Thursday, October 1, 2026
With the first phase of a district-wide overhaul of its physical education program nearing completion, District Director of Physical Education, Health & Athletics Carol Roseto took school officials and visitors on a tour of South Side High School’s newly upgraded weight room during the Board of Education meeting on May 1.
The new facility is equipped with state-of the-art weight training and cardio equipment, as are South Side Middle School and Covert Elementary School, courtesy of a three-year $1.3 million federal grant.
The Carol M. White Physical Education Program grant, secured last September, will be spread out over three years. A key aspect of the grant is to combat obesity within the community, to develop community relationships and provide opportunities for students to be physically active outside the school day. Accordingly, the Rockville Centre Recreation Center, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center and the Rockville Centre Hispanic Brotherhood will receive donations of Wii Fit Systems and televisions later this month. The same system will be donated to all elementary Project Great Programs run by Rockville Centre schools and will be used by physical education teachers in those buildings as well.
Roseto said that in year two, money will be given to Greenhouse, another of the district’s programs, and to Hewitt, Riverside, Wilson and Watson elementary schools to supplement the fitness curriculum. In year three, Roseto said that funds will be used to continue professional development for the entire staff, expand on the high school’s fitness center and provide supplemental equipment for each of the other buildings.
One of the grant’s requirements, Roseto explained, is to collect data that track changes in fitness and nutritional behavior, and student attitudes toward physical education and being fit in general. To comply, high school, middle school and Covert physical education teachers have incorporated this process into daily lessons. Students completed a fitness test, a three-day physical activity log, a fruits and vegetable consumption survey and wore pedometers for four-to-seven days depending on age, to track the number of steps taken each day. All of the data will be reported once a year to the federal government as a district-wide “snapshot” of the students and no personal data is included, Roseto said.
The district’s physical education teachers will soon begin receiving professional development on the use of the equipment and how to mesh a new curriculum into existing physical education units to incorporate a fitness element throughout lessons, increase activity and cut down on wait-time while increasing the “fun factor” in physical education.
