Health and Wellness Success Stories at BLA!
23-24 BLRA Wellness Success Story:
During the month of February, our campus participated in Kids Heart Challenge and raised over $15,000 for the American Heart Association. The students at BLRA had a chance to learn about hands only CPR, signs of a stroke, and learned how to recognize the difference between their active and resting heart rate. Banning Lewis Ranch Academy was the top school in District 49 and also a top School in the Southern Colorado Region to bring awareness to heart disease and stroke. Thank you to the PE department and everyone who helped make this such a success!
23-24 BLRA Wellness Success Story:
This year at BLPA, we implemented and tracked staff participation in our “Motivation Monday” wellness newsletter and health challenge, to include a weekly Health related newsletter and monthly movement challenge for staff. As part of this, we conducted our own in-house Walktober challenge as well as other initiatives to encourage mindfulness, exercise, and healthy eating. Our campus is currently participating in the district wide Feel Like a Million challenge! At our campus we also participated in the American Heart Challenge, hosted the Dare2Dream assemblies, and implemented wellness related activities into our Wish Week! Shoutout to our staff, students, and community for continuing to place value around Wellness!
22-23 BLRA Wellness Success Story:
During the month of February, our campus participated in Kids Heart Challenge and raised over $21,000 for the American Heart Association. The students at BLRA had a chance to learn about hands only CPR, signs of a stroke, and learned how to recognize the difference between their active and resting heart rate. Thank you to the PE department and everyone who helped make this such a success! BLRA was a top 10 school in the state of Colorado for funds raised to bring awareness to heart disease and stroke.
22-23 BLPA Wellness Success Story:
Our campus recently wrapped up an extremely successful American Heart Challenge! A huge shoutout to our Wellness Team and PE Department for their efforts in planning and executing this for our community. We were able to raise over $3,500 for the American Heart Association and over 70 families in our community learned hands-only CPR! Thank you to all who participated in raising funds and awareness for congenital heart defects, nutrition security, CPR training, mental well-being and more as we work to end heart disease and stroke.
BLPA AHC Totals:
- Online donations: $3,564.87
- # Students online: 391
- 13 students completed Finn’s Mission
- 73 families learned hands-only CPR!
This year our Health and Wellness committee was committed to teaching the students at BLRA about perseverance, teamwork, and overall health. The Great Endurance Race was a five week PE unit where the students spent 10 minutes at the beginning of each class building endurance as they ran laps. They also kept track of their laps by using tally marks and working together to encourage their partner to set goals and meet them. At the end of the 5 weeks, each class added up all of their laps and converted them to miles to see if they were able to complete the Great Endurance Race. This unit was in alignment with the Fun Run put on by Boosterthon! This was a huge success for BLRA and we are looking forward to having our Bounce House Day and Color Blast first week in May to celebrate reaching our fundraising goal!
Another big event this year was the Kids Heart Challenge! We were able to teach the students about cardiovascular health and how it impacts their mind and body! Weekly messages were sent out to our BLRA community to raise awareness about heart disease and provide information on heart healthy choices students and families can make at home.
We are incredibly grateful to be a part of this community and share these success stories with you!
Coach Brooks and Coach Dosmann
Wellness Co Leaders for BLRA
This year at BLPA, we have tried to build upon the success of our Social-Emotional Learning programs from last school year. Our Counseling team has done an amazing job creating and executing strategies for better identifying the personal needs of our students. We have utilized referral programs to organize specific small groups for our students.
Our Strengthening Family Ties small group was open to 6-8 graders who were referred based on a divorce in the family or significant family change or disruption. The group sessions and activities addressed the following areas: Building Trust, Family Support, Kindness, Communication, and Working Together. The overall objectives for the group were (1) Identifying their feelings, their family roles, and changes in their family. (2) Developing coping skills: Learning how to handle problems and feelings. (3) The child’s role in family relationships. (4) The child’s perception of themselves and their families.
We also provided an Owning Up group for middle school girls who either were referred based on friendship/relationship issues that caused admin or a dean to intervene, or interest in gaining social skills. The group sessions address social and friendship skills to help middle school girls build and maintain healthy connections. The activities will empower your adolescent to confront social cruelty, bullying, and injustice while increasing their “soft skills” which are the ability to work with others, negotiate conflict, understand and respect the needs of others in balance with their own needs.
Lastly, our Coping Skills for Stress small group consists of 6th-8th graders who were referred based upon the needs assessment, self-referral, or teacher referral. The goal of this group focuses on identifying emotions, understanding personal response to emotions and situations, and understanding how to best utilize coping skills in a variety of situations. Students are taught to utilize these skills in both the school setting and home/personal setting.
A huge shoutout to our Wellness team and Counseling Department for all they do for our students, staff, and community!
Wes McKenzie and Ben Novak
Wellness Co-Leaders for BLPA
