Students, Faculty Walk to Mark Israel’s 50th

As part of a yearlong celebration of Israel’s 50th birthday, the students and faculty at Valley Beth Shalom Day School have been trying since March 10 to accumulate the equivalent mileage of walking to Israel from Encino.

The 7,500-mile simulated journey across 12 countries and five bodies of water is part of the Encino day school’s physical education program titled “Walk to Israel.”

The mileage is covered by walking around the school’s playground, or on rainy days, around the outside of classrooms, during recess and physical education class. The distance tallied by each walker is added toward the total.

With 85.2 miles left to go as of Tuesday, the students and faculty expected to have no problem completing the walk before the end of the day, said physical education teacher Cindy Young, the program coordinator.

“We’ve averaged about 200 miles a day, and school spirit has been just great,” said Young, who had accumulated 100.6 miles, tops among faculty members.

The three boys and girls who accumulate the most miles will receive gold, silver and bronze medals.

Competitive juices got the best of students Matthew Cohen and Michelle Bryar, who have made it a habit to check out the daily student standings every morning before going to class.

“I’m just looking to see who’s directly behind me and by how much,” said Matthew, a fifth-grade student who had accumulated 105.7 miles before Tuesday’s final stretch. His closest competitors were first-grader Brian Wolf, who had walked 101.4 miles, and fourth-grader Ryan Katz, at96.2.

Michelle, a fourth-grader, has been in first place among the girls since day one. With 103.6 miles to her credit, Michelle led her closest competitor, second-grader Alexis Deutsch, by more than 20 miles and appeared to have the gold medal sewn up.

The top classroom was that of Karen Vear, whose first-grade students had accumulated 742.4 miles.