Goal: Get Arizona kids moving

Legislative panel pushes expansion of PE in schools

By Howard Fischer

CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES

PHOENIX — Students in elementary and middle schools should be required to have at least 90 minutes of physical education a week, a special legislative panel voted Wednesday.

The recommendation from the committee of educators, lawmakers, health professionals and parents would require that at least half that time be spent in actual activity and exercise, with the balance on textbook learning about health issues.

But the panel actually wants schools to do more. The proposal also includes a separate mandate to incorporate additional physical activity into every school day, ranging from five-minute breaks every hour to recess and lunch activity breaks for all students to more after-school opportunities for kids.

The legislative panel's recommendation now goes to the full Legislature. It affects only kindergarten through eighth grade because the panel was not asked to review high-school PE.

Schools are not required to have any PE now, and Tucson-area district requirements vary.

In Tucson's largest school district, boosting physical education would mean training teachers, hiring more staff members and buying additional equipment.

But the benefits justify the costs, said Lisa Long, assistant director for curriculum and technology integration. Now, Tucson Unified School District middle schools require at least half a year of physical education from sixth through eighth grades. In the younger grades, the requirements are less rigid.

"We know from research across the nation … our kids need more exercise," Long said. "Our students are couch-potato kids." But, she asked, "Where do you fit that in the day with mandates for everything else?"

The Sunnyside Unified School District seems to be ahead of the game with a physical-education teacher in every elementary school, made possible by a successful bond election recently. But officials say students get only one 45-minute class a week.

And in the Vail School District, elementary-school PE is rotated with two fine-arts classes of the school's choosing weekly or biweekly. The schools usually devote 50 minutes a week to any of the three "special" classes. At the middle schools, physical education is rotated with a fine-arts course every quarter.

The committee said the state should increase aid to each district to pick up the expenses of boosting physical education, including hiring additional teachers.

But Rep. Mark Anderson, R-Mesa, who chairs the panel, refused to estimate the cost, saying that would have to be computed by legislative budget staffers.

He conceded that the plan could hit a detour if the final number comes back in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars.

But he said his colleagues, who already put close to $4 billion into public schools every year, will have to realize that physical education has to be a priority, like math or science.

Sen. Barbara Leff, R-Paradise Valley, said there may be some resistance from school officials who believe devoting more time to PE would mean less time for academics — and lower scores for their students on state-required testing. But Leff said that's not necessarily the case.

"When children get to blow off some of that energy, they actually learn better," she said. "I think people are going to see that children absorb more."

The regulations could present challenges for charter schools if they were required to conform, said Tom Drexel, director of the charter Presidio Schools. Drexel sits on legislative committees for charter schools.

Presidio Schools offers some physical-education classes, so, Drexel said, "we would probably meet the letter of the requirement, though we'd probably have to upgrade our facilities. I know a number of charter schools won't be able to do that right away."

The idea to mandate more than just organized physical-education classes was pushed by committee member Robert Pangrazi, a professor at Arizona State University who has trained 1,500 PE instructors.

"The obesity problem is huge," he said, with one out of three students overweight.

He said a break of three to five minutes every hour would allow youngsters to jump and stretch or play simple games.

Anderson acknowledged that 90 minutes a week is not much of a mandate. But he said it at least would create a "minimum standard," with schools free to do more.

Kim Babeu — a Flowing Wells Junior High School teacher who was named 2005 Arizona teacher of the year for her program that combines healthful living, academics and sports into one — agreed that physical education can help fight childhood obesity.

"Physical education has to be an integral part of their daily routine," she said. "Just the health benefits alone are absolutely necessary."

Gov. Janet Napolitano refused to say if she supports the idea. But she said that as the state has focused more on academic curricula and mandatory testing, schools have paid less attention to physical education.

"That is one of the many factors leading to this epidemic of childhood obesity," she said.

Governors are asked to promote wellness

Page A4

● Star reporters Daniel Scarpinato and Jeff Commings contributed to this story.

All content copyright © 1999-2005 AzStarNet, Arizona Daily Star and its wire services and suppliers and may not be republished without permission. All rights reserved. Any copying, redistribution, or retransmission of any of the contents of this service without the expressed written consent of Arizona Daily Star or AzStarNet is prohibited.