A Community Partnership that Changed the Lives of Flagstaff

Paul Kulpinski

FitKids at school – Working together to improve the health of the school community

Over the past several years there has been an increased awareness of dangers of childhood obesity and its consequences. In 2009, the Flagstaff Unified School District and Flagstaff Medical Center began to track trends of student height, weight and other measurements.

During the 2011-12 school year, FitKids developed a proposal to collaborate with the district to broaden their focus to include prevention and overall wellness through school-based education classes, community events and after-school activities.

Implementation of FitKids in Flagstaff schools took place in the 2012-13 school year.

There was a lot of hard work and collaboration that went into the successful launch of this program with the Governing Board, Flagstaff Medical Center and the individual school sites. 
The outcomes have been very successful and shown through many evaluation measurements. In its second year of implementation, the program was expanded to the secondary schools.

ASPRA Reporter Karin Eberhard, Flagstaff