Voting in the second annual IHT Spirit Video Challenge closes on Friday, so there’s still time to help your favorite video win.
Teachers and students have been entering two-minute videos about how their physical education class has been “raising the bar” with their workouts and commitment to physical education. Teachers, families, friends and PE enthusiasts have been voting regularly. At last glance, nearly 25,000 people had cast a vote for their favorite videos.
As of mid-day Wednesday, eight videos had received at least 1,000 votes with another closing in on that threshold. In all, the 43 videos have been viewed more than 50,000 times. Those numbers should continue to increase as the contest wraps up on Friday at 11:59 p.m. EST.
Interest in the 2016 Spirit Video Challenge has already surpassed the initial challenge, completed last year. Last year’s challenge included 24 video entries that were seen by 16,500 voters. Draper Middle School in Schenectady, N.Y. won the teacher category, earning 3,204 votes in addition to high marks from judges at IHT. Tyson Hallberg, a student at Draper, won the student video category after receiving 1,201 votes.
As this year’s challenge winds down, Bay View Middle School in Green Bay, Wisc., holds the voting lead with more than 3,600 votes. Entries from Sylvia Elementary School (Falls River, Mass.) and St. Margaret Mary’s School (Omaha, Neb.) also have more than 2,000 votes. Will either catch Bay View as the contest draws to a close?
The winning videos will receive price packages from IHT worth more than $13,000 combined. The winning teacher receives a class set of IHT Zone heart rate monitors, the software to track progress and training for three years, a $10,000 value, a $2,500 gift card and a special pep rally featuring Dick Fosbury, who raised the bar with his new high-jumping technique while winning the Olympic gold medal in 1968. The winning student gets an IHT Zone heart-rate monitor and a $1,000 gift card. Other prizes are also available.
Entries are judged on three criteria: best display of raising the bar in physical education (50 percent), creativity/originality (25 percent), and vote count (25 percent). Winners will be announced on Monday, May 23. All of the videos can be found here.