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For Principal Tim Bishop, the Steamboat Springs Middle School should be run more like a business. But instead of crunching numbers, Bishop wants to use yoga.

In a move designed to increase faculty and staff happiness and retention rates, the middle school will begin offering yoga classes after school for $5 per hour-long lesson to school workers.

If the program is as successful as predicted, Bishop said, Pilates lessons soon may follow.

"We're trying to offer the very best working environment to our staff we can," Bishop said. "The more perks and incentives to staff, the better."

The incentives create happier teachers and may help to increase retention rates at the school, Bishop said.

"That's my whole goal. We need to retain them and let them blow off steam just like kids," he said.

He said the school will not be using any funds to pay for the classes, but in the future, he would like to find ways to subsidize the $5 a person cost, if possible.

Bishop said he has not heard of any other schools offering a similar program, but he took the cue from corporate culture at businesses including Google that offer incentives throughout the work day.

"I feel like we need to compete, and I feel like schools haven't done that before," he said.

Bishop said he also would like to open the class to all district faculty and staff. The new program is possible because of the new fitness room at the middle school, opened this year as a part of an expansion of the entire physical education program this year.

Fitness room

It's not every middle school that has a fitness room full of stationary bicycles, punching bags and weight machines. Even more rare is the lateral climbing wall. But the really exciting part of the fitness room for students is a set of four "Dance Dance Revolution" game pads.

The video game encourages students to follow a set of choreographed dance moves to improve coordination and speed.

Students use that fitness room two days a week for two-thirds of the year, an increase from the quarter of physical education that students had in previous years.

Assistant Principal Jerry Buelter said the school had come under criticism for not having physical education for the whole year, and when the school rearranged its schedule, it was able to add more classes and an additional teacher.

The room was used as two classrooms in prior years, but those classes have been moved or consolidated to other areas.

In addition to the new classes, teachers also have access to the space every night, with keys to access the room on weekends and after school.

Physical education teacher Chris Adams said the classroom also benefits students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Teachers bring the children into the room early in the day to exercise before they sit through the day's worth of classes.

"There are a lot of kids who need movement breaks throughout the day," he said.

The punching bags are especially popular, Bishop said.

For seventh-grader Ryan Walker, the fitness room is a big improvement from the old fitness classes that entailed running laps in the arcade of the school.

'This year, it's a lot more fun," he said. One of his favorite activities is using the weight machines, the first year that equipment has been available to middle school students.

Classmate Ashley Spitellie said the two-minute stations as the students move around the room, from equipment set to equipment set, keep the class more interesting than the running-focused components last year.

Physical education teacher Wendy Hall, who has been at the school for 17 years, said creating fun activities brings in more of the "middle" students who may have not been engaged before.

"I would hope it's more well-rounded for students," she said. "You're able to get kids who are in the middle more motivation because it's more fun."