Whether hiking to the summit of Mount Aeneas, biking the Going-to-the-Sun Road, skiing Blacktail Mountain, ice skating in Woodland Park, going to a rock-climbing gym or lifting weights at Kalispell Middle School — Students Who Exercise Together aren’t afraid to sweat it out with their classmates. 

Now in its fourth year at the middle school, Students Who Exercise Together or SWET offers free after-school strength and fitness training twice a week and all-day field trips to seventh and eighth graders. The program is led by Kalispell Middle School physical education teachers Noah Couser and Gabriela Chavez. 

Couser started SWET to provide students with more after-school fitness options while promoting camaraderie through physical activity. 

“I was kind of sick of seeing students after school just sitting on their phones,” Couser said during an interview in the school’s weight room.  

Since the weight room was open after school and he had time available, he thought, why not start offering fitness classes at no cost to students who might not otherwise have the financial means, transportation or time to commit to gym memberships or sports. 

“We need as many opportunities for our kids to have healthy choices,” he said. 

Students of different fitness levels and abilities are welcome to attend. 

“We have students who are highly involved in sports and we have students who don’t do any other activities. They just do SWET,” Couser said. “And so they get a taste of outdoor activities, but they also get kind of the foundations of fitness, so it’s a pretty eclectic group of students.”   

WHILE STUDENTS may attend as often as they want; it's not uncommon for students to become dedicated participants. This includes eighth grader Collin Fetveit, who is in his second year of SWET and hasn’t missed a single class. 

“I needed something after school to keep me busy and I just fell in love with it,” Fetveit said.    

Up to 30 students may sign up online for the strength and fitness classes. Depending on the field trip activity and the number of volunteer chaperones, who provide transportation, he said group sizes have ranged from 20 to 35 students. To go on a field trip, students must also earn a “two” grade in work ethic in all their academic classes. The outdoor trips are not to be missed, which makes them a great motivator to do well in school, according to Fetveit. 

“SWET is such a bright light because I feel like it’s so awesome to see students that want to be here, that choose to come after school, that choose to put in the time and they make a lot of progress throughout the year in just building strength, building character,” Couser said.   

Eighth grader Chloe Sellars has also attended the fitness program for two years.  

“I joined because it seemed like a fun opportunity to just work out and like be able to do fitness and get better at certain, like weightlifting, activities,” Sellars said.  

Sellars said her endurance has increased, and her personal accomplishment has been learning new weightlifting techniques and proper form. 

Couser said students learn strength training fundamentals using body weight and light weights. 

THE MOST recent field trip SWET organized was hiking to the summit of Mount Aeneas down to Picnic Lakes on Oct. 3. It was the first time eighth grader Kallie Bain, who started SWET this school year, hiked to the summit.  

“It was uphill most of the time. It was tiring but it was fun,” Bain said. 

With an elevation gain of approximately 1,700 feet and steep switchbacks, the summit trail rewards its hikers with stunning views and the chance to see wildlife, the group noting they saw a bull moose along the way. 

Sellars biked a section of the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park for the first time through SWET. The group then ran to Avalanche Lake, adding more miles.

“It reminded me of doing the Aneas thing because ... they’re challenging, but you can push through,” Sellars said.   

“Our favorite saying in SWET is no challenge, no change,” Couser added. 

The motto is emblazoned on the back of T-shirts participants earn by attending 15 fitness classes.  

Working out with their classmates, encouraging each other through the challenges and celebrating achievements makes getting to know their peers in a different way, the group agreed. 

“I think it’s really cool to see the camaraderie that the students have, especially when it’s like, you know, a really long day or a really hard workout where they help each other out or kind of encourage each other through that,” Couser said.  

THE FITNESS program has taken on a new importance this year after it was announced in February that P.E. classes would be scaled back as part of budget cuts. 

“We had eight P.E. teachers here previously and now we’re down to 4.6 and so students had P.E. every day previously for the past 20 years. With the cuts, students have P.E. every other day, which is also why this program is so important, just providing that link between our students and their health," said Couser. 

Couser was moved from full- to part-time, but continues to receive a stipend to run SWET.  

P.E. classes are 45 minutes long. Meeting every other day meets state accreditation, but the school previously exceeded requirements by holding daily classes, he said.  

In Montana, seventh and eighth graders must complete “half a unit” of health and P.E. each year, equal to 4,050 minutes (half of the 8,100 minutes that define a full unit). The American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, and American Diabetes Association recommend 225 minutes of P.E. per week — achievable with daily 45-minute classes.  

SWET continues to be free to all students through donations from community members.  

“We’ve had some generous donors. They're parents, own companies, or they work here locally — they love the program and they love that it’s cost-free for students,” Couser said, recalling a past donation from Revel Real Estate in Whitefish that funded two years of SWET field trips. 

For more information, visit tinyurl.com/SWETfitness. 

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or [email protected].