LEWISTON – Regis Beaulieu will soon find out how fit – or unfit – the students of Lewiston’s public schools have become.

By early June, an appraisal of each kid’s performance in gym tests will be entered in a “fitnessgram” compiled by the School Department and double-checked by an outside auditor.

“It will be ugly,” said Beaulieu, the wellness coordinator for the School Department. Too many kids move too little, leaving them too heavy, lethargic and agitated, he said. “But it’s going to change.”

His confidence rests on the back of a three-year, $500,000 grant that is about to enter its second phase.

This summer, Lewiston Middle School will double the size of its still-new workout room, knocking down a wall and taking the classroom next door for treadmills, exercise bikes, steppers. The room will also include the high-tech exercise that has been drawing new kids into the area: a Nintendo Wii, game cycles and “Dance Dance Revolution.” The latter is an interactive video game that uses music, a video screen and a floor pad to get kids to move faster and faster with coordinated steps.

In another year, similar-but-smaller workout rooms are planned for each of Lewiston’s six elementary schools.

The hope is to get kids in the habit of exercising, enough that by the time they reach adolescence they are already accustomed to the equipment and sweating.

“It’s the drip, drip method of education,” said Beaulieu, who spent more than a decade as the chairman of Lewiston High’s Physical Education Department. The real benefits of the changes will take years to chart, he said.

The grant was awarded to the school last summer by the JTG Foundation, a private Maine foundation established by John Gorman Jr. of Yarmouth.

Gorman is a stockholder of L.L. Bean and a grandson of Leon Leonwood Bean.

“To me, it’s extraordinary,” Beaulieu said of Gorman’s gift. “This is not federal money with strings attached.”

The grant has some lofty goals, though.

The citywide initiative is being positioned as a pilot program that could be replicated by schools in other parts of Maine or across the country, Beaulieu said.

Beaulieu hopes to spread the message of creating fitness centers for every school. But he also wants to share his belief that getting kids more fit can help them learn better, too.

“This is a way to enhance learning,” Beaulieu said. “You know what? We’re not physical education teachers anymore.

“We’re brain scientists,” he said.

It’s a concept that Beaulieu hopes to exploit. The grant funded a trip last summer for Beaulieu and several gym teachers to the PE4life Academy in Naperville, Ill.

The academy teaches something called “kinesthetic learning.” Its basis is a belief that people who exercise learn more effectively and have fewer stress problems.

Coyne Turcotte, a physical education teacher at Lewiston Middle School, said he was impressed by the academy’s work.

The school encourages schools to integrate small bits of exercise in academic classes. It also came up with the fitnessgram concept of tracking the student fitness. PE4life stresses anecdotal numbers that seem to show big improvements in student fitness and behavior after a year of work.

Turcotte left Illinois with an enthusiasm he hadn’t had in years, he said. It also gave him a different appreciation in the importance of his job.

“This has been great for us,” he said.

Beaulieu had been trying to share the academy’s work with folks in Lewiston but failed until he gave them plane tickets, he said. When he returned from Naperville with the group, the teachers all seemed to be working toward a common goal.

Kim Russell, another gym teacher at Lewiston Middle School who went on the trip, agreed.

“Our goal as physical educators here at LMS is to give students the tools that they need to live a healthy lifestyle,” she said.

Beaulieu believes he can make lots of changes with the grant money.

He also hopes the initiative will win converts to the importance of fitness. More time ought to be spent on physical education, he said.

In Lewiston, for instance, elementary school kids receive only one 30-minute gym class per week, totaling about 25 per year.

“How could I learn math if I took it once a week for 30 minutes?” he said. “It should be priority number one.”