Our partners at OEA Choice Trust support the health and wellness of Oregon’s public school districts through their Competitive Grant Program. The trust works with grantees to develop effective, sustainable, and engaging School Wellness programs.
Powered by their Custodian, Dayton School District is utilizing Walker Tracker to build a culture of health and wellbeing.
All school districts have a singular mission – to educate students and support their basic needs. While this also holds true for Dayton School District, there’s also a focus on the health and wellbeing of their employees. “We knew we needed to get people moving in our district,” says Nancy Moody, a Dayton SD Reading instructor. Walker Tracker was the wellness solution that encouraged physical activity and camaraderie among employees. Nancy became a Walker Tracker admin, and introduced the platform at weekly staff meetings and in Facebook posts.
Walker Tracker was particularly appealing to Custodian John Kempner, who regularly walks thousands of steps each day. After learning more about the platform, John became a WT admin, and regularly motivated his colleagues. “I am a custodian, I get a lot of steps in the cafeteria during lunch time, so I became a target. Folks were trying to match or exceed my daily step count.” Instead of gloating, John supported his coworkers by championing the cause of Walker Tracker. “I’d keep track of everyone’s steps, and if someone wasn’t uploading their steps daily or weekly, I’d encourage them to do so, and explain the benefits of Walker Tracker.”
The numbers tell the story of a successful partnership: Dayton SD has registered 84 walkers, including 21 in the new calendar year. They’ve walked over 56 million steps with more than 622,000 activity conversions. They’ve also doubled the number of participants since beginning their program in Q4 2019. John says each day he sees evidence that this partnership is working. “People are a little more active than they were before Walker Tracker. You’re finding out who the competitive people are.”
Going forward, Dayton SD expects to increase participation even more by engaging employees at their junior high and high school school locations.