Anonymous wrote:It’s three semesters, right? Why don’t athletes take PE during their off-season?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would support this. I think the first question that needs to be asked is why is PE required?
It is required for numerous reasons, mostly because physical activity improves overall health and physical activity improves academic success. If they are getting that physical activity playing an organized sport, I think that should count.
Unfortunately, some parents view this as letting the student-athlete get out of something and giving them an unfair advantage. The reality is every student has advantages or disadvantages, and there’s no way to account for every single one of them.

It is an advantage and the choice not to take it should be available to every student. The choice to be on a school or other organized sports team is just that - a choice - and one not available to every student.

Think. Think about kids and families in different circumstances than you, your kids and all the people in your circle.

This is such a frustrating reaction. A student who doesn’t play a varsity sport loses nothing if a student who does isn’t forced to take a PE class. Literally status quo for them.

You can use this kind of logic for anything. Should summer school credits count? Some students work in the summer and can’t take classes.

Allowing substitution credit for students who do sports is an extremely common policy nationwide. It is not some novel idea. We know exactly how it works, which is “fine.” Maybe it is administratively difficult in the end to figure out if golf team should count or whatever, which is a useful debate. But implementing this policy is not some massive injustice.

+1

It isn’t fair that some middle schools don’t offer Geometry in 8th grade. That means some kids can take two AP math classes in HS while other kids can’t. Maybe everyone in DCPS should start in Algebra I in 9th grade, that would be fair. It’s not fair that if you are inboundary for Oyster Adams you get immersion access while other families don’t at their inboundary schools. Some high schools don’t offer certain classes like engineering courses. That’s not fair in college admissions for another kid who wants to be an engineer but doesn’t have the option to take those. You want everything to be equal, let’s see how it affects your kid and your circle.

None of those are choices a student makes. Students choose to be on sports teams and use their extra time for that. Why should they get special treatment over students who choose other time-consuming activities?

Because it's not about getting some special grant of time, it's about not wasting time when the student is already getting physical activity and instruction in the same. It's more akin to schools allowing truly bilingual or trilingual students to waive out of language requirements (which many don't allow).

An orchestra player is may be spending a lot of time at their art, but they are not getting physical activity and education doing it.

And jumping to a concern about someone having an "advantage" because they can add to their APs, is whacked. So striver-ish and a sign of how consumed people are with college admissions.

With that said, I think the complication is all the people doing high-level outside sports. How do you treat that differently than school sports? But who wants to manage an endless waiver review process?

Yes, we would have to figure out how to have special treatment for all athletes.

Just eliminate the requirement and you won’t have an endless review process. Everyone gets another elective including PE, a study hall, whatever.