More than a dozen Maryland schools and 10 Virginia schools are on a list that ranks the healthiest in the country.
The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a nonprofit group that finds and scores the schools, unveiled the list last week.
More than 780 schools across the country were deemed the healthiest, which is the largest number of schools in the program’s history.
Virginia had 10 schools on the list and Maryland chalked up 15. D.C. wasn’t included in the list.
“We get to say that we have the healthiest kids in the nation,” said Stephanie Kohout-Maguire, physical education teacher at Springhill Lake Elementary in Prince George’s County, Maryland.
Montgomery County had seven designated schools that earned the title. Prince George’s County saw three of its schools selected, while Anne Arundel and Charles counties each had one school on the list.
Schools are scored in nine areas, including:
- Social and emotional health and learning
- Staff well-being
- Family engagement
- Nutrition and food access
- Wellness policies
- Tobacco-free schools
- Physical education
- Health education
- School health services
Kahout-Maguire said the ranking is significant because many students were out of shape when they returned to school following the pandemic school shutdown.
“It was hard,” she told WTOP. “A lot of their health levels, especially endurance went down dramatically. We usually do two-minute stations and kids couldn’t even stay physical for two minutes.”
Kahout-Maguire said the goal now is staying on the list by teaching students how to stay healthy over their lifetimes.
“We’ve implemented even more programs this year,” she said. “We have dance programs and we’ve started a basketball league. We’re really trying to hit it hard because we see these weaknesses that need to be focused on.”