New climbing wall at Veterans Park Academy
All the fourth graders and some third graders gathered in a shaded area of the Veterans Park Academy for the Arts Elementary School just a few days before school ended in Lehigh Acres to get a look at the new traversing (climbing) wall installed at the school. The students were excited and noisy until Veteran Park Principal Dale Houchin and Athletics Director and PE teacher Ben Ausman told them they were going to get a chance to climb the wall before schools ended.
Then Houchin told them they had improved several points on the FCAT scores and the kids shouted and hoorayed. Nearby teachers were smiling too of the good news.
Nicholas Sanchez, of Lehigh and a fourth grader at Veterans Park Academy was the first student to climb the new traversing wall after a ribbon cutting ceremony while several other students waited in line to take their turns. After Sanchez made it across the wall, his principal climbed up and was able to go all the way across, too, drawing applause from the young students. The wall measures 20 by 10 feet. When not in use, mats fold up to the wall so it can’t be climbed unless the PE teacher is there.
The unveiling of the traversing wall was a big deal for the students. Some 1,400 students attend Veterans Park Academy.
Patti Elkins and Susan Tutko from the school board’s downtown Fort Myers office were on hand for the unveiling of the wall. One person was missing however. It was Dr. James Browder, superintendent of schools. He had planned to come to the school but a last minute meeting kept him in his office.
But that didn’t deter the excitement of the kids sitting on the cool cement watching their fellow students climb the wall with its colorful knobs or “stones” like any other climbing wall. The object of this particular wall is for climbers to work themselves across to the other side.
Earlier this year, the school system was awarded the Carol M. White Physical Education Program Grant (PEP). The grant is being used for several physical education-related items, including the purchase and installation of six traversing walls.
Six schools received the same type of wall. They included, in addition to Veterans Park Academy, Lehigh Acres Middle School, North Fort Myers Academy for the Arts, Paul Laurence Dunbar Middle School, Three Oaks Middle School and Trafalgar Middle School.
The traversing walls will be used to challenge students both mentally and physically, help them develop critical thinking and problem solving skills and encourage physical activity to increase individual fitness levels, school officials said.
The area in which the wall has been installed is in a large breezeway between buildings at Veterans Park Elementary. It’s a shaded place where the temperature drops several degrees on a hot spring day in Lehigh.