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Hello, my name is Evan Ritter, I’m 16 and I go to Red Land High School in the West Shore School District in South – Central Pennsylvania. In order to graduate high school and get your diploma, you must have three gym credits. In your freshman year, you take a semester of Gym/Health. They alternate every other day. In ninth grade health, you learn about weight management, nutrition, drugs, and a pregnancy/STD’s unit. Once in a while, you skip health days for certain things in gym. In ninth grade gym, your performance is key. You get changed into your gym clothes right when you get to the locker room (the uniform costs about $27 with no monetary assistance, if you don’t have it, you get docked ten points each day), and you line up in the gym. After attendance is marked, you run around the gym for five minutes (which is not air conditioned, that’s left for the computer rooms), if you stop to take more than one break, or walk, your warm-ups don’t count. After the warm-up run, you line up in order and do various exercises including many push-ups crunches, arm exercises and bends. After your warm-ups are completed, you play different sports. These include basketball, baseball, soccer, floor hockey, volleyball, football, and sometimes dodgeball, bombardment, freeze tag, and other childish games. Twice a year, once in the beginning and end of the semester, you do a fitness test. You have to complete a 15 minute run around a quarter mile track field (you have to run around it four times to make a mile, obviously, to get a 70 which is one point above failing), you must also complete a 300 yard shuttle run, which is scaling 75 feet twelve times, running to a cone and turning around (You must complete it in one minute to get a 70, one point about failing), a one minute push-ups test, you must do 30 push-ups in one minute to get a 70, one point above failing, there’s a one minute pull ups test you have to do ten to get a 70, one point above failing, a one-minute crunch test in which you must do 30 in one minute to get a 70, one point above failing, and a sit-ups test in which you must complete 35 to get a 70, one point above failing. Some students have asthma, some are overweight, and some are just slow at stuff. I am overweight with asthma. I’ve failed the last two years of gym for not performing efficiently enough in the fitness tests, and not wearing a uniform due to the price. My family is below the poverty line and it’s hard to manage with this kind of thing. I did fine in health, did my homework, completed classwork and projects, but the gym an health grades are averaged out together. I believe gym should not be mandatory to graduate. I see no educational value to it, I find it embarrassing for some kids, and very tiring and just unneccessary. I’ve encountered some students on the verge of suicide from feeling outcasted and exploited while other students watch and laugh as we take the tests, one student at a time. I think the health class should be a semester long class instead of every other day with gym. You can be an expert at health, but not be able to run fast and fail the class (literally). I think the gym classes should be offered, but not automatically part of your schedule. The fitness test continue for two more years with added other sports.

There are also classes that aren’t mandatory called child development (learning about the child from conception to toddler ages, including food, care, health, and other important topics), only offered to ninth graders, early child psychology only offered to tenth graders, and child psychology, only offered to eleventh graders. I did not get to take child development in my freshman year. There are around 60 students in our school at any given time that have children or are expecting. I think this class should be very important and mandatory, perhaps in place of gym? Maybe it should be shared with health. If all three won’t be needed to graduate, I think at least, the first, freshman class should.

Does anyone else agree with what I’ve said here, and do you think it would be wise to push further with this, perhaps to change the class credit requirement for a gym class? If so, what should I do next (this Yahoo! Answers post was my first step)?

Sincerely,
Evan Ritter

Try asking a staff member for help. http://www.onlinehighschoolreviews.com/Pennsylvania-High-Schools.html