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Fit Connection
Fit Connection is a podcast and video series that aims to build community among Health and PE educators by highlighting amazing teachers and administrators and sharing opportunities for growth and professional development. The show is hosted by Stevie Ray Gray, who teaches at Short Pump Elementary School in Henrico County, and whose infectious curiosity puts his guests at ease. The podcast is produced by Blue Ridge PBS in collaboration with the Virginia Department of Education.
Fit Connection
Episode 107: From the Principal's Chair - Why Health and PE Fuel Learning
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Guest Robbie Bolden shares how scheduling, staffing, and culture moves protect HPE time.
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Time to get off the sidelines and into the game. I'm your host, Phoebe Ray Gray, and this is Fit Connection. Uh today we all might be in trouble because we're taking a little trip to the principal's office. We're looking at health and physical education from the world of the admin. And I've got an awesome principal with us right now, Dr. Robert Bolden. Thank you so much for joining us today.
SPEAKER_02My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, man. It's great. Good to talk to you. My boy Robbie is a first-year principal. Can you just tell us uh where you're at? And um, I guess we'll start there. Yeah, where are you principaling at?
SPEAKER_02Yep. Uh I am a first year principal at Deep Creek Central Elementary uh in Chesapeake, Virginia. Um, we are roughly a uh just a few hundred thousand um uh population school. Um uh and it is an adventure every single day. PE world and much above it.
SPEAKER_01Big school. How's the first year going?
SPEAKER_02Uh busy, busy. Uh um, but that's probably that that's probably the most exciting side for me. Um, obviously coming from the PE world, we're used to moving um all day, not a lot of sitting. Um and in my previous uh role, although it was health and pe uh centric, it was at the central office. Um, and I missed the uh admin role because I had been in an admin role prior to prior to going to central office. Um and I spent seven years uh in central office supervising health and pe for the city of Chesapeake. Um, but it was nice, it's been nice to get back in a building and uh we say put out fires and where I'm not doing the same thing all day, uh moving around and uh um yeah, I've really found enjoyment in in the pace for sure.
SPEAKER_01So you were in the central office uh HPE world. Did you have any prior experience to PE before that? Were you were you? I did.
SPEAKER_02I did. Yep. So I went to Longwood Um College at the time uh and originally went for athletic training. Um, you know, I was an athlete in high school. That's mainly, you know, what I what I focused on. Um was a a decent student, but because um I had uh so many sports that I knew I had to be a decent student to be able to compete with sports. Um so that's where that and then college kind of fell into my lap as a senior. Um, it wasn't something that was very common in my family um for people to go to college. Um, and I saw all my friends uh making all these decisions and um got interested and and um that's kind of fell into my lap. So I was like, oh no, what do I like? And I started with athletic training, um uh had difficulty keeping up with uh the hours with D1 sports um at Longwood because you had to travel with the basketball team and the baseball team and doing that and keeping my grades up, I was having uh difficulty with. Um and so after the first year, I looked at all my options and uh not wasting too many credits and uh physical education um teaching um in general. Uh kind of went to a couple classes that first semester and then uh started to find the love uh uh and understood, you know, my teachers and my coaches um through middle school and high school a little bit more after going through it. Um, and was early hired as a family life education teacher in Chesapeake. Yeah. So my first my first foray was health and health only in the family life world um from roughly 2000 to about 2008. Um, we have um we still have the family life program um today, but we I traveled around um the entire district focusing on two boroughs um with a partner teacher um teaching family life. So that was kind of my first uh forway uh into that. And then from there, I was a high school physical education teacher um for four years um at Western Branch High School, also, also in Chesapeake.
SPEAKER_01Um you spent most of your time in Chesapeake then?
SPEAKER_02Uh every bit of it. Yep, yeah. After uh after Western Branch um high school, I became an administrator at Deep Creek High School, which is not too far down the road. And I stayed there uh roughly nine years prior to becoming uh supervisor of health and pe um in 2019.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. And then went back into the admin role.
SPEAKER_02Yep, yep. An opportunity, an opportunity uh came about that and uh I was brought in and and they offered, and and here we are.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome. Uh has your I guess with all the switches from like classroom back to admin back to classroom, has has your perspective on health and physical education changed much in any of those roles? Or what does it look like for you now looking at the health MPE teacher at your school?
SPEAKER_02I would say that it's changed. But that wouldn't, I would say that it's changed in my view of it from the the the different positions I've had, but it's also changed, you know, over the last 30 years um in general, uh the physical education world. Um, whether you want to talk about respect in education or um matriculating away from uh dressing out, there's been so many, you know, kind of changes um that have happened. I think for me, it's been nice to be in a school, then in central office and in an admin role because the perspective from there, each role is completely different. Um, very much so. Um, and that doesn't um specifically associated with PE. As a teacher, um, you really don't think that admin really understands, you know, what's going on when you're attempting to explain a situation or how you run things or what uh classroom observation might look like in PE versus math, which obviously are two different things. Um, and I really didn't wrap my head around that until I was a supervisor trying to teach administrators the best way to observe a physical education class or even coming up with the look for's or walkthrough pointers that that administrators will need. And I think that yes, PE has changed, but my perspective, if I would have come just out of a teaching PE, right into that role, um, I would have gone about it very differently uh than I did uh after being an administrator, because you see things very differently. And at being a central office person and then being back as an administrator, I see the world completely differently now too, based on that pace. Um but with PE, it was really, I think it's very difficult to come right out of the classroom and and supervise um PE teachers without some administrative experience. So you understand uh kind of the pace that decisions are made at the admin level, both central office and um administratively. Um because in a PE world, we're used to quick decisions organized all day long chaos, we're used to the noise, we're used to organizing at a high school level hundreds of kids um very quickly, which not everybody, not everybody is, uh especially administrators.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. You mentioned uh how you can observe PE teachers differently than like classroom teachers. Is there a way or like a strategy that you have to support health and fiscal education teachers um in your position now when there's so much pressure on like testing subjects like core curriculum? Um, how do you go in and just make sure that those P teachers know that they're still supported and that what they're doing is important, even though they're not getting the highlight as much as uh reading or math or social studies or something. They even call it social studies anymore, or science.
SPEAKER_02Right? History, yeah. Um, it's in it's interesting that you brought up reading first because obviously in Virginia, um, there's a very big push with the science of reading um and the individual laws that have come in uh with reading, which when you look at on paper, you would automatically assume is going to affect instructional time for everybody. Um, and then as resource teachers, we're gonna think, oh no, how's that gonna affect us? Um, so from my side, it's protecting the resources, specifically health and PE instructional time. Um that's that's an imperative uh point, regardless of secondary to elementary. The teachers are completely different. The way that you have to engage with students is completely different. But if you don't protect that instructional time, you're twofold. You're missing out on individual things that the students could be learning in the health and PE curriculum, or we could talk about any of the resource curriculum. Um, but then you're also telling the teachers that what they're doing is not as important of whatever you're taking away from. Um, so when I'm looking at my schedule, that's the last option is taking away not only for the students, but just as much for the teachers so that they feel empowered. So protecting instructional time, that's usually important for me. Um, providing equipment and resources. Obviously, as a central office uh supervisor, I had a lot bigger role in that um financially. Um, and for my position, we were coming from not having a supervisor, a physical education supervisor when I first were you the first one? I wasn't the first one. Um I think during 2008, during the housing crisis, when somebody retired, they didn't fill it, and then um they gave it to a science supervisor who did double, which is common in a house.
SPEAKER_01Most most of the smaller districts have somebody who's doing uh science and music and PE, and you gotta try and figure out how they're juggling all those things, right?
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And so as initiatives come from the state, um and family life uh started to increase uh competencies and there were different requirements coming out of the PE world. Um I think that assisted uh with the district, like, oh, okay, I can see the importance there. And we have 250 uh health and PE um instructors in the city um who need some guidance. Um so um luckily that worked out on that side. Um so providing equipment and resources, um, but it's just as much important at the individual school level to do that as well, um, including PE and health in instructional conversations. Whether that be your uh, you know, one to two PLCs a month um across my my grade bands, or if I'm making decisions that are unilateral instructionally, that I'm involving not just my health and PE team, but involving the resource team in those discussions again, how because I'm I know how it's gonna affect them because I've been in the seat. But if I were speaking to other administrators, you really need to know how it does affect them. Um, how does me taking over your gym at 7:30 in the morning for an in-house field trip affect you? Your class doesn't start until nine. Well, I know set up, take down, it rained two days ago. I've thought of all those things, but most administrators are just like that's a space. Um, so including them in those conversations kind of hedge those things off before you ever get there. You have to observe them, you have to provide feedback.
SPEAKER_01I mean, say that a little bit louder for some administrators.
SPEAKER_02Um I can I can talk about how observations should look in general, not in PE, because that the way I operate, but um, I think a lot of people just assume everything's going fine. And it's not just health and pe. I mean, I think it's very, very common for um art and music and library, especially. Um, but you have to get in there and you have to provide feedback. And that was kind of one of the big goals as as central office, is they have to know what type of feedback because it's it's not the same. Yeah, looking engaged in a in a during a math lesson is not the same engagement in a health and PE lesson. When I tell you I want to see more student modeling and less uh adult modeling, you know, that looks different in in a classroom. Like, not to me who can see both, but to a general education teacher and a resource teacher, that looks completely different on what is expected. Uh, everybody should be moving. Sure, I can say that to you, but what does that actually look at look like?
SPEAKER_01Like we get all of that, right?
SPEAKER_02And then uh lastly, I would say just celebrating the program. Celebrating your uh the wins um and the things that they're talking about, whether that's on your morning announcements, um, lunches, videos, um anything you can do to celebrate them. And that includes art, and that includes um, you know, your specials or your other um resources. You gotta involve them. They're just as much a part of the school. And um, if anybody were to read my dissertation on where that doctorate came from, um, I believe that the the whole child um is greatly affected by physical activity. And I think it's directly connected to instructional outcomes.
SPEAKER_01Um but that's awesome. Can you can you think of like a specific story, like a student story, maybe where you saw the value of health or physical education directly as it impacted maybe their academic performance or or the the climate of the school?
SPEAKER_02I think that the for academic performance, that's more um research and databased. Um I think the mental health piece is something that is more visible and tactile in a daily um watching a student um kind of find their way in health and PE. Um, because as a as a health and PE teacher and administrator that would walk into a secondary um classroom, the very first thing I'm gonna do is look to the wall. Who's sitting? Who's in the bleachers? Why, why are they in the bleachers? So that's one of the things we changed um a couple years in is uh when I noticed how many people were not dressing out due to uniforms. That was a relatively easy decision. I wonder how much of that associated with the uniforms. Let's get rid of those, right? Um there are multiple variables there. One of the biggest variables is being comfortable in even coming into physical education. And if that barrier is what kept you from even thinking about engaging, that was an easy easy barrier for me to disengage. It was very difficult with teachers to explain the reasoning and why and why it's going to equal more movement and you have 20 minutes more of class and all the reasons. Um so that uh seeing that from a you know large scale standpoint of 30,000 students um walking around and seeing students who I know the year before were not involving themselves in physical education at all, um, now being involved. Um, two is something as simple that I see every day here is the way that my PE teacher may differentiate a lesson um or have multiple um models of a skill um from various students and and seeing that, watching a kid who I know in class that I've seen shut down for math, who's about to get there that way, but sees, wait, I can still complete this task, it just looks different. Okay. And seeing that, and then as a kindergartner or first grader, I could make your day. You know, I mean that's that's a big deal. I got to play in the game. Yep, right? Um, or I learned a skill that I never thought I was gonna learn for whatever reason. Um, and uh being able to see that, yeah, I I think that that it's mental health, you can't, it's hard to give it a rating. Yeah. Um, with that. And that's even the mental health discussion aside. I just mean being active in movement and self-esteem, um, how much you can do, let alone the discussions about health and mental health in the classroom in general.
SPEAKER_01So are you are uh well, this is an obvious question because you principal, so you're obviously part of the the overall like school wellness strategy. Um, but how much of that strategy do you get to take part in, like actually writing, and then how much of health and physical education rolls into there? Because you already meant mentioned mental health education, that's very important. Um, is there any other parts from the admin side that kind of meshes with health and physical education in that sense?
SPEAKER_02So I think being careful, I think a lot of people push the cross-curricular um stuff a lot um to a point where they may push your health and PE teacher um to become a math too far, right? A little too far. Um and in that whether that's they don't have the capacity, and it's perfectly um good to build capacity, but I do think we have to be careful with that discussion because I don't want to take away from the competencies that I believe in in the state of Virginia either, right? And the more we not force but push cross-curricular, I just don't want to water that side down. Um so it creates that's why you involve them in those conversations so they can sit in a PLC and say, how can I make that work? Um, you know, how can I incorporate this? And whether that is with, you know, we purchase brain balls for everybody. I don't know, I know you guys know what they are, but like uh things like that, right? That's an easy way to trick a kid into what we're doing and to even trick a teacher. Believe it or not, you can do this and still play 50 games. It's really wonderful. Um, but I think that's that's a difficult um part. Um, another thing we focused on in our district, um, especially with the um reading and writing changes um in the state of Virginia, which have all been positive, is to incorporate more writing um in health and PE across the board, K through five, um, and how to make that simple for a health and PE teacher. Um, and the way we did that was the because but so strategy, because uh outside of health in middle school and high school, there's not they're not getting much writing. Um, but we can take any standard, competency, lesson, idea, nutrition, label, you name it, uh, and do a because but so writing activity um with prompts and and build their capacity for writing. So we're still talking about health and PE, but we are uh drastically helping, um, especially, you know, we see every kid. Yeah, that's another thing. We see every kid. Uh for us now we have a new uh new um resource schedule. We see them uh twice every six days. Um uh we made a push this year for common planning for elementary. So we um we luckily in my school have six teachers per grade level and six resources, so it's a pretty good um very helpful on my side. Um, but yeah, those those are the things where I think you can make a difference in administrator. Um, I think there's a there's a few mistakes that people make um that that are very similar, kind of just the opposite of what I discussed. Um you get you mean if you have instructors or administrators that still view it as recess without structure, um, you know, that's a problem. Uh pulling kids from PE for interventions. Um, and that's a big scheduling thing with administrators. So obviously I have tons of uh students who may need reading plan or math assistance or tutoring outside of that. And in no way whatsoever do we pull from resources. That time is pulled from other places, small group in other areas, and that's twofold. One, the student needs that outlet, whether it's physical, whether it's the music, whether it's art, they need that outlet. Um, and taking it from them is is jet to me just as detrimental. I can't show you the numbers for that, but just as detrimental is not tutoring them, right? So I say you find time for the tutoring um and then not take it out um on there. And uh that shows the teachers and hopefully builds to the teachers that how important the PE teachers and the general education teachers and how important what is going on in there. Chesapeake, we don't do um standards-based report cards. So I have to fight that battle in K5 because there's no grades, right? Um, but that doesn't change standards and that doesn't change the ask from the administrator side. Um, but the less informed an administrator is, the less they're looking at that non-SOL category to make sure competencies are happening. Um, you know, where most administrators can't walk in and say, um, well, you know, that that student is galloping or skipping. And where and they're in second grade, uh, and they don't know should should they have been doing that two years ago? I'm not sure. And right, um, so it's one thing to build the capacity with the walkthroughs, how engagement, um, you know, student modeling, uh, whatever it may be. And then that piece is a whole separate piece to try to build that instructionally. Um, I'm still working on something here on how my resource team can present lessons to the teachers um to kind of show them how they would feel and some of the strength. Structure that they're they're not realizing. Um, trying to kind of work on a format. I got a lot of things to work on first year in the first year in a school and the things you think about. But that's one of them. I've been happy with the um respect and understanding of uh of our resource teachers from our general education team. Um, but I think that would be um very helpful. And I mean, beyond like here's a cool um art project or let's uh or let's play uh dodgeball or something, you know, uh, which literally is not happening. Um but uh hopefully, right? That's some things I'm working on. I thought you guys would find that funny though.
SPEAKER_01So let's say you have a teacher who's like actually curious about what a quality PE program looks like. How would you describe it from the admin side as um like this this PE teacher or this healthy PE teacher's program is thriving? Like, what are the signs for a healthy uh PE program?
SPEAKER_02All right, so there's a lot of them. Um I would uh first and foremost, I want them, they should be able to see that we're focused on the whole child. I know, like we're obviously not looking at one lesson to be able to describe that, but if I were describing it, um, that we're focused on the whole child. Um, and are we seeing both sides of instruction where physical education standards and health standards, at least from my side, right? That's very important um to me, and it's very difficult due to a lot of elementary structures across the state of Virginia.
SPEAKER_01Um, it's hard to press that on teachers too, because they have uh these preconceived notions from their PE classes, and we have to emphasize it's not just motor skills that we're doing in here. Yep, there's a whole there's five whole standards that we're trying to throw into these lessons that you give us.
SPEAKER_02Yep. And I find sneaky ways to to make that happen with weather and different things where oh no, we have to push in today. And I know for a fact when we're pushing in, we are more likely to have a healthier health instruction during all the time. Um, so currently in Chesapeake, we're 40 minutes twice a week with our elementary um folks. Um so that's very difficult. Um, so the first thing I would say is that you should be able to notice that it's not just physical education, that it's health. And a very good um program can do that with movement. I mean, especially at the K through five level. It looks completely different. Um, six through uh 12. It can be done through movement, but it's a little bit different in K5. Um no downtime or limited to no downtime. Um, and I think that that I think people focus a lot on um the things they think are required from administrative staff to make excusesn't the right word, but to make the PE classroom look more like a regular classroom because I'm taking role or because I'm doing this, all of which can be done while we're moving. Um, so if when I was talking to administrators who don't understand what a good PE looks like, um, you know, that that was important. I said, there's not many times that they're not moving. Uh there may be a couple minutes, regardless of level, uh, of some modeling and whole group um instruction, um, and a very short closure um at the end and an elementary very short with an exit ticket, and that exit ticket could be physical, um uh uh depending on what it uh what it is. So it's kind of interesting. You have administrators who have years and years and years of experience in education, um, and instructionally um sound well beyond the years of of my understanding of instruction and general education. Um it's difficult to to say what a good what a good PE program looks like. Um uh to share from all over the place, right? It can, it can. Um, but those conversations with your with your PE teacher, that that's what changes. That's what that's where you that's where the magic happens, is having that relationship and building that capacity for when I do need to say, hey, you know, you don't go outside um as much as I would like you to. Um how can we work on that? And why do you think that would be important um to your students? And and and let's walk through that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I we're running out of time. I hate to end this, but I've got one more one more question. Uh, what's one thing that you wish uh health and physical education teachers uh knew about how administrators like yourself think about their programs? Like if I'm PE teacher, elementary school, and I'm just wondering what does my principal actually think about? They're not really in here all the time or as often as I'd like for them to be. I know they're not popping in just to check on me. Um, what's that one thing that you want anybody that might be in your school to think about?
SPEAKER_02Um, for me is that there's not one uh subject, person, teacher that's better or or requires uh more or less attention over uh, you know, let's say this the the a whole hundred and eighty year, that everybody deserves the same amount. Um and that if I'm not showing it, that should be a discussion that that we have uh because I need them to be comfortable. Um if they don't think they're doing a great job, I need them to be comfortable asking that. I also then need to be comfortable on things that I see to be able to provide feedback and to be able to be received. Now that takes time and that builds relationships. Um but I think uh people come into a school and let's say, you know, I have 36 general education teachers um and six um um or seven um PE library, my my specials. Um you come into a school and you think about scores and you want to fix that. And you and you talked about that early with all these all the things that are required. They don't focus on PE because it seems to be running well, right? Minus they more you have more injuries, right? The nurse mostly there's more injuries coming out of there, which there should be. Um, you know, we're getting hurt, they're more in there than they are anywhere else. Obviously, there will be resource because there's statistically new we're gonna have more injuries. Exactly. No, when you uh if if you come into a school, it it very it really is automatic because those are where you have scores that you focus on the areas that you think you can improve. I just wish more administrators and P teachers knew that that movement and that self-esteem and that mental health piece is helping instruction, not the other way around. It is bolstering instruction. Um, whether that is you look at the statistics to look at direct correlations with the amount of movement you have per day with overarching um English and math SOL scores. That was my specific dissertation. Or if we're just looking about how it affects mental health and movement, or if we're talking about this is not just PE, classroom breaks, classroom movement breaks, which we know that. I mean, yeah with the CMO. I mean, I look at you directly and know exactly what you were thinking with them. Um that's just as much because you know they don't just come back. Teachers don't want kids to just come back tired. And that's not what happens from PE. That's what it looks like. They come back tired, and so they're they they're they're just tired, so they don't talk and they don't, they're not interrupting me. That's really not what's happened. You know, they they're not tired and done, they're locked back in because they've gotten that, they've gotten their movement out. They there's some positivity that happened um in there, they've learned something socially, um, you know, whatever it may be, and they're they're ready to lock in. They're better, they're they're they're more apt to learn. Obviously, they're not going to move around as much, uh, a lot of our students. Um, I just wish we used it more as a uh positive impact and less of uh something that's getting in in the way of our instructional time. And I think that that's probably my elevator speech on that right there, is is it it is not hurting. It's it's not hurting, it's helping. That's recess, classroom movement, and uh increase in physical education. And if you look at minutes across the state, um district-wise, um the ones that have uh the highest amount of minutes um versus the ones that have the lowest amount of minutes, there's anomalies across there. Uh, it's something you can see.
SPEAKER_01Well, I want to say thank you so much, uh Robbie, for spending some time and sharing your knowledge with us. And thank you, listeners, for spending some time with us as well. Keep those heart rates as high as your spirits. And we'll catch you on the next lap for Fit Connected.
SPEAKER_00FitConnected is produced by George BP in collaboration with the Virginia Department of Education, hosted by TV Right Grade with assistance from V O E Let's go education coordinates.