School is out, and summer vacation means camp, trips to the pool and running around until dark. That’s good because high childhood obesity rates and lots of “screen time,” means youth exercise is more important than ever.
Nevertheless, when it comes to school, the benefits of physical education classes must be balanced against the benefits of rigorous academic instruction, homework and adequate sleep. To improve the balance among these competing objectives, we think a smart alternative to mandatory PE class would be a study hall option for students who participate in extracurricular sports.
Such a program would offer at least three benefits:
1. Encourage more kids to join sport teams. A well-run PE class can offer needed physical activity and can help students develop many useful skills, but research has found that students who participate in a sport tend to perform better academically.
2. Foster smaller PE classes. If some student athletes choose the study hall option, overcrowded school gyms would become less crowded. This benefits those remaining students as it gives them more room to exercise and more personal attention.
3. Offer needed time to complete homework assignments. Games and practices often take up a large share of the afternoon. This can force students to do their homework late into the evening and sacrifice a good night’s sleep. A 2013 survey found that 60 percent of young adolescents get insufficient sleep.
A number of states permit schools to have “substitution policies” for PE. This means school districts in those states can allow students involved in a sport to substitute those activities for PE class. For example, the Virginia Board of Education has adopted guidelines to ensure that students receive a good physical education, including a recommendation for at least 150 minutes a week of exercise. Notably, this guideline explicitly includes extracurricular athletics as a means to achieve this goal.
As we envision it, a study hall option would apply on a quarter-by-quarter basis. Students playing a sport only in the fall would need to go to PE class in the winter and spring. Health classes, often co-joined to PE class, would not be substitutable.
To determine which students can choose the study hall option, school administrators would establish procedures to validate that students are actively playing a sport. Parents, coaches and students could be required to verify physical activity.
SHAPE America, a national membership organization that represents health and physical education professionals, opposes this idea and has explicitly recommended against permitting schools to substitute other physical activity for PE class, even calling these policies “loopholes.”
In our view, their well-intentioned recommendation arises from a narrow perspective and fails to recognize the multi-faceted demands on students and the trade-offs between study time, physical activity, family commitments and sleep.
Ultimately, the precise impact and value of a study hall alternative can only be determined if it is tried and measured. Such a policy would lend itself to a pilot program where school administrators could compare grades, physical fitness, sleep and student satisfaction among students who choose this option with students who remain in PE class and students in a nearby school where the study hall option is not offered.
Nothing here should be construed as a knock on PE class or PE teachers. For many kids, PE is the most fun class of the day and a needed opportunity to get physical. But kids (and their parents) want their school experience tailored. More flexibility in the PE department would be one step toward that goal.
