Modbee.comSchool will return to coed PE, as law requires By SUSAN HERENDEEN Boys and girls at a north Modesto school have been separated for physical education classes, in violation of federal law for the last few years. Administrators apparently were unaware of the problem at Prescott Senior Elementary School until recently, and many parents and students did not seem to mind. "The guys are too fast," 13-year-old Haifa Mahmud, an eighth-grader, said Monday. Kristina Perkins, also 13 and in eighth grade, said: "The girls don't want to be embarrassed in front of the guys." But Louis Bland said the girls have nothing to worry about. "We mostly do the same things anyway, so it probably won't matter," said Louis, a 14-year-old eighth-grader. Administrators in the Stanislaus Union School District said coed classes will be in place for the start of the second trimester, Nov. 24. The school has an enrollment of more than 700. The federal government's Title IX, enacted in 1972, requires equal educational opportunities for female and male students. Single-sex classes are allowed only if students are grouped by ability, for contact sports or for sex education. Stanislaus Union Superintendent Kathleen Boomer said Prescott PE classes were coeducational four years ago, when the school had its last compliance review. By the start of the last school year, the boys and girls had been separated. Principal James Davis, who is starting his second year on campus, noticed the problem earlier this year when he began preparing for another comprehensive state audit, called a Coordinated Compliance Review. He said he did not key in on the problem last year because he was busy aligning the curriculum with new state standards. "It just hit me," Davis said. Superintendent Boomer, at the helm of the district for three years, said: "I don't know when it slipped out, but we're getting it back on track. The district plans to send letters to parents in November, to tell them about the change back to coed PE. Uma Mukhram, whose eighth-grade daughter attends Prescott, said she had not heard of any problems and does not care if classes are single-sex or coeducational. "To me, it doesn't make any difference," she said. Prescott's four physical education teachers will have to revamp their classes to some extent, Davis said. But the school's PE achievement program, which challenges students to improve their performance on 18 physical tests, will remain. Students earn up to 4 points for each test. They get a star to iron on their gym shirts when they show any improvement, a chevron when they earn 10 points, and shorts of a different color when they earn 60 points. They start in white shorts, then move to red, blue, yellow and occasionally purple as they become more fit. Davis credited the PE achievement program for the school's above-average performance on the Fitnessgram, a statewide test of students in fifth, seventh and ninth grades. Nearly 39 percent of Prescott's seventh-graders met six fitness standards in the spring of 2002, compared with about 26 percent of seventh-graders in Stanislaus County and across California. Bee staff writer Susan Herendeen can be reached at 578-2338 or sherendeen@modbee.com. Posted on 10/14/03 04:40:17 |