Cedar Rapids Community School District is big. High schools and middle schools spread across the city, with physical education teachers and coaches all working hard in their own buildings.
The shift toward one shared program started small. At Jefferson High School, Kelly Snyder was the first in the district to bring PLT4M into her classroom, piloting it before anyone else had tried it.
That early trial caught attention. Joshua Simmons, who teaches physical education and health at Metro High School and also leads physical education content for the district, saw an opportunity to bring that same tool to every building.
“PLT4M allows teachers to provide differentiation between students, courses, and schools, while providing unified and scaffold curriculum options for an entire school district,” Joshua said. That balance, one shared foundation with room for each teacher to make it their own, became the goal for the whole district.
Here’s how Cedar Rapids adopted PLT4M to enhance the PE experience across schools in the district.
A Shared Goal Across Cedar Rapids PE
Talk to teachers across Cedar Rapids and a common thread shows up fast. The goal isn’t just a good semester of PE. It’s setting students up for life.
At CR Jefferson High School, teacher Kelly Snyder puts it plainly. “We want all students to be able to maintain a healthy and active lifestyle after high school,” she said.
At CR Washington High School, Douglas Spahn shares that same long view. “My goal is to help students build a positive, lifelong relationship with physical activity,” he said. “I want them to leave with the confidence and skills to take ownership of their own long term well being.”
With that shared goal in place, teachers are free personalize that within their PE and health classes. That’s where PLT4M comes in, giving each classroom a different path to the same destination.
One Platform, Different Classrooms
The platform looks different in every building, and that’s by design.
At Cedar Rapids Kennedy, longtime teacher Jon McKowen keeps his Performance PE classes anchored by a shared program. “It keeps my class on the same page every day,” he said. He also leans on the video library so class time stays focused on coaching instead of demonstration.
Colleague Curtiss Pakkebier, a 31 year veteran at Kennedy, uses it to reach classes that stretch past 40 students, including English language learners. “The ability to choose videos to pair with our workouts helps all kids with their technique,” he said.
PLT4M has thousands of instructional videos, from weightlifting to yoga and everything in between. All built for students. Here’s one example that teachers across Cedar Rapids can use in their own lessons.
At Jefferson, Kelly uses the Builder to shape her own classes day to day, while department colleague Matthew Orton has watched that same tool streamline things building wide. “It streamlined the delivery system for our entire district,” he said.
First year Jefferson teacher Ashley Kraemer put the unifying piece simply. “We use PLT4M for every PE class offering, from performance PE for athletes to our freshman health students,” she said. “This gives us a uniform approach to PE no matter the teacher or the style of class.”
At Washington, Douglas uploaded his own weight room program into the platform, where students log data against personal max lifts each semester. Colleague Melanie Jochimsen uses it differently, building health lessons around a mix of topics. “It allows me to customize for each of my classes,” she said.
A Closer Look At Metro
One school makes that range easy to see up close.
Students at Metro arrive with a wide mix of schedules and needs, some in the building daily, others completing coursework remotely. Joshua built the school’s approach around meeting each of them where they are.
The school runs group fitness blocks that split time between structured training and games, health courses delivered fully online with daily check ins, and an after school fitness club open to students in person or from home.
“My goal for working with students is that by the time they graduate they have an understanding of the importance of maintaining their health and wellness,” Joshua said, “as well as how to do it safely and appropriately.”
Still Growing At Cedar Rapids
Cedar Rapids isn’t treating this as finished work. Teachers across the district have completed the PLT4M Certified Educator program, with ongoing professional development supporting that growth.
Matthew Orton has seen PLT4M change and evolve, much like his own teaching and coaching has over 28 years, “I like PLT4M due to their continuous evolution and response to student and educator feedback,” he said.
The district’s middle schools also have access to the platform, and are working to weave it into their own curriculums in their own ways. It’s an early step toward the same kind of scaffolding already in place at the high school level.
It’s a big district, and the work of unifying it is ongoing. But the direction is set: one shared program, with plenty of room for each classroom to be its own.
“We are continually evolving our programs,” Joshua said, “to give every student the best possible health and PE experience.”
Thank You To Cedar Rapids
This story draws on the work of teachers across the district. While every teacher is not quoted we want to thank the entire team for working with PLT4M and becoming certified educators!
Joshua Simmons and the team at Metro, Kelly Snyder, Matthew Orton, and Ashley Kraemer at Jefferson, Jon McKowen and Curtiss Pakkebier at Kennedy, and Douglas Spahn, Melanie Jochimsen, and Sam Koeppl at Washington, along with Corinne McClure at Polk Alternative Education Center. Thank you to all of them for the work they do every day in classrooms, gymnasiums and weight rooms across Cedar Rapids.
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