At Pioneer Elementary School, taking the extra steps for fitness is a way of life.

It’s also a lot of fun, said first-grade teacher Marissa Spaid.

In addition to traditional recess, teachers at Pioneer Elementary School loose their young ones from class once a day to walk, run, hop or skip for 15 minutes. Pioneer administration calls it “structured recess.” Really, it’s about getting the kids fit.

Teachers and staff can also get a bit “out of sorts” by the end of the year, said Pioneer Principal Debra Gary. So the school suggested a walking challenge last year between teams of staff and teachers. Everybody wore pedometers to measure their steps during the day. Not only did walking perk up the weary, staff modeled good behavior to the kids.

It was such a smash hit that Gary, and teachers Spaid and Rochelle Thornhill decided to spread the fun, challenging the Auburn School District administration and City of Auburn staff to a walking contest. They called it “Let’s Move!” after First Lady Michelle Obama’s fitness campaign for youngsters. As before, walkers were to count their individual steps using pedometers, each walker’s steps being added to the team total.

“We’re always trying to promote health for our kids and show them how walking improves their lives,” Gary said. “We wanted to extend that to the adults in the community. We thought if we could get them motivated and get them out and maybe grow that a little bit, we could show the kids that they’re not the only ones, and that they can grow up to be in control of their own destiny. The purpose was to spread the movement of movement.”

On May 16, the mighty contest between Team Pioneer, Team Herren and Team Lewis got under way.

Auburn’s information systems staff set up a website where all participants could log their steps and progress for each day. If somebody on a team could get another member of the community to walk with them that day, that would double their steps.

“How could you not win a contest where you get more people out walking?” asked Auburn Mayor Pete Lewis

Only one team, however, could claim the coveted golden cup by the contest’s last day on June 6, and it was Team Lewis, which tallied 19,738,164 steps. Team Pioneer came in second with 19,124,567 steps, and Team Herren finished third with 17,036,516. Team Lewis’ Ronda Stella logged a total of 1,244,504 steps, and as the team’s top stepper, won the prize of wearing jeans to work every Friday from June 10, 2011 to June 10, 2012.

All three teams combined steps nearly equal to the circumference of the Earth.

“We all won,” Lewis said. “That’s the bottom line. It was a great idea,” Lewis said.

Superintendent Kip Herren took his team’s third-place finish in good spirits.

“Hey, I’d like to just say that coming in last place, we do more walking to read than we do walking for fitness,” Herren said with a laugh. “For us, we think that was an accomplishment. I’d like say that my 428,000 steps was a challenge to get in. My goal was to make sure that I beat Mayor Lewis.”

“It’s been fun to see their competitive nature and to see how excited people got,” Spaid said. “I actually saw different community members at the grocery store wearing their pedometers, so it’s been exciting to see this movement expand.”

Pioneer was recently awarded a $600,000 OSPI 21st Century Community Learning Centers Grant, which in part supports the school’s physical fitness efforts.