P.E. Teacher Is Named the Best in Her Field

At Newbury Park’s Sequoia Intermediate School, physical education means a lot more than donning goofy shorts, doing a bunch of jumping jacks and breaking into squads to push around the Earth ball.

Seventh- and eighth-graders at Sequoia engage in activities as diverse as fencing, lacrosse, swimming and in-line skating, rather than traditional dodge ball and tumbling exercises.

And now students at the school can also boast that they have the best physical education teacher in America.

Dianne Wilson-Graham a gym instructor at Sequoia for 16 years, has been named the National Middle School Physical Education Teacher of the Year by the country’s association of sports and physical education instructors.

“My daughter asked me, ‘Did you get a new car with the plaque, mom?’ ” Wilson-Graham said. The 40-year-old teacher, her 8-year-old daughter, Morgan, and husband, Roland, live in Newbury Park.

Wilson-Graham was named the country’s top middle-school gym teacher in late March during the National Assn. for Sport and Physical Education’s annual convention in St. Louis.

She was selected by the Reston, Va.-based organization over hundreds of other teachers from across the country for her professional abilities and the leading role she has played in motivating youngsters to pursue athletic and outdoor activities.

Sequoia’s principal, Teri Scarpino, who for years coached gymnastics at Newbury Park High, said outstanding teachers like Wilson-Graham are largely responsible for the community’s reputation as a powerhouse in a broad range of organized sports, from soccer to football.

“The boys play at a high level of competition in soccer and basketball, and the girls have Bobby-Socks softball, which is virtually a dynasty in Newbury Park,” Scarpino said. “You also see it in the competitive level of the high school teams.”

But Wilson-Graham said her classes are not about training future jocks and drilling the importance of calisthenics into pliant young minds. Instead, they center on building a spirit of cooperation and respect among pupils during their first real gym class experience, regardless of their athletic prowess.

“We’re teaching all kids leadership skills,” she said, “and we’re also teaching people how to have quality relationships with others in a work setting.”

Wilson-Graham’s students graduate from Sequoia fully certified in first-aid techniques including cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, giving them confidence to deal with emergencies and the ability to help others in need.

As a result of Wilson-Graham’s award, the school’s physical education program will receive about $10,000 worth of in-line skating equipment from Rollerblade, one of the award’s corporate sponsors.