|
Youth fitness assessment stalls in committee
The Associated Press
March 30, 2005
TALLAHASSEE - The Department of Education balked at a proposal that would require schools to assess fitness of third through eighth graders twice annually, causing the bill to stall in a House committee Tuesday.
The bill also requires schools to report height and weight of students in kindergarten through eighth grade twice annually.
Its sponsor, Rep. Eleanor Sobel, was concentrating on getting support from state education officials for the bill (HB 1113) before asking the House Pre-K-12 Committee to approve it. Officials said physical education should be the responsibility of local districts and not the state.
“You can only have one No. 1 priority,” K-12 Chancellor James Warford said. “For us, student achievement, reading, learning is our No. 1 priority. That doesn’t mean all those other issues are not important — they are.”
Sobel, D-Hollywood, called in Sen. Lee Constantine, who is sponsoring a similar Senate proposal (SB 2388), to talk with DOE officials about their retreat.
Constantine predicted differences would straighten out by the time Sobel’s bill is heard next week.
“We felt the Department of Education was with us on that and hopefully they still are,” said Constantine, R-Altamonte Springs.
“We have to move the bar forward with physical education,” Constantine said. “We’ve got a problem in this state with children and obesity, a lack of activity.”
Constantine’s Senate version also would require defibrillators on every high school campus.
Gov. Jeb Bush, who ordered a task force report in late 2003 that described an obesity epidemic in the state’s schools.
Lawmakers failed to take action on establishing any physical education requirements a year ago despite the task force’s findings that millions of school children were headed for juvenile diabetes and other ailments because of poor exercise and nutrition habits.
|