PE Makes the Grade at Two City Schools : Physical Education Suffers Decline at Most Schools

Earlier this year, university researchers studying high school students’ knowledge of exercise and health sought information from 600 San Diego city schools 12th-graders who were taking physical education classes.

The school district’s physical health coordinator barely found the needed number out of almost 1,800 potential students. At most city high schools, one-third or fewer of the seniors take physical education, and of the group, half or more are involved in interscholastic competition. That leaves only a handful of students taking regular physical education classes.

Despite showcase athletics magnet programs at two elementary schools, the general state of physical education instruction in San Diego city schools has been declining for several years, mirroring the trend across the state and the nation.

Under state law, high school students are required to take physical education for only two of their four years, one of which must be in the ninth grade. In California, only the Beverly Hills high school district mandates four years of physical instruction for all students.

“I have three regular phys-ed classes (in addition to specialized team coaching) and I don’t have a single senior,” said Point Loma High School teacher Bennie Edens, a three-decade veteran of physical education. “I suspect that 90% of the 11th- and 12th-graders (not in organized sports) do not take phys ed.”

“Without the requirement, kids conclude that the need (and benefits) for exercise is not there and they get involved in something else,” John Shacklett, athletic director at Morse High School, said.

At Gompers Secondary School, juniors and seniors who must take a physical education class to fulfill their requirements brag of doing the daily run at half-speed and barely exerting themselves during volleyball or soccer in order to avoid working up a sweat.

The district’s physical education coordinator, Fred Bates, traces the decline to both a lack of money that eliminated towels, and to increased emphasis on academic courses, which must be squeezed into the existing six-period day. Given the choice of physical education or other courses, most high school students decide to take work experience, yearbook or additional English and math courses instead of an exercise class. There is no money for schools to add a seventh period.

“Sure, I think that fitness skills have been and will continue to decline, since already (national studies show) there is too little exercising and too much time watching television,” Bates said. “And it’s ironic because we find more adults getting into exercise but few children are as motivated today and they are not exposed to programs that will get them motivated.”

Even at the elementary-school level, physical education is not stressed as much as in previous years, Bates said.

“We’ve got 150 schools in the district kindergarten-through-12 and we have one resource person who handles the K-12 physical education program, who goes around to conduct workshops and clinics--when we can even get teachers to come to such things,” Bates said.

“The classroom teacher is so impacted by the need to have students do well on state (academic) examinations that physical education is just not a priority for them,” he said.

Edens praised the magnet concept at the two specialized elementary schools--Green and Fulton--where children are given a well-rounded introduction to fitness and not forced to specialize at an early age in baseball or football.

“After all, pushing an 8-year-old into something like being the national broad jump champion is ego-involvement for a parent or coach, and not for a physical education teacher,” Edens said.

But he added that students at non-magnet elementary schools are fortunate when they have teachers who know more than the simple rudiments of physical education.

At the secondary level, a major factor in the decline of physical education’s popularity was the end of towel distribution by the district following passage of Proposition 13, which forced funding cuts. Even junior-high students, who still must take physical education, are not given towels.

“It’s hard to motivate kids to go out and get all sweaty and go in and put on street clothes without giving them towels for showering,” Bates said.

“By no longer providing towels, the district turned a lot of phys-ed classes into recreation/social activities rather than those emphasizing physical education,” Morse’s Shacklett said. “With no change of clothes (by many students), it’s too easy for a teacher to toss a ball out and let the student play and to forget about teaching skills.”

For a junior- or senior-high school student to shower, he or she must bring a towel from home and few make the effort, Shacklett said.

“Although the shower facilities are still there, I don’t think the boilers at our school have been fired up for five years or more,” he said. “And showers were one of the big aspects of health hygiene, as well as emphasizing discipline.”

Edens said that the deodorant can has replaced the towel. “I can’t even get my football team to shower, let alone the regular phys-ed classes,” he complained.

Morse’s Shacklett has tried to expand the number of skills activities offered as a way to stem the decline of students choosing physical education as an elective.

“We now have archery and volleyball among other non-traditional sports,” he said.

Planners in the state Department of Education are trying to renew interest in pushing for more physical education requirements.

Plan to Set Standards

The department hopes to issue a major report later this year setting model curriculum standards for physical education and health similar to those issued in recent years for English, math and foreign language that local districts use in formulating their own requirements.