By Erica Rohde
Staff Writer

When I entered high school, I had made the decision to stop playing on competitive volleyball teams to focus more on academics.

I felt I was too short to block at the net and wanted to focus more on newspaper writing and singing in the choir. But there was nothing like getting my blood pumping and feeling confident in my health when I had the chance to.

My extracurricular activities and school work took up a large amount of my time. Within the school day my half physical education credit provided only some outlet for that stress and little means to fitness during my first semester of high school.  I watched my muscles give out and I felt that there just was not much I could do about it.

After one semester without volleyball, I could not jog one mile without wheezing. Volleyball had required running and conditioning. When I wanted to exercise I knew I would not have the time to match what volleyball had demanded of me. I figured that if I wanted to get on track it would be like starting over; time that I just did not have. I can hear the cries of ex-middle school athletes everywhere that I am not the only one.

This is a large percentage of our high school population, where those who chose not to participate in athletics or on a team of any kind during high school fulfill their physical education credits through an in-school system that helps you take care of your body for x amount of time and x amount of time only.

We deserve better, even if we did choose not to participate in athletics or on a team. Most of us did this for a reason; we thought it might be easier to meet the demands of our new competitive academic environment.

Through the Texas Legislature’s House Bill 3 passed in 2009, physical education requirements were lowered from one and a half required credits of physical education for the high school recommended plan and the Distinguished Achievement plan to a requirement of one credit. The entering freshmen classes in the school year of 2010-2011 and those entering years after now only have to complete one credit of physical education in their high school careers.

I don’t think that CISD or the Texas Legislature do not care about physical education and fitness; I just think that many people are gradually becoming for forgetful of the “body” in body, mind and soul of the students. Legislators encourage more academic involvement but through House Bill 3 are diminishing little by little our chances of meeting these demands. Our bodies need a chance to keep up.

I have heard students state that their P.E. credit does not do anything for their GPA in conversation. Is this really our new take on physical education?  Although they are right, physical fitness means taking care of the body, less trips to the doctor, a longer life span, boosts in mental activity and a happier and less stressed human being.

So what is the answer to fix this problem? Forcing students into classes they are not sure that they care to take hardly helps their incentives to establishing a life-long health plan for themselves. People are not always going to develop good habits when shoved into a 50-minute physical education class.  So I do not think more physical education requirements in our graduation plans is the answer.

My anatomy class is discussing diet and fitness this semester. To get a new perspective, we used Skype to chat with students from New Zealand. Their school graduation plan requires that they take a physical education course every year, but the class is only twice a weak. However awesome that sounded, their physical education credits still had to be fit in during the school day.

Their example can teach us that there are other ways. We could try a possible four-year health plan where students fulfill a certain amount of hours per year. We could take one fitness gram only and take it at the end of high school, opening up more time during the school day; maybe even shorten school days or allow room for more electives. It could encourage school wide physical activities, city wide physical activities. Students, parents, teachers and citizens all together could benefit.

The ideas above are not my own, they may have already been discussed, but we should not be scared to try them. I know we are in a bubble Coppell, but we should try thinking outside of it for our health.