Bain, “We talked about running technique, breathing, posture, and so on, but mostly we just want the kids to think running is fun.”
That seems to have worked as a great many children participated in the 2-mile option, including kindergartners and even their preschool siblings. Runners as young as eight and 10 years old completed the 4-mile race.
One highlight of this year’s race was the participation of twenty-three members of Canterbury’s Run with the Tigers running club. The students were joined at Roxboro by some parents, teachers and even their principal Dr. Erica Wigton. The school group, coordinated by special education teacher Julie Meese and speech therapist Amanda Mazzone, was designed to include both typical and special education students in an extra-curricular activity. Mazzone really hopes to expand the concept to more schools throughout the district.
Canterbury second grader Adelina Szpak, who received a medal as the first 8-year-old to finish the 2-mile race at Roxboro, summed up the value of all these running groups: “It teaches self-confidence, it’s fun to run with your friends and it also gets you in shape!”