Today we are making the case to have the option for students to waive their physical education class. We feel as if not all students need to have an extra class in school to teach them how to play sports. We know that PE is implemented to teach students how to live a healthy lifestyle, but that is obviously not being done in today’s schools. The stereotypical gym teacher is all about sports and games, not health and wellness. 

Why we want the option of waiving PE: We believe that students should be given the option to waive their PE course and use that time to join other classes such as home economics to help better their life skills and help prepare them to become better adults. In PE it is very common for serious injuries to occur and with these other electives this would not be an issue. According to a study by Pediatrics from 1997-2007 they found yearly PE related injuries increased by 150%. In these alternate classes, students will be able to learn lifetime skills such as cooking, sewing, finances, and other skills to be a productive individual. These classes would easily tie in with their other academic classes, as well as give them the opportunity to become "College, Career, and Life" ready. We feel as though legislators would rather have the students be "intellectually fit" than "physically fit" due to the increase in standardized testing. 

The PE classes of today are simply not working. Therefore, we must change this and provide our youth with practical information that will benefit them as independent adults. We feel as though these College, Career, and Life ready courses would benefit the students, parents, and community as a whole. We look forward to reading everyone's input in the comments and we follow up with any intriguing points or questions in next weeks blog.

Thank you for reading, until next time: Alex Lane and Dennis Lamson