Photo by Ed Suba Jr./Akron Beacon Journal

Some students at one area school are giving new meaning to ''being on the ball.''

With an eye on student wellness and academic performance, teachers at Our Lady of the Elms School in West Akron this school year replaced chairs with red exercise/stability balls in the first-grade classroom.

Teachers and students are declaring the experiment a success.

''It's fun,'' said 7-year-old Claudia Palmer. ''You can bounce a little bit on it.''

One drawback: ''I slip a lot.''

Physical education teacher Christine Lugo reports the students at the all-girls Catholic school are doing more sit-ups per minute.

''That's improved abdominal strength,'' she said.

There are no hard data relating to the balls' effect on brain power. But Lugo and classroom teacher Andrea McKinney insist the school's 13 first-graders are more alert — they pay more attention — when they are perched on the balls.

''You can really tell after lunch,'' McKinney said. ''They don't have that sluggishness that used to set in.''

Sitting on a ball, ''their blood flow is still going,'' she said. ''They are actually doing physical work.''

Officials at the school envision gradually bringing the seating option to all classrooms in grades 1-6.

McKinney and Lugo got parents' permission and rolled out the idea after seeing a news report about the balls-as-seats in a classroom outside Ohio.

The Elms teachers also had learned that the balls were a hit among fourth- and fifth-grade students and teachers at Silver Lake Elementary in the Cuyahoga Falls school district.

The balls were introduced at Silver Lake about three years ago by fourth-grade teacher Kelly Henninger. Before then, they had begun rolling into workplaces.

''It's a teacher preference,'' said Silver Lake Principal Ellen McClure said. ''It took Mrs. Henninger a while to get used to seeing the kids bobbing up and down.''

At the Elms, teacher McKinney said she can tell students are getting a concept when they bob or bounce a bit. Big bounces are prohibited.

Alexandria Coleman, 7, said she likes to bounce. ''I move when I get happy.''

Avery Gayle, 7, and other students agree the balls are a plus.

''It makes me smarter,'' Avery said.

Classmate Susan Zalick, 7, said, ''They help me concentrate.''

Six-year-old Serena Parmar put it another way: ''It helps me think better. It helps me sit up straight.''

The students can switch to chairs — during breaks between lessons.

McKinney said most students sit on their balls throughout the day.

Isabella Thomas-Patterson, 7, said she sometimes uses a chair because the ball ''just hurts your foot sometimes.''

There's no plan to introduce the balls in the Elms' kindergarten, which enrolls boys.

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., explored the idea of a chairless classroom in 2007, said spokesman Bob Nellis.

That study did not specifically look at exercise balls. Rather, students — over a three-week period — could use an array of alternatives, including standing at taller desks or sitting on cushions or the floor. One exercise ball was part of the study.

''By all accounts, the students were more focused and were more active,'' Nellis said.

So why aren't we seeing more chairless classrooms?

''Change comes slowly,'' Nellis theorized.