By NORA FROESCHLE World Staff Writer
1/21/2008
In most districts, it's part of the class day only in grade school.
Despite a growing awareness of childhood obesity, Oklahoma public schools' physical education requirements are minimal.
The state mandates physical education in kindergarten through fifth grade, but not in middle and high school.
Paula Kun, a spokeswoman for the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, said her organization issued a 2006 study, "Shape of the Nation," that found that one-third of U.S. high school students do not engage in regular physical activity.
"The great majority of high school students are taking physical education only one out of the four years," Kun said.
The U.S. military is one group that has to deal directly with the effects of overweight, unfit kids, she said.
"We have gotten many a call from the military personnel telling us about the horrendous shape the recruits are in," she said.
The association recommends 60 minutes of physical activity every day for school-age youths.
Kun said media interest in childhood obesity isn't lacking, but the attention has yet to
translate into policy.
"We're getting to the point now where it's like, OK, this is the story, so what is being done?" she said. "The key is in terms of who's sup porting it. We need parents, because if parents want it, schools find a way to get it."
Educators say that the problem is fitting PE into the school day, given the state-mandated core curriculum, which does not include physical education.
Kent Holbrook, the superintendent of Liberty Public Schools, said the district does not require physical education in high school, but that personnel have discussed adding a general physical education class.
"We have a seven-period day just to fit in all of our offerings. . . . You have the pressure to get the academics in," he said.
Brian Tinker, a physical education teacher and coach at Liberty, said he believed that PE doesn't receive proper attention at many schools even when it is offered.
"I definitely think PE is treated as an extra recess," he said.
Tinker's fifth- and sixth-grade PE classes at Liberty do calisthenics, something many students were not used to doing before he was hired for the 2007-08 school year, he said.
"I did have a lot of complaints from parents saying things like, 'You're too hard on my kid,' and we weren't really even doing, like, heavy exercise," he said.
Shelly Hickman, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma State Department of Education, said that because state law doesn't require physical education for secondary students, districts can decide whether they want to add it to the curriculum.
"It hasn't been the practice to require physical education at the secondary level. We felt it was best to be a local decision," she said. "Because obviously, childhood and adolescent obesity is a problem in Oklahoma and nationwide."
Hickman noted that some secondary-school students are in competitive sports and said a required PE class would be unnecessary for them.
Illinois is possibly the only state that requires daily PE in kindergarten through 12th grade.
Kun said that although Illinois' PE requirement looks good on paper, up to 350 of its districts have sought state waivers on the requirement.
Hickman said that not all states have Oklahoma's rigorous graduation requirements, which make it more difficult to fit PE into the schedule.
"We may require some things on the academic side that they (Illinois) don't require," she said.
Hickman said a broad coali tion of organizations, including the Oklahoma Fit Kids Coalition, are working to improve fitness for the state's children, beyond what the public schools are able to do.
"The goal of all of these groups seems to be to instill good fitness and eating habits at an early age," she said. "If you instill healthy habits at a young age, those habits are going to carry over whether their high school has a requirement or not."
Debbie Burchfield, the assistant superintendent for curriculum and student programs at Jenks Public Schools, said the district offers PE, but it is not mandatory.
" 'College preparatory' implies that we are complying with what colleges are telling us they expect kids to have learned. Nowhere do they mention PE or physical fitness," she said.
However, at least a third if not half of the students at Jenks Middle School take physical education, Burchfield said.
"There's no one who disagrees with the idea of children being physically fit, and there's no one that disagrees that we have an obesity epidemic," she said.
Requiring physical education would only be one part of the fix, but children still need parental involvement to instill good nutrition and fitness habits, she said.
Nora Froeschle 581-8310
nora.froeschle@tulsaworld.comSTUDENT SLOTH
A 2005 youth risk behavior survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that among Oklahoma high school students:
15 percent are overweight
16 percent are at risk of becoming overweight
62 percent did not meet currently recommended levels of physical activity
12 percent had not participated in any vigorous or moderate physical activity during a seven-day period
64 percent did not attend physical education classes
