GILROY
– Gilroy Unified School District will take the first step toward
implementing a new physical education program next week. However,
several problems with the current program must still be sorted out,
including how classroom teachers will fit the required amount of
physical education time into the s
chool day.
By Lori Stuenkel
GILROY – Gilroy Unified School District will take the first step toward implementing a new physical education program next week. However, several problems with the current program must still be sorted out, including how classroom teachers will fit the required amount of physical education time into the school day.
“The problem is, we need to spend more time in P.E., and we’ve been struggling to make that happen,” said Jim Gama, vice principal of South Valley Middle School and current chair of the PE committee created last fall. “We’re having a difficult time stretching those minutes to do everything we need to do in the district.”
GUSD elementary students in grades four and five receive 30 minutes of physical education time a week, 70 minutes less than the 100 required by the state. Those 30 minutes are spent with a district physical education teacher and the rest are supposed to be led by the classroom teacher. That is a difficult task, because the districtwide classroom schedule focuses on literacy and math, allotting 35 minutes at the end of each day for all other subjects, including science, social studies, art, music and physical education.
“We need help fitting (PE) in,” said Christine Cox, a fifth-grade teacher at Las Animas Elementary School. “Obviously, we’re not going to be able to get to PE. … It adds up to more time than we have in a day.”
Finding time is even more crucial in first through third grades, because classroom teachers are responsible for providing all 100 minutes.
District officials have recognized that students are not receiving the required amount of physical education time, but do not have a solution to the time crunch.
“It’s hard for us to mandate that because, right now, we have such focus on our reading, writing and math scores,” said Olivia Schaad, GUSD director of curriculum and instruction. “No matter how we cut the pie, there’s not enough time for us to do everything we need to do.”
Elementary students will begin participating in Run for Fitness, an eight-week program developed by district physical education teacher Pat Vickroy in 1988 and used for seven years. Run for Fitness is intended to help students accumulate some of those missing minutes outside school hours, Schaad said. Students will practice running or running-type activities at least three times each week, both at school and at home. They will accumulate mileage, possibly receiving awards for reaching benchmarks like 10 miles, and at the end of the program will participate in a fun run.
“It’s a way to get kids and families thinking about fitness, and teachers can use it in the regular classroom,” Superintendent Edwin Diaz said.
Also, the GUSD after-school program, which is running at five schools, includes one hour of physical activity supervised by YMCA staff and some district PE teachers.
The district is in the process of developing physical education lessons so classroom teachers will engage students in proper physical activities that meet state standards. Lacking proper lessons and physical education training, classroom teachers who can find the time for PE play games with students, such as baseball, dodge ball, or even duck-duck-goose, Vickroy said.
“There’s no structured program, and we haven’t had any training in the district, so I just do things that I know that (students) know how to do from the (PE) staff,” Cox said.
A physical education committee, formed last fall, is currently developing lessons to supplement the Run for Fitness program. Once the lessons are complete, teachers will receive additional training to properly implement them.
“Until that process is complete, they’ll focus on Run for Fitness, because it’s aligned with the standards for physical education and the test,” Diaz said.
Still, the program is not all-inclusive. Run for Fitness will get kids out and active, but will constitute only part of what should be a well-rounded physical education curriculum, Vickroy said.
“It’s a start. From a physical education standpoint, it’s just one component of educating a child,” Vickroy said. “We just don’t want kids out there running laps all year long. They need motor skills development, they need cognitive connections for why they’re moving.”
Students need to improve their physical fitness overall, said GUSD School Board Trustee John Gurich, a physical education teacher in San Jose. Fewer than 20 percent of Gilroy students pass the state physical fitness exam each year.
“They’re going to be ill so young in life,” said Gurich, noting that inactive children suffer not only from obesity but lifelong illnesses like diabetes.
“We just have to allow more minutes,” Gurich said. “But how are we going to implement those standards if the teachers aren’t trained to teach them? We need the classroom teachers to know how to implement the program.”
The fun run event – Run for Literacy – is tentatively scheduled for Nov. 22, at the end of Literacy Week, and will be a book fund raiser as well.
