How often do your high schoolers have gym/PE per week?

[agnes!]

I'm not sure what the public school requirements are locally, as my kids go to private school, (they are required PE as well though) but the schools here give a summer gym option which is nice for the kids. You have to pay the tuition but the kids meet every day for 4-5 hours for 3 weeks in the summer to fulfill one semester of their requirement (half-year). Many kids that play sports after school opt for this option as it is a lot to have the PE and their sports in one day.

I LOVE this idea.

No sports exemption here.

PE is required freshman/sophomore year only. Freshman year alternates health and PE for the first 3 quarters of the year, all PE for the last quarter. Sophomore year alternates PE and driver's ed (classroom portion only) for most of the first half of the year then all PE rest of the year. Other high schools in the county may use different schedules but but essentially get the same amount of time in PE/health/driver's ed.

Junior and senior year have PE electives available like weight training and athletic training. ...

Sounds very familiar...

agnes!

 

[MushyMushy]

No exemptions here. We are on a 9 week schedule, so they would go to gym 5 days a week for 9 weeks, then would have health for a different 9 week period. They do that all four years.

 

[NotUrsula]

Way back in the dark ages when I was in school, we had what was called "Athlete's PE". What that meant in practical terms was that all athletes and members of band, cheerleaders, trainers -- anyone who had to travel to school-related evening events -- had gym last period.

The reason for this had nothing to do with giving us any kind of rest or study hall time. The purpose was to minimize time absent from academic core classes on days when we had to travel to meets or games. We had the same PE curriculum as everyone else, and took PE every day. It was just considered a more "missable" class, and the coaches perhaps went kind of easy on us because there were a lot of days when class was canceled due to events; we were not required to formally make up that work.

 

[Momvic5]

Our public high school has sport exemptions on certain sports, and PE is only required during the freshman and sophmore years - 1.5 credits for PE and .5 credit for health. My ds14 is on the freshman football team, and his 8th period is a "football" class. Those sports that are offered as classes called athletic periods count as a PE credit. During the football season, they start football practice during class time and continue after school. When football season is over, they start a weight lifting and endurance program.

 

[Magpie]

My daughter has to take a PE credit each year, but it's a semestered system with four credits completed in the first half of the year, and four more credits completed in the second. So from September to February, she has no PE whatsoever. From March to June she has an hour and a half of PE every single day of the week.

She's going to be in great shape by summer!

 

[Momvic5]

Way back in the dark ages when I was in school, we had what was called "Athlete's PE". What that meant in practical terms was that all athletes and members of band, cheerleaders, trainers -- anyone who had to travel to school-related evening events -- had gym last period.

The reason for this had nothing to do with giving us any kind of rest or study hall time. The purpose was to minimize time absent from academic core classes on days when we had to travel to meets or games. We had the same PE curriculum as everyone else, and took PE every day. It was just considered a more "missable" class, and the coaches perhaps went kind of easy on us because there were a lot of days when class was canceled due to events; we were not required to formally make up that work.

This is exactly what our high school does....in fact, this year they started classes a hour earlier (7:30am - 2:30pm) so that the athletes and band members would miss less school time due to traveling. So far, the only class that my ds14 has missed due to football is his 8th period athletics class (football).

 

[HM]

PE only required as a Freshman. Class is all year, every other day, some of it taken as Health and the rest as PE.

In middle school, PE was to be taken each year. You could get an exemption if you were an athlete, so that you could take another elective (only two electives a year...and one was PE, so if you wanted to do Band and Computers or Strings and Art, you couldn't without the exemption).

 

[FireDancer]

I don't have a kid in H.S. but when I was there (1992-1996) we had to take 2 semesters of gym (one freshman and one sophomore) and for that semester we had gym that period every day. For the sophomore year we either had health the first semester and gym the second or vice versa. There was no exemption for playing any sports.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

My kids have to take PE for a year and a half. They are on a block schedule so one week 2 days a week, next week 3 days a week.

PE exemptions for sports, band, and cheer.

I *think* this is what ours is.

DS is a freshman and he is NOT enrolled in PE this year. He goes to an arts magnet school where there is no PE - the kids all take Dance. So he will take 3 semesters of Dance and one semester of Health if I understand it correctly. We also have A/B scheduling so he will have Dance every other day. I have asked him about taking Health in summer school so he will have a semester open to add another class during the year that he might enjoy more, but he is balking at that.

I think some of the kids take PE classes through the community college, but they have to be at least 16 to be allowed to enroll. DS is not a PE kind of guy, and the Dance classes will be helpful to him on stage. He is a Theatre student.

 

[KAMLEM]

Our school added the thrid gym day tograde school last year but they didn't get rid of anything---instead my daughters Friday was 940-1010 gym, 1010-1040 art...they went to math (they only changed classrooms for math last year) 1040-11:10 and then lunch and recess from 11:10-12:10--- they didn't go to their regular classroom until 1210 in the afternoon on Fridays!! It really irked me that basically the whole morning was wasted by 2 specials, the only worthwhile class was math!

So gym and art are not worthwhile? I have to disagree with that.

 

[mom2travel]

DD in 5th grade has PE 2 days a week.

Middle schoolers (6th-8th grade) have PE 3 of 4 quarters each year; 1 quarter is health.

In HS, PE is only required freshman year, and is 5 days a week.
Sophmores take 1 semester of health.
There are some PE electives available as well.
DS told me that if they missed PE, they needed to run at lunch a different day to make it up. Otherwise their grade was affected because of a missed class. This held even if they missed for a sports team (DS' coach was his PE teacher and there were no exceptions if he missed for a game).

 

[golfgal]

DD in 5th grade has PE 2 days a week.

Middle schoolers (6th-8th grade) have PE 3 of 4 quarters each year; 1 quarter is health.

In HS, PE is only required freshman year, and is 5 days a week.
Sophmores take 1 semester of health.
There are some PE electives available as well.
DS told me that if they missed PE, they needed to run at lunch a different day to make it up. Otherwise their grade was affected because of a missed class. This held even if they missed for a sports team (DS' coach was his PE teacher and there were no exceptions if he missed for a game).

In our high school they do have to make up a missed day with any 45 minute activity (which is about how long they are actually "in" gym after changing,etc.). If they miss they do the activity, have a parent or gym supervisor sign off and turn it in. If they are missing for a sport, the coach just signs the paper. In our old school the kids had to write a two page, TYPED, paper about being active. I pointed out to the gym teacher that wouldn't the time spent typing the paper be better spent doing an activity vs writing about one. She told me that most kids wouldn't actually DO an activity . Ok.

 

[funkychunkymonkey]

we had gym MW in 9th grade with health on friday. In 10th it was Tuesday and Thursday. 11th was MWF. If you passed gym all three years there was no gym seinor year. I hated gym.

 

[padams]

4 days of PE per week for one semester of freshman year is all that is required. DS is sad that he doesn't have PE as a class anymore.

 

[Katie's Butterflies]

At my old high school, they still do 3 quarters of PE and 1 quarter of health education during the freshman year. The class takes place every day for about an hour. This was a private school.

The local public schools had 3 semesters of PE and one semester of health (so, 2 full years usually taken during the freshman and sophomore years.) Students could opt out of the physical classes by signing up for a class at the local YMCA, or participating on a team sport, or taking an exercise class at the local CC etc. They could not opt out of the health class.

 

[SydSim]

I don't think there is anything wrong with students trying to be bring about change in their schools. Just don't use those poll as evidence of anything. You're better off contacting the other districts in your area and using their policies. An anonymous internet poll is just going to make your daughter look silly.

Oh don't get me wrong, I wasn't going to have her wave the Disboards printed out poll at the meeting, just mention it during the presentation. She would do other research as well, but she could use some examples from those given by you wonderful Disers

 

[dimimi]

Ohio requires one full year of physical education and 1/2 year of health. Some districts allow sports exemption. I think the sports exemption is great. My son swims 2 -3 hours per day for the winter season...it's MUCH more exercise that he would get from a PE class. The physical education option also required a class that the kids took on the weekend to go over things that might not be covered in the class.

 

[::Snow_White::]

At our HS Freshmen have PE every other day, then after that it becomes an elective.

I hated PE. I wasn't athletic and I hated competing and have people watch me. Now that I don't have PE I exercise at home, run on the treadmill, do activities I like, on my own time. Suits me much better, but I know a few kids who still take PE. They still have it every other day.

 

[tvguy]

Public high school here required 5 hours a week, all 4 years.
Catholic high school requires 4 hours a week, only 2 years.

 

[disney100666]

At my school, we run on a 6 day block schedule, so only 4 classes a day and you have the classes every other day. Therefore, each class is roughly 1 1/2 hours(it's honestly not as bad as it sounds). We only have gym 1 day per cycle, but it's 1 1/2 hours long. I assume we haven't added anymore gym periods is because we have a very active sports program. The other days during the block you usually have gym is either a study or a lab block for your science class. Freshman and juniors have health instead of the study.