Workout Wonders : Fitness: Tarzana’s Portola Junior High ninth-graders score best among Los Angeles district schools in the Valley on state’s physical fitness test.

Portola Junior High School is proud of its PTA.

“That’s what I call our program: Pain, torture, agony,” said Doug Dufay, co-chairman of Portola’s physical education department.

The method seems to be working. Last year’s ninth-graders earned Portola the highest score on state fitness tests among San Fernando Valley schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, according to results released last week by the state Department of Education.

What’s surprising is that the Valley’s best are also among the district’s brightest. The ninth-grade class at Portola is part of a magnet school program that is limited to students who have scored 145 and above on IQ tests. Only about half of 1% of the general population can achieve such scores, district officials said.

“We tend to think that people who are intellectually gifted don’t have much physical ability, but that is not the case,” said Kriste Mencher, coordinator of the Tarzana school’s magnet program for the highly gifted.

That is apparent. Nearly 50% of the students in Portola’s ninth-grade class passed all four parts of the state fitness test administered last spring, compared with 10% of ninth-graders throughout the Los Angeles district.

“Our ninth-graders want to achieve in every phase of school,” said Katy Boukas, co-chair of Portola’s physical education department. “They have that desire, and they want to get good grades.”

Portola ninth-grader Hyung Choi said running daily in his physical education class already has put him in good shape after his three-month summer layoff, and he believes he will be ready to pass the state tests this spring. “I like the weight training,” he said.

The state fitness test, developed by the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, requires students to achieve passing scores in four events: a flexibility test, sit-ups, pull-ups and a mile walk-run.

Los Angeles school officials last week said their districtwide results are unreliable because some schools did not complete all four parts of the test, which automatically gives the student a failing score. But the Portola test results, which are nearly twice the statewide passing rate of California ninth-graders, are considered accurate because all parts of the test were completed.

Richard Cord, Portola’s principal, said he was not impressed by his ninth-graders’ performance until he compared it to scores statewide. Education officials agree that the results of the first-ever state fitness test show what has been long suspected, that today’s youngsters are less fit than youth of past years.

Even at Portola, where students are in far better shape than their counterparts statewide, performance pales in comparison to former Portola students.

“Kids are in far worse shape than they were even 10 years ago,” said Dufay, who has taught physical education at Portola for 20 years. “It’s getting harder to motivate them because they have so many distractions: TV, video games. They don’t ride bikes or walk as much because they get rides everywhere.”

For example, Dufay said, the physical education department recently relaxed the requirements for boys to earn the school’s “Golden Trunks.” In the 1960s, he said, 10 boys a year earned the honor. Now, he said, one or two boys a year qualify--even with the relaxed requirements.

But Portola’s regimen, compared to most schools, remains tough. For years, physical education classes have included--in addition to the usual team sports--a daily mix of distance running, sit-ups and pull-ups for boys and girls.

So it’s no coincidence that students did well on the state test, because they practice all year. The students in the school’s regular sixth- through eighth-grade programs share physical education classes with the school’s highly gifted students, who come from neighborhoods throughout the city.

To pass the state test, 15-year-old ninth-grade boys are required to do five pull-ups, complete 35 sit-ups in one minute and run a mile in 10 minutes, 30 seconds.

But to get an A grade at Portola, those same boys have to do 12 pull-ups, 65 sit-ups in one minute and run a mile in six minutes, 10 seconds. To earn the school’s Golden Trunks, boys have to do 16 pull-ups, 70 sit-ups in one minute and run a mile in five minutes, 45 seconds. Previously, students had to do 20 pull-ups, run the mile in five minutes, 15 seconds, and do the same number of sit-ups.

“They expect a lot from us here, and we try to do a lot,” said Boris Chernin, a student in the school’s program for the highly gifted. “The toughest part is the mile. Pull-ups are hard too.”

Chernin said he took the advice of teachers and bought a pull-up bar to practice at home.

At least once a week, students at Portola run either the school’s mile course or a two-thirds-of-a-mile course called the “mini-mile.” Twice a semester, students are tested in the mile run, pull-ups and sit-ups. The school also offers weight training for students.

Working the students hard is also hard work for teachers.

“It’s a lot easier to just throw out the ball and let them play,” Dufay said. “But most students just don’t know what they are capable of doing unless they are pushed. When they see their times in the mile dropping, they get excited. They come back to us after a year or two and say, ‘Thank you.’ ”