They opened a walking path at Pioneer Elementary School on Tuesday.

Didn’t know about that, eh?

Well, perhaps what matters even more, a walking path that met the exacting standards of Ivan Flores, 7.

“I like it,” said the second-grader, midst the ribbon cutting and speechifying and other grand opening hoopla.

Built in the spirit of Auburn’s Healthy City Initiative, not only is the path for school kids, it’s for all kids especially young’uns in the surrounding neighborhood.

Just shy of a quarter of a mile, and adjacent to the school’s playground, accessible from M Street.

All classes from kindergarten through fifth grade get a structured time on the path every day, when they may jump, skip, walk, whatever. Or they can do it on their own time, should they so choose.

Principal Debra Gary got the ball rolling by writing an application for Healthy Kids grant, and the school got it. A local asphalt contractor put the path in, and voila.

Here’s how it works.

Before the children go out for their 15-minute run, teachers remind them to pay attention to how they feel before they exercise.

Are they tired?

Do they need a break?

And when they return, teachers asks those questions again, to make the kiddies conscious of what exercise can do for them, how their mood can improve, how much more energy they have, how alert they are.

“So, we’ll build a little education into it,” Gary said. “We want them to know that walking, or running, or any of those things are things they can do at any time in their lives to improve their health as well as their emotion. We’re building healthy habits at school with them.”