Thousands of elementary school teachers in California have been asked this summer to hold on to their lesson plans. 37 school districts throughout the state attempt to show that they are providing students with required exercise.
A lawsuit was recorded in October in San Francisco County Superior Court last school year. “School districts have been routinely ignoring the law,” said lawyer Donald Driscoll. “They give lip service to the idea that P.E. is important. The result is that kids don’t get enough exercise.”
Teachers have been asked to show that they are meeting state requirements for physical education. In addition to lunch and break, schools must offer kindergarten through sixth-grade students 200 minutes of physical education instruction for every 10 days of class, as required in the state Education Code.
Chad Fenwick, a former P.E. teacher, said he’s seen L.A. Unified make great progress in improving programs since he became the district advisor for elementary physical education in 2004. “We’re an extremely large district. To have everything perfect all at once, it takes time. We did have problems, but we’ve made huge gains,” Fenwick said. “It’s not an easy task. We’ve been taking a systematic approach and it’s working.”
In 2012, L.A. Unified’s obesity rate exceeded the national average, and while many middle and high schools met state P.E. standards, elementary classes had trouble keeping up. Many families may feel it’s unsafe to play outside in their neighborhoods, so exercise at school is especially critical, said Mariah Lafleur, a senior analyst at the consulting firm.
“Schools just have many competing advantages,” Lafleur said. “But we think allotting the time for P.E. will improve students’ attention spans and behavior so they’re able to be well-balanced kids.”
But Fenwick said, “People are afraid if you take kids out of the classroom for P.E., they’ll lose academic time and their [test] scores will go down, but the brain and the human body work more efficiently when you’re physically active and healthy.”
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