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Port Orange Elementary School has won recognition from the Alliance for a Healthier Generation as one of America’s healthiest schools. The driving force behind the award is the school’s PE teacher Julie Kirton.

Kirton was a classroom teacher for 19 years before making the switch to teach PE.

Now she’s teaching kids about nutrition and exercise, but Kirton tells Intersection that as a teenager she was hospitalized with anorexia.  

“I don’t anyone to have to go through what I went through,” says Kirton.

Principal Tennille Wallace joins the conversation with Kirton to explain how Port Orange Elementary approached the challenge of becoming a healthier school.

Education reporting on 90.7 News is supported by Helios Education Foundation