In the 2011-2012 school year, The School District of Palm Beach County was the recipient of the Carol M. White Physical Education PEP Grant. In the grant’s first year, the District was able to successfully train 45 elementary school physical education teachers from 36 elementary schools through eight days of quality professional development. Over the eight days of professional development workshops, the District’s physical education teachers were trained to implement a research based curriculum, nutritional education, data collection, best practices, and much more.

Through high quality professional development, the physical education teachers were able to successfully collect data on over 2,700 elementary school students and have impacted moderate to vigorous activity with physical education classes by more than fifty percent. In the first year, over 28,000 elementary school students benefitted from new instructional curriculum strategies, activities, and nutritional education.

In the 2012-2013 school year, the Carol M. White Physical Education PEP grant, added 36 more schools and 2 special needs schools to the grant. 46 physical education teachers received 8 days of professional development and collected data.

By the end of the 2012-2013 school year, these teachers collected data on over 2,700 students and over 28,000 more elementary school students benefitted from the new instructional curriculum. That brought the total number of teachers trained to 91 and data was collected on 5,400 students. In just two short years of this valuable grant, 56,000 students have benefitted from the SPARK curriculum.

In the 2013-2014 school year, the Carol M. White Physical Education PEP grant, added 36 more schools to the grant. 40 physical education teachers received 8 days of professional development and collected data.

By the end of the 2013-2014 school year, these teachers collected data on over 2,900 students. That brought the total number of teachers trained to 131 and data was collected on 8,300 fifth grade students. In three years of this grant, over 75,000 elementary students have benefitted from the SPARK curriculum.