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Page 17 April 2011 Young swimmers pick up backyard lessons Tracy Herbst: “It is personally rewarding, watching a child become con fi dent in the water.” 2007 override funds help schools increase library use By Nicholas Herrle Brunson-Lee Elementary School is in a low-income neighborhood with about 91 percent of its student body qualifying for free or reduced lunches. That reality spurred a nutrition program to help students make healthy choices in their lives, said school principal Mario Tijerina. The school of about 450 students, which is in the Balsz Elementary School District, was featured last semester by Phoenix Magazine for having one of the best health/ nutrition programs in the state. Tijerina, who is in his third year as principal of Brunson-Lee, said his vision for a successful nutrition program stems from growing up on a farm in Casa Grande. The farm helped teach him self-reliance and the importance of a healthy diet in everyday life, he said. “In some cases, it’s easier for parents to buy food from the dollar menu rather than fresh foods,” Tijerina said. Brunson-Lee is creating awareness through a garden students planted on Earth Day last year. The garden has nine plots in all, and the types of vegetables and fruits incorporated change with the seasons. When the time comes to harvest the vegetables and fruit, some is donated to a family at the St. Mary’s Food Bank and the rest of the harvest belongs to the students who take part in the after-school program, Tijerina said. The after-school gardening program is run by Susan Selzo, who follows a program called Nutrition To Grow On created by Deb Robinson, a Maricopa County community dietitian. “The program offers the students the opportunity to learn the food pyramid, and how to balance a good diet,” Selzo said, “Students are learning how vegetables can taste good, some of which they have never even heard of.” Continued on page 26 By Brittany Morris An Arcadia resident has made it her year-round goal to assure that parents and children are mindful of water. “I believe that it is never too early to educate your child around water. That’s why I’m here,” Tracy Herbst said. Herbst, owner and facilitator of Arcadia Infant Swim, has been providing life survival tactics useful in the water for children 6 months to 6 years since 2005. “Because of where I live I serve families from Arcadia, and wonderful relationships are built,” she said. “I go to Safeway and see the children, and parents of children that I’ve taught in my swimming pool. It makes you feel like you’re a part of a community, instead of a little fi sh in a giant pond.” Herbst said her goal it to curtail the number of childhood drownings. In a study by American Academy of Pediatrics in 2010, drowning accounts for more than half of the deaths among children younger than 4. Studies show that giving children lessons as early as 6 months can put them at an advantage. Herbst said her strategies are derived from a national program, Infant Swimming Resource (IRS), in which people in nearly every state throughout the U.S. are trained. “The courses I took with ISR were rigorous, and I was training nearly every day after work for fi ve weeks,” Herbst said. Now she’s turned her training into a full- time profession. “It is personally rewarding, watching a child become con fi dent in the water, knowing they could save their lives,” she said. “The reward is unmatched with anything else that I could imagine doing.” The classes are designed to slowly acclimate an infant or toddler to the water. Five days a week, for several weeks, the student will spend 10 minutes in the water with Herbst for one-on-one sessions. Children as young as 8 months are able to hold their breath, fl oat on their backs and call for help, Herbst said. Testimonies drawn from Arcadia Infant Swim’s website detail previous client experiences. “My kids love Ms. Tracy. It’s been almost eight months since their last lesson and they still ask me to go swimming at Ms. Tracy’s house. Tracy started training my daughter when she was 8 months old and my son when he was 2,” Courtney wrote. Classes start this month and continue throughout the summer at Herbst’s Arcadia home. www.arcadiaisr.com. Balsz garden emphasizes nutrition By Brittany Morris The seven-year capital override approved by voters in 2007 allocated nearly $4.4 million - $627,142 a year – to SUSD libraries. Sharon Ewers, the lead SUSD librarian and librarian at Arcadia High School, said since the infusion of money for print and online resources, school readership at Arcadia High School increased nearly 40 percent just in the past year. A priority, Ewers said, was to refresh the fi ction in district libraries. “We have become a community of readers in Arcadia,” Ewers said. “Reading is the core of all knowledge. “It’s simple: if you offer better books, students will read more.” In the past year, AHS’s library partnered with Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe for a book signing. Several young-adult authors participated, including Aprilynne Pike and Sophie Jordan. Books clubs are in existence at several of the schools. Christine Hawes, Ingleside Middle School librarian, said she has students coming to the library on their own time. “They look for recommendations and things to read,” she said. “It’s so great to interact with kids over literature,” she said, “and electronic databases, even.” Funds from the capital override have allowed SUSD to take advantage of the online market. Teachers, students and parents can seek more than 131,672 sources and interactive learning modules through the SUSD libraries, 40,000 of those as eBooks. Teaching aids, scholarly databases, source books and encyclopedias can be accessed in the classroom, library and at a student’s home, all at the same time. “We’re a knowledge economy,” Ewers said, “and we have to bridge the gap between the print and digital.” “We’re priming minds for the future.” To keep everyone connected and informed about all the offerings in the district’s libraries, meetings, newsletters and informational sessions are held on a regular basis. If voters had not passed the override, Ewers said, there would not have been any new books. The average copyright date for printed materials now has improved from 1989 to 1995, with more improvement to come. “A library is what makes our democracy work, and it is vital that information is available in all forms for students,” Ewers said. “And, it’s free.”