HELENA — Hawthorne Elementary Physical Education teacher Joesy Rye is looking to bring the “All Kids Bike” program to his kindergarten classes as early as the 2024.
“The reason why I wanted to incorporate it is just to provide more opportunities. And just to get kids, you know, more interaction with things they could do throughout their lives. As a PE teacher, one of my main goals is to help students develop more of an active lifestyle, as opposed to you know, the kind of the trend now that’s more sedentary, so anything that gets kids active,” he said.
The Program comes with a hefty $5,000 price tag, but would be well worth it for the students. The price includes a fleet of 24 convertible Strider bikes, bike helmets, and program implementation training.
PE teachers across the nation abide by national and state standards set by SHAPE America. The All Kids Bike program would coincide with these standards.
“Well, we have five standards that we teach, and implementing the bike curriculum can fit into each one of those standards, whether it's just developing coordination, by balancing on the bike, you know, the idea of continuing to try and doing challenging things. So all kinds of different ways to incorporate the bike curriculum into the standards that were already teaching,” Rye said.
The school plans on putting on fundraisers to help with costs, but they also have a donation link.
Launched in March 2018, there are already 561 schools in 50 states with All Kids Bike Kindergarten PE Programs, and Hawthorne Elementary hopes to be next.
