Many WCHS students play at least one school sport throughout the school year. Despite sports teams being very demanding and time-consuming commitments, students are still required to fulfill a full year of gym class as a graduation requirement. This prompts the question of whether students involved in school sports should still be required to fulfill a gym credit.
According to the MCPS website, the high school physical education requirements align with the Maryland State Department of Education framework. The MCPS curriculum focuses on the main themes of movement skills and concepts, health-enhancing fitness, physical activity and personal and social responsibility.
While MCPS seems to have students’ best interests at heart by encouraging them to fit exercise as part of their day, the three main focuses on the MCPS website are all accomplished by participating in school sports.
Student-athletes have practice every day, games every week and some sports have off-season training and workouts. This schedule is very physically demanding and exhausting, and requiring students to participate in a gym class adds unnecessary stress to their bodies. Allowing student-athletes to have an excused requirement for their physical education credit would allow athletes to direct their energy and effort into their sport.
Student-athletes gain the same, if not better, lessons that are taught in a physical education credit class by playing their sport. Students who participate in team sports learn to work together, cooperate and even have more incentive to perform highly as wins and losses mean more than a letter grade. When students choose to participate in sports and put all their effort into that as their exercise, it becomes easier to improve.
Additionally, because student-athletes are required to participate in physical education credits they run the added risk of getting injured and having to sit out of games or even a significant part of their season. This is not only extremely disappointing for an athlete, but can also be disappointing for an entire team.
While it is extremely important for students to be exposed to and encouraged to create a healthy and active lifestyle, student-athletes do not lack an active lifestyle and participate in physical activity every day through both school and out-of-school practices. Student-athletes should be able to have the opportunity to choose if they still want to fulfill a physical education credit or if they would rather maximize their schedule and take different classes that interest them.
In addition to student-athletes being able to choose whether or not to take a gym credit, they should be offered the opportunity to take a study hall as a supplemental class. This would be beneficial as most teams have practices that run from soon after school lets out until sometimes close to 5 or 6 p.m. This does not account for games or meets that can be long distances away and run for considerable times, and the out-of-school teams that many of these students are a part of. Both games and practices can limit students’ time and focus on homework so providing student-athletes with study halls in place of where a gym class would be in a students schedule could be a win-win.
Many schools allow students’ participation on school sports teams to count as a physical education credit, so why not WCHS? Student-athletes are able to gain all the skills that a gym credit is meant to offer and more through their participation and dedication to their sport.
