Should High School Sports Count Towards Class Credits?

Should High School Sports Count Towards Class Credits? So many high school students devote their entire high school career to one or several high school sports.

With all the time, effort, and money a student athlete puts into attending practices and also competing, they should get something other than a letter award for all of their hard work and dedication. Many schools have found this to be an insufficient reward for student athletes. Several schools have gone back and forth for the past couple of years, dealing with this. So there are two sides to this issue; No, high school sports shouldn’t count towards physical education credits, and yes, high school sports should count towards physical education credits. This issue is still very new to many schools, and some haven’t even heard about it yet. Will this become something that will take place in every school? With anything, there will be someone who is opposed to a change within a school district.

There are also the pros and cons that come along with a change. No, high school sports shouldn’t count towards physical education classes. While varsity sports themselves teach many of the same skills as physical education classes, the differences between the sports and the classes are significant (Lubdberg). Many students have given different reasons as to why it shouldn’t count. So you ask yourself what are the downfalls? During a physical education class, you are given the opportunity to explore several different sports or areas of exercise, many that your high school may not even offer.

While you are in a high school sport you are training for that specific sport. You are only learning skills to help you improve in that specific sport. Kristan Lubdberg states, “Individual varsity sports tend to concentrate only on the skills and concepts of that sport, limiting diversity of education.” Do physical education classes make a student more well-rounded? Does engaging in activities with fellow classmates make a difference rather than working with your teammates? So many students wouldn’t learn aspects such as; having a healthy lifestyle, or engaging in a different sports area they never would have tried hadn’t it been for a physical education class. The most important thing in sports now days is to win.

Through physical education classes, the pressure to constantly win is taken off students. They can relax and just enjoy playing the game with friends. Is swapping physical education classes with a high school sport really going to benefit the student athletes? They won’t get done with high school any quicker and they still have to be academically eligible to be able to participate in the sport. If a student decides to slack off in a class, he/she will no longer be able to compete due to ineligible grades. How does this help a student earn credits when they can no longer compete on the team? With every issue there is always two sides. The other side of this issue is, yes, high school sports should count towards physical education credits.

Many schools have looked into this issue and have decided that their school and students would benefit from allowing high school sports to count towards physical education credits. Through providing this new way to receive class credits, students would be able to allow more room in their class schedule for required classes such as; math, English, or science. Students wouldn’t have to take a semester of the required physical education classes anymore that are required to graduate. Through this program students wouldn’t be able to graduate any sooner than before, they would just have the opportunity to take more; AP classes or college classes their junior and/or senior years. Offering this to high school athletes doesn’t take away the option to take a physical education class, it just allows them to free up more class schedule time.

Kate Runyon stated, ” Allowing my son to take PE during summer school helped free up time for academic classes during the school year. I think this change is pro-student.” This is becoming more and more popular throughout the nation. Not only is this becoming popular in high schools, but colleges are also starting to implement this new rule. There are only two requirements to make a sport count towards physical education class credits.

1)You must be a member of the team. 2)You must participate in practices and games. Through the course of the season, no matter what sport it is, the coach will determine if the student is deserving of any credits towards physical education. “What I’ve heard at other schools is that there are other ways to learn at an academic institution other than in the classroom. What we learn doesn’t necessarily have to come from a classroom or out of a book” (Weiser).

Schools will start to ask themselves, does this make sense for our school, and for our students and student athletes? Implementing this won’t take away jobs from high school physical education teachers. Adding this option for high school athletes will make the school district strong and help add to more well-rounded students. To sum it up, schools will start to implement a new standard allowing student athletes to gain class credits for physical education through high school sports, or they will stay where they are today, not allowing student athletes to swap out physical education classes for high school sports and still gain class credits. For the schools who will decided to stay the same will continue to have physical education classes where students are allowed to actively participate with their fellow classmates. Students will also be able to explore several more sports areas and not just focusing on the sport that they are in.

During physical education classes students are also able to purely enjoy a sport without the pressure of having to win all the time. Through implementing this new standard students would be able to free up more class schedule time to take other required classes. Students would also be able to focus on a specific sport allowing them to excel in that area. Either way schools will benefit from this. After much research on this subject, I have come to like this standard allowing high school athletes to use their sports to count as physical education class credits.

I believe this would benefit schools in several different ways. One of the ways would be that more high school athletes would be able to take more academic classes instead of using class hours to attend physical education classes. The other would be, there would possibly more enrollment in high school athletics. This would be at no extra cost to high schools who decide to implement this, due to the fact that it isn’t adding any costs. I am for this approach to acquiring high school physical education credits, and think that Ortonville High School should implement it.