Gazette photo by Andrew Wallmeyer Lily Lake Elementary fourth-grader Alexis Pugh (right) works at a traditional desk Thursday afternoon while her classmate Nicole Buchman uses a new standing desk the school is experimenting with.

After hearing about the apparent success of Marine Elementary's experiment with desks that allow students to sit or stand, a host of schools both inside and outside of District 834 are looking to follow suit.

A handful of specially designed standing desks were added at Andersen, Lily Lake and Withrow elementaries this year, as well as at Stillwater Junior High School.

Advocates of the desks say they have both academic and physical benefits, helping students stay mentally focused and burn more calories than they would while sitting at a more traditional school desk or table.

There is no stronger proponent than Marine Elementary sixth-grade teacher Abby Brown, who pushed to get a set of standing workstations in her classroom after hearing about a pilot project in Rochester. After raising enough money through grants and donations to purchase some desks, she worked with a Wisconsin office furniture maker to develop a standing desk tailored to young students.

Last October, Marine Elementary replaced the traditional desks in its fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms with new sets of standing desks. Since then, Brown and the school have received a steady stream of attention from educators and media outlets around the country, including ABC News, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun and the Orlando Sentinel.

"This is exactly what I hoped and dreamed for," Brown said this morning. "We're still waiting for the research to confirm it, but after working with the desks for the last year and a half, watching the kids use them and hearing what they have to say about them, I know it's exactly what they need. ... And the feedback I've been getting from other schools all says the same thing."

With the help of grants and donations from many sources, clusters of standing desks have started sprouting up at other schools in the area, some of which have also started buying the workstations with their annual desk-replacement funds.

The workstations cost $250 apiece, compared with $80 for a traditional school desk, but the teachers who now have them in their classrooms say they are worth the added expense, and they believe the workstations will last for many years.

A new proponent of the desks is Andersen Elementary third-grade teacher Carolyn Hild.

After hearing of the experiment at Marine Elementary, Andersen Elementary parents recently contributed enough money to buy eight new workstations for Hild's classroom. Hild and her husband drove to Centuria, Wis., last weekend to pick the desks up from Sunway, Inc., which makes the workstations.

After using them for a week, Hild said she noticed an immediate impact.

"I love them. The kids concentrate better, they move around a little bit more, and they can work right at chest-level, which helps their handwriting and their artwork," she said Thursday afternoon. "I just think they're doing a fabulous job on them, and they really like them, too."

The desks have another fan in Michelle Pentland, who received a handful of stations in her fourth-grade classroom at Lily Lake Elementary at the start of the school year.

"I've absolutely noticed a difference, especially for some of the kids who have a little harder time paying attention," she said. I wish I had all standing desks. ... To me, the traditional desks that we grew up with just seem obsolete now."

Of course, anecdotal evidence only goes so far.

University of Minnesota kinesiology professor Beth Lewis is now gathering data from District 834 students to determine how the standing desks affect students' overall activity level.

Lewis put $450 accelerometers on students at Marine Elementary and Withrow Elementary for three days in mid-May and she gather more data from students at other District 834 schools this month. She said she hopes to have hard data by the end of the school year.

Still, many teachers don't want to wait.

Sunway, Inc., President Tim Skiba said he has received inquiries from all across the country, and he expects more to flow in after the company exhibits the desk at a school equipment trade show in Baltimore next month.

"We've had a lot of response - a lot more than we ever expected. ... It seems like the word is spreading really fast," he said this morning. "We've had other products in the ergonomic industry that I'd say were triples, but I would definitely consider this a home run."

Brown said she is happy to hear that the idea is spreading, because she is convinced the desks are good for kids and she would like to see as many using them as possible.

"This is exactly what kids need, and it's happening even prior to the research being done because it's something that feels right. And it is right," she said. "It really does work for kids, and that's what this is all about."

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Andrew Wallmeyer covers education and the cities of Lake Elmo and Oak Park Heights for the Gazette. He can be reached by phone at 651-796-1111.