The team sports heare generally are the PE class -- the ones with extended practices are often either first or last period so they have practice before or after class on top of the class time -- so yes, they team sport fills the PE requirement. Band also gets 1/2 PE credit for marching season (any band kids and even some of the football players will tell you the band kids work as hard or harder than the football team), the cheerleaders and drill team and recently the show choir also get PE credit for the dance.

Texas also allows kids who compete or participate in sports outside of school to get PE credit, but they have to meet certain requirements for minimum hours (a lot more than in school), supervision and reporting. Football and band are each about 10% of the school, add chearleaders, drill team, show choir, then basketball, baseball, track and cross country, then add kids who do competetive dance, horseback riding, hockey, fencing, martial arts or other activities not done through the school for provate PE credit, my guess is about half the students do not take regular PE classes.

My son got PE credit for being on the track and field team, but it was only half the year, so he had to take one semester of PE to get full credit for the year. He didn't have time for it during that school year so he got the 1/2 credit during the summer school session.

Lascatx, after the competition season is over, but not the semester, do they continue to train, cross-train, or does the class revert to regular PE?

Chispa, we used to get that, but the state rules changed. Now even if you train for two hours a day in your sport, you still have to take PE those days :(

That's how it works in my kids private schools, fwiw, but team sports are required. No idea re public.

bpathome, amazing that CA still has some common sense for something! CA is usually the first to pass some stupid rule/law :-o

Why are you asking? Did your school try or attempt this? It is an innovative idea. We are grappling with the 'I don't mean...." idea you mentioned. They are tying it to actually lettering in more than one sport equals a half credit P.E. but it is not going well. The coaches must LOVE this idea of practice during the school day.

Texas here. My daughter was on the drill team, which counted as her PE credit, even off-season. But they also had hours of practice a day, besides the normal PE hour. During off-season, they still practiced routines, etc.

Our district here in Texas requires pe in 6th, in 7th grade grade you can take pe, dance or athletics(team sports), and no required pe in 8th. In high school you have to take 1 year of pe which can be satisfied by pe, athletics, band, rotc, dance or approved out of school competitive sport training. They dropped down to the minimum state requirements for pe to allow students more flexibility in their elective choices which include a required 4 year sequence in a discipline such as engineering/business&finance/medical.

My DGD is on the varsity soccer team at her public HS. There are state rules about what they can/can't do in the off semester of the season as a team in HS, but they can do cross-training during the period they would normally have soccer practice as a school team. So for fall semester there is working out, running, etc during the last period of the day for her and her teammates. There is even a certain 'day' in the state that they can officially practice as a team in January after tryouts and the team is set. And of course then they have after school practice.

All of the girls my DGD's age (15-16), however, play club soccer, so they are playing together, with girls from other high schools in the area, during the fall with another coach.

Arcy, the sport question relates to our school considering changes to the school day. What the schedule looks like, what time school starts, and more. A concern is that, if the start of the school day is pushed back, outdoor sports move into darkness for longer, and into dinner hour, etc. Morning practices, on the other hand, could start a little later. Someone mentioned sport AS your PE, and it was positively received.

One problem my son mentioned is that many of the coaches teach academics, not all of them are PE teachers. But, of course, all of the students TAKE academics, so everyone's schedule would just work around that, I suppose.

I like hearing your experiences!

Oh, our state requires 4 years of High school PE for public school. It now has to be part of the school day. Extracurricular/competition sports and community sports do not take their place. Our band doesn't do marching routines, so it wouldn't count as a sport.

However, one semester of PE must be Health class, and a semester of Drivers Ed can take the place of PE another semester. You actually do have to take Drivers Ed, but you can take it privately if you want to, in which case you take PE.

I really like this idea of your sport being the first or last period of the day. You can start early (swimmers already start practice at 5:30! This could push them to 7:30 for practice feeding in to the 8:30 class, and let them get some sleep for goodness sake!) it might also give you a chance to take other extracurriculars.

I don't really have a stake in this, only one of my kids did a sport, for only one season. But I'm participating in talks on the new school day.

We too are debating the earlier start for HS..Sports is everything in this town so the idea of it interfering with practice keeps the other ideas at bay. I have to say my son carried Tuba in Marching Band and I would argue with anyone who wanted to that he was getting plenty of exercise!! The biggest push back for this credit for sports is from the Phy Ed. teachers. They are worried about their jobs. I am sure our Dist. could cut one of two Phy Ed teachers if you took out all the athletes. Our state only requires two years of P.E. in high school, so they already feel they are on the chopping block.

My granddaughter is a Freshman (Hillsborough County Forida public high school), her guidance counselor suggested she take her PE requirement next summer online if she does not play a sport. I had no idea what taking a PE a course online meant so I just went looking....

in case you want to see how it's done somewhere else..

Secondary Physical Education

Physical Education is an essential component of the total educational experience for all high school age students. Students are required to take the Health Opportunities through Physical Education (HOPE) course as the physical education requirement for graduation. The grades 9-12 physical education experience is designed to assist students in acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary to make healthy livelong decisions and to provide them an opportunity to further develop movement potentials through the selection of content specific elective courses.

Grades 9-12 Physical Education Curricula and assessments are standards based and course specific. Content knowledge assessments are administered to students enrolled all physical education Physical fitness assessments are administered to students enrolled in HOPE course. Formative motor skill and content assessments may also be administered throughout the school year as necessary for the purpose of curriculum focus, lesson plan development and to assist students in developing higher levels of movement competence. Content is taught through one, two and/or three week instructional units for each content topic. The duration of instructional units varies for each content topic based on individual student needs.

The HOPE course is a one (1) year physical education course which includes an integration of health education. Senate House Bill 2092 establishes criteria for exemption of the HOPE course, 1.0 credit requirement through the following waiver process:

• Participation in two seasons of an interscholastic sport (which includes cheerleading) at the junior varsity and varsity levels and a passing grade of “C” on the FLDOE’s Personal Fitness Exam (PFE).
• Completion of two years in a Reserve Officer Training Corps (R.O.T.C.) class.

The PFE is administered on a single day during the November and May of each school year. Eligible 10th, 11th and 12th grade students will be informed prior to testing dates by the school administration of this opportunity. Schools will verify eligible students by confirming that they have completed two full seasons of varsity or junior varsity sports. A Test Administrator’s Manual contains the following specific course resources for students to access as study materials:

• Rainey, D.L. & Murry, T.D. (1997). Foundations of Personal Fitness. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing.
• Stokes, R. & Schultz, S.L. (1998). Personal Fitness for You. Winston-Salem, NC: Hunter Textbooks.
• William, C., Harageones, E., Johnson, D., & Smith, C. (2000). Personal Fitness

These last two comments lead me to wonder something. Our state used to allow schools to waive the PE requirement for a student during their sport season; instead of PE they had an assigned study hall. So PE teachers were already limited. I wonder if the state dropped the waiver to protect PE teachers?

Going to a sport-as-PE model would just revert us to, basically, the old situation staffing-wise?

Bpathome, the reason band has gotten a half credit is that marching is mostly summer through fall. The rest of the year is concert season and they have their regular class and after school sectionals, but not marching practice. The athletes, drill team, color guard and cheerleaders all continue to have practices and off season competitions, so my understanding is that they have full creditis, but I haven't had any kids in those activities.

When my boys were in high school, I think they only needed 2 PE full credits plus health and a half credit in communications -- total of three years. I don't know if that has changed in the last couple of eyars. They have been changing a lot of things.

We too have this PE on line credit. Begs the question why was the standard ever put into USA curriculum? Do we value health or is it about teaching students leisure activities they can take out of high school and how is that serving the USA economy? Don't be fooled. School curriculum, "free" education is all about ending up with a tax paying customer. What sort of "education" will best serve the greater economy of the USA. When we get to the root of WHY we need P.E. credits AT ALL we can then begin a discussion on what "counts" fair fair. As I said in my Dist. being in a sport isn't good enough, you have to LETTER is said sport. Correct me if I am wrong but a teen who goes to all the practices, works out with the team hours each day, but has the coordination of an elephant..they do end up pretty physically fit do they not? It sounds like my Dist. is unique in this, however and I don't speak for those with kids in sports--mine did arts/music but the entire concept seems full of contradictions and that is what BUGS me. I am gonna take a stab at a guess that if you removed all athletes from P.E. classes you MIGHT get the less physically inclined students to actually do more, try harder. For teens comparisons matter.