The Culver Community Schools Corporation may be looking at adding an archery program for its students. School Board members heard a presentation Monday about the National Archery in the Schools Program. If it piqued a student’s interest, he/she can gear up with items like an arrow holder.
Indiana Conservation Officer and NASP trainer Jon Cook told them that in addition to teaching safety techniques to students interested in hunting, it’s a great activity for those who otherwise wouldn’t be very involved. He says the best thing about archery is that anyone can take part, “We had a young man, just this past year – it’s pretty neat when you see this happen – he’s in a wheelchair, and they fixed the bow to where he could still pull it back in the wheelchair – he had it sit in his wheelchair a certain way. He’s out there shooting archery. That’s a success story if you ask me.” Cook says the program’s been growing in popularity in recent years, and the most recent state tournament hosted by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources attracted over 2,700 archers in elementary through high school.
He says in order to get started, the school corporation would have to purchase an equipment package but says there are grants available through funding from the National Wild Turkey Federation, “Some of the money that they’ve raised through their banquets and their fundraisers and things like that, they’ve donated to the NASP program to help alleviate the costs for participating schools and groups. So from $3,200 today, if you were just to outright buy the package, you could have the possibility, as long as this fund is still available from the NWTF – and currently, it still is, that it could cost the school $500.”
He says that includes all the necessary equipment, “What you’re looking at is $500 for 12 bows, five dozen arrows, a 30-foot-by-10-foot-tall curtain that is designed to stop the arrows from going beyond, and it does. You get a repair kit and you also get a bow rack and then you get five targets, all for $500.” That price also includes training four instructors on how to run the program according to the NASP guidelines.
Cook adds that most of these instructors are teachers, and some of them are able to tie archery together with what students are learning in the classroom, “Washington STEM over in Warsaw Schools, they’re applying it to their curriculum in a way. They’re putting their math with their science, with their P.E, and trying to apply it with their curriculum and tying it all together using archery.”
To implement the program, the school corporation would need to agree to keep it going for at least five years and undergo regular inspections.
