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After-School Programs
After-school programs are emerging as another potential means of 
promoting physical activity in the context of the school environment. After-
school programs are organized school or community-based extracurricular 
activities that take place outside of the school day, typically between 3:00 

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Educating the Student Body: Taking Physical Activity and Physical Education to School
Approaches to Physical Activity in Schools
 
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The CDC’s Nutrition and Physical Activity Program has developed KidsWalk-
to-School, a community-based program that encourages children to walk and 
bicycle to school. It provides resources and training models for creating walk-
to-school programs. The program increases awareness of the importance of 
physical activity for children and mobilizes communities to advocate for the 
creation of safe routes to school (http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/kidswalk 
[accessed February 1, 2013]).
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The Santa Clarita, California, 2010 Walking School Bus Training Guidebook 
provides suggestions on how to create “walking school bus” programs, 
identify route leaders, plan routes, manage logistics, and raise funds (http://
www.altaprojects.net/files/1712/6662/3993/SC%20WSB%20Training%20
Guidebook%20WEB.pdf [accessed February 1, 2013]).
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The Walking School Bus model encourages children to walk or bicycle together 
in groups, supervised by one or two adults (http://www.walkingschoolbus.org 
[accessed February 1, 2013]).
•
Fire Up Your Feet provides additional perspectives on community methods for 
creating walking school buses (http://fireupyourfeet.org/resources/walking-
school-bus [accessed February 1, 2013]).
and 6:00 PM (Granger et al., 2007) and are characterized by opportuni-
ties to build competencies in a wide range of areas (Mahoney et al., 2005). 
They are conducted on most afternoons during the school week for school-
age children. Common areas of focus are nutrition and health education, 
physical activity and recreation, art, and music. After-school programs also 
provide academic assistance (i.e., tutoring and assistance with homework) 
and opportunities to develop leadership. Personal and social skills are a 
common theme. 
The past two decades have seen a rapid increase in after-school pro-
grams in the United States, and these programs have become an integral