Community ed wants you to be ‘fit as a Tiger’

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The Farmington School District wants to be your new health club.

The district’s community education department announced plans Monday to launch Tiger Health Hub, a fitness program that will give the public access to facilities like the fitness center, gym and walking track at Farmington High School and the pool at Levi Dodge Middle School.

“We have a lot of fine buildings in the district that we try to make available to the public as much as possible,” superintendent Brad Meeks said Monday.

Meeks said district employees heard a lot of questions as they gave tours of the new high school about whether the facilities there would be available to the public.

The Health Hub would open the school facilities to the public before and after school and during limited Saturday hours during the school year. Hours have not been set yet for summer use.

The idea, adult education coordinator Barb Pierce said, is to give people a low-cost option for exercise, to make sure school buildings are used as much as possible and to create a connection between the public and the school buildings.

“We really want to get the people in there to use the facilities,” Pierce said.

The plan got mixed reviews from school board members. Board chair Veronica Walter questioned the decision to charge students to use facilities at their own school, but Pierce said the Health Hub would open those facilities at times they are not typically available to students.

Board member Tim Burke argued that the district should not compete with private businesses. But community education director Heidi Cunningham said the Health Hub fills a different role than the fitness centers currently operating in Farmington. No fitness center in Farmington offers a pool or a full-size gym.

“Our role isn’t to be a 24-7 fitness center,” Cunningham said. “It’s about health. It’s about wellness. We will be bringing speakers in. We can expand on this.”

The district proposed a similar, consolidated fitness center before it built the new Farmington High School but voters rejected a bond that would have built what came to be known as the district’s health and wellness center. That project would have added a pool, two sheets of ice and other facilities to the high school building.

The Tiger Health Hub program will launch this fall for district employees and in early 2011 for the rest of the public.

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