Does Your School Have Off Campus P.E.?

[mom2rb]

The State of Texas has decided that no Junior High can offer off-campus P.E. anymore. Off-campus P.E. is for kids that train 15 hours or more a week at a sport. They don't take P.E. in school and they get out of school one period early so that they can train early. I teach gymnastics, our kids train 15-26 hours a week. As soon as they get into junior high, we let them start working out earlier so that they can get home earlier. Most of my gymnasts are A students that work very hard to do well at school and at the gym. We fill out a lot of paper work and turn in their P.E. grades every six weeks.

I am just wondering if other states have this program at all. I feel like a lot of very hard working kids around the state will be affected by this.

 

[bananiem]

Nope. Doesn't matter how many sports they're in or how much they do outside of school. They still take pe in school.

 

[GraysMom]

I've never heard of taking PE off site. I know the football players in HS would often leave at the beginning of last period to go down to the football field and work out, but they still took their regular PE classes.

 

[pansmermaidzlagoon]

OP - don't know about here in NY -used to ages ago...I was hoping for this as DD may qualify as she gets older. If a kid spends enough time in physical activity outside of school - PE isn't necessary.

I agree - they are often hard working kids who get great gradesand for whom the extra-curricular activities are very important - and could use the time for studying instead of PE. I'll probably get flamed for this though.

 

[bananiem]

Actually can't think of any sports around here that would practice 3+ hours a day. Possibly gymnastics, but it's not really strong around here. We had 2 skaters place at Junior Nationals and neither of them skates 15 hours a week.

 

[mom2rb]

Bumping for the evening crowd.

 

[Cindy B]

I have heard there are few exceptions in my district of 12,000 kids to the off campus PE rule.

When I worked at a middle school, there were two girls attempting to be on the Olymic --or pre Olympic ice skating teams.

Both of these girls left school early (this arrangement was approved by the principal and superintendent at the time) and traveled from NJ to DE to a late afternoon skate practice. Sometimes these girls came in late to school because they had early ice time.

One of these girls were allowed to have a PE exclusion but one was not allowed. I guess the exclusion was only one per school? Just guessing....

 

[PrincessTiff]

I've never even heard of off-campus P.E. I've already graduated but I was on my H.S. gymnastics team. Our gym was off-campus and we practiced during 4th block and 3 hours after school daily. All teams (gymnastics, basketball etc.) were exempt from the P.E. credit. Is off-campus P.E. fairly common?

 

[mom2rb]

It's pretty common in the gymnastics community. All of our gymnasts in 6th grade or higher are in it. I have been coaching for 21 years and it has always been done. There are very few school districts with gymnastics programs. I also know of many skaters and swimmers in off campus p.e.

 

[flying_babyb]

Nope we dont have this. When I was in scholl I did notice the football boys were usally off practicing in a corner of the gym, not doing out usal suff. Persoanlly if we had the option of joing a sport and not having pe I would have joined a sport. Gymnastics would be something I would have loved to be involved in but in our town we only had them through the YMCA and the fees were like totally high. Being from a single mom family it didnt work out for me.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

I think this rule stinks. It just shows how much our system needs an overhaul.

 

[Anewman]

My kids have their sport as their PE class.

If they are on the Water Polo or swim team, they get bussed to the local Junior college since the school has no pool. Some other High Schools walk to local parks to use the Gym/Courts/fields.

 

[ZPT1022]

I've never even heard of that, but I did know kids who made arrangements to leave school early for pre-professional programs, so I guess it's on a case by case basis?

 

[barkley]

i have'nt heard of this concept since the late 70's. my friend's dad was a senator here in california and he was working with some other political types to try and get something like this in the california schools. if i remember right it never got the green light because of issues with grades and credits-in order for a grade/credit to be acceptable/official it had to done with a credentialed teacher that currently worked for the districts. so since the outside activites were'nt with 'teachers' they could'nt be used to replace the school pe requirements (and there were concerns about conflict of interest if a teacher owned an outside place-would they give preferential treatment in grades/slots on school teams to the paying participants over the non paying).
i think there were also some big concerns over liability if the school gave grades/credits for something outside-then if the student was injured they might be monetarily responsible.

as for letting kids out early for sports type stuff-not sure how that works round here. in elementary and middle school i think there's a minimum number of instructional hours the kid has to attend-but once you hit 9th grade it's a minimum number of units progressing towards graduation-so it was'nt unusual then or now for someone to structure their schedual such to come in a couple of hours late (like 2 classes worth) or take off at noon. if you took summer school begining in 9th and whacked out a couple of classes each session you could even graduate a year early-so i guess if it was done 'right' a student could have a very short school day to accommodate their sports activities.

 

[golfgal]

I don't know of any schools around here that do/allow that. I do know of a few skaters that take lessons during the school day and miss classes to do so (private school) . I don't get that at all. I did have a similar conversation with the principal of our old school when I was president of the education committee for church and they were looking for ways to offer more class choices. I suggested that kids that participate in at least 2 after school sports during the year be exempt from PE classes at school, which would be about 90% of the middle school kids. They did re-vamp the PE program and although they don't say that they are not taking as much PE because of after school sports that is the reason behind it.

At our high school now kids that are in a sport can sign up for a 7th hour study hall and then they start practice earlier but not all kids do that, it is just an option. It doesn't exempt them from PE.

Personally, kids in sports get a lot more exercise then you ever would in PE so I would support allowing kids that are in at least 2 seasons of after school sports to be exempt from PE--it would increase participation in the sports programs I think.

 

[Jeafl]

Not the exact situation you are describing, by our middle school does have off campus PE for anyone who wants it. As long as you are passing all of your classes, they will bus you to the ice rink or the bowling alley during your PE class time just to do something different.

It has nothing to do with whether you are involved in a particular sport or not.

 

[missypie]

This is the first I've heard of it. I've PM'd the OP. It's ridiculous for the schools schools to think that their 5 class hours of school gym can compete with 15 hours of gymnastics....you should feel the muscles on my gymnast DD!

Regular PE is a joke in our District. In 6th grade, almost everyone takes it. But in 7th grade, you don't take it if you're in Athletics...so the folks in PE are the non-atheletes, so they do literally next to nothing.

High school is worse. There, you only take PE if you aren't in Atheletics, Band or Dance Team. DS took "Individual Sports" (eg. tennis, golf, etc.) 1st hour last semeseter. EVERY gym and playing field was taken up by a sports or dance team. They played dodge ball in a gym building hall way every day.

 

[PrincessTiff]

This is the first I've heard of it. I've PM'd the OP. It's ridiculous for the schools schools to think that their 5 class hours of school gym can compete with 15 hours of gymnastics....you should feel the muscles on my gymnast DD!

I see your from North Texas as well. Was your DD a HS gymnast? We may have competed against each other back in HS.