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Paul Travers, the principal of Washington Elementary School in Guilford County, was interested in the connection of movement and learning even before the pandemic.
While the pandemic highlighted the importance of physical wellness for all of us, it also highlighted the disparate impact on those with pre-existing medical conditions.
As Travers and others in Guilford County Schools called parents to discuss barriers to getting kids back in person to class, he said parents, time and time again, would say, “Mr. Travers, you know we are high risk, and we can’t risk it.”
Travers wanted to ensure his students had the opportunity for different health outcomes both now and in the future, and since then, Washington Elementary has been all in on integrating physical activity into the school day, including into instruction.
They are seeing results.
Healthy Kids Day is Saturday, April 26, 2025. In celebration, join us for a visit to Washington Elementary, where the school day is organized around movement because “all systems of the body are impacted by the ‘core,” as noted on the school’s blackboards.
Morning movement
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommends that “children and adolescents 6 to 17 need to be active for at least 60 minutes every day.” Washington Elementary is shooting for 90 minutes throughout the school day.
It starts with morning movement, including circuits. This class is led by 4th grade teacher Bianca Watkins.
Mindfulness
After morning movement, the classroom lights are dimmed and soft music plays in the background. These students led their class through classic yoga poses, for example triangle, cat-cow, and child’s pose. Breathing, gentle stretching, and then meditation round out the daily practice.
This time affords students a moment to calm down and imagine what they want the day ahead to look like, offering affirmations to themselves and others.
Travers says the combination of morning movement and mindfulness is the school’s approach to “making sure our students are well, ready to learn, and emotionally ready to attack the day.”
Incorporating tumbling and gymnastics
Travers tell a story of a teacher asking him to come to recess. “I can’t get my kids to stop flipping,” said the educator. Travers imagined the kids doing what he calls “silly stuff,” but out on the playground, he realized “we had little gymnasts.”
“They were doing full twists and back flips,” Travers says. Instead of telling them not to do it, he chose to help them find a way to make it safe.
Now tumbling and gymnastics happen in the gym on mats with the physical education teacher present to make sure the students are using correct form and proper technique.
Tumbling and gymnastics are not the only pathway to more movement. Students also have access to opportunities to engage in full-body drumming, where the drums are made out of yoga balls on top of buckets.
Access to telehealth
In 2024, state leaders including then-Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Kody Kinsley and State Board of Education Chair Eric Davis, visited Washington Elementary to learn more about telehealth.
When you first walk in the school, there is a floor to ceiling sign about the school-based telehealth clinic.
“Your child can see a provider at school and get back to learning while you have fewer interruptions to your day,” says the sign. Visits address allergies, coughs, colds, sore throat, ear pain, fever, pink eye, and more.
Travers says more than 80% of the families are enrolled.
“When we think about attendance and making sure the students are in seats and ready to learn, this has been absolutely transformational for us,” says Travers.
Wellness begins with educators
“If we want to have healthier and well students, we have to have healthy and well staff,” says Travers.
Educators are participating in the movement circuits with students in the morning and counting their steps throughout the school day.
Instead of weekly, traditional staff meetings, they are bringing in nutritionists, physical trainers, yoga instructors, financial advisors, and even created an opportunity to learn line dancing.
“If we care about our staff, that’s going circle down to our students,” says Travers. “And they’re gonna be in a better place to provide instruction.”
Fostering the opportunity to move
The opportunity to move is fostered throughout the school building. There is a strength and conditioning lab. On the floors of the hallways, there are prompts to move the body in lots of different ways from yoga poses to long jumps.
Before and after the pandemic, school leaders visited Smithfield Elementary in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, where they learned more about how the body-brain connection fosters learning.
And, for professional development, educators have attended the Shape America Conference and the Action-Based Learning Summit.
Why movement works as a learning strategy
A sign in a hallway at Washington Elementary makes the case for “active bodies, bright minds:”
Students who are physically active have higher grades and test scores,
Active learning helps us focus and grow our brains stronger,
Physical activity reduces stress and helps us feel positive about ourselves and our environment,
Morning physical activity increases blood flow and oxygen to our brain, preparing our brain to learn, and
Focused breathing makes us feel calm and in control of our thinking and emotions.
Academic performance has increased since before the pandemic at the school, and it exceeds growth expectations annually.
Even more important to Travers, reports of self-harm are down from 20 to two. Out-of-school suspension have decreased by half.
“The indicators of embedding wellness since our building are very, very evident for us,” says Travers.
Editor’s Note: In the weeks before Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina, I was in Italy at the Italian Culinary Institute, learning among other things about what are called “blue zones.”
Blue zones, a term that is has now been trademarked and even has a Netflix series, refers to the world’s longest living cultures and research that has documented their five common characteristics, which include 1) diet, 2) physical activity, 3) social connections, 4) purpose, and 5) stress reduction.
In Italy, I was asked to consider what keeps schools from being blue zones, and how the health trajectories of students would change if they were.
I have found schools that focus on one or more of the five characteristics, but I am looking for a school that incorporates all five characteristics. Please email me at mrash at ednc.org if you know of one.
If you are an educator and want to incorporate more movement into learning, here is Washington Elementary’s Criteria for Success.
