Hyun Young, Teacher at Casita Center Elementary School, Vista Unified School District
The story of the Casita Mileage Club began in 2015 at a wellness meeting hosted by Amy Hassely, the nutrition lead at Vista Unified School District at the time, as well as by a group of teachers and district staff who were working as a wellness committee. Although the Mileage Club is currently only done in individual classrooms because of COVID, the program at one timehad grown into a success enjoyed by over 60% of the students on campus.
The planning for the Mileage Club started with uncertainty but was inspired during the wellness meetings, although there was no district mandate to start the program. The wellness committee wanted to do something to start helping kids with their wellness and to build healthy habits. An individual at the wellness meeting mentioned that she had a program like this at her school and from that conversation, we started to ask questions to figure out how we could do the same at Casita Center.
What is this Mileage Club? Can we do this? Can we actually start a Mileage Club? Where do we begin? With no experience leading a school running program and no budget, the wellness team started to build a successful mileage club program with the support of students, parents, and staff.
‘Casita’ refers to the Casita Center for Technology, Science & Math, an International Baccalaureate certified elementary school in the Vista Unified School District. Casita Mileage Club is a program where kids from all grade levels are welcomed to participate in running and walking together. Every Tuesday and Thursday morning, the team blasts happy music that helps the students to stay motivated and to run and walk as much as they can in 20 minutes.
During the first few weeks of the program, there were only a few students who showed up. The wellness committee was worried whether the club would make it or not, but the students that came were persistent and so were the parents who volunteered. By the end of the first month, the program was able to involve about 81 students on campus, and in the very first year of the running program, over 100 students participated.
Since that time, the program has grown tremendously. Students were pumped to run and walk with their friends every Tuesday and Thursday morning and were excited to celebrate at the end of each year with our very fun Color Run. In early 2020, before the pandemic hit, we had 344 runners participating in the program – that’s more than 60% of the students on campus!
Casita Mileage Club has been fortunate to have great support from parents, school PTA, and the community. One community connection that the program is grateful for is with Kathy Kinane from Move Your Feet Foundation, who currently sponsors our running management system called Student Lap Tracker. If you are a school located in North County area who is interested in a running program, reach out to Move Your Feet Foundation and ask about their Miles of Smiles Program.
This year’s Mileage Club looks very different because of COVID-19, but the program is still “running”. Students in different grades and classrooms are not able to mix quite yet, so our 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade teachers encourage their students to run at least once a week for 20-30 minutes., and it is logged in a program called Student Lab Tracker, where the teachers use a mobile app to scan in kids cards and track miles logged.
We are hoping that we will be able to offer the in-person Mileage Club again soon to all the students on campus and are looking forward to seeing happy, smiling kids running and walking with their friends and building healthy habits day by day! Here’s to a happy healthy school year everyone!
