|
Physical Education Waiver published 9.12.03
Parish Episcopal School requires physical education of all students. The only exceptions to this policy are a waiver because of a valid medical condition or participation in a Parish interscholastic sport. In the former case, a doctor’s excuse is required; in the latter case, the athlete is excused from physical education during the sport’s season.
Waivers are not granted for out-of-school activities. There are two aspects to our feeling on this matter. The first is a straight accountability matter. Although many of the activities are above-board and we could count on coaches to communicate regularly and honestly with us, the fact is that we would be opening ourselves up to an accountability nightmare. Other schools have indicated dreadful accounting problems with such arrangements. Students quit teams and fail to report this in a timely manner to resume physical education. The bottom line is that we are uncomfortable depending on someone who is not a Parish staff member essentially being responsible for awarding credits needed for graduation.
The second, and perhaps more significant point, is that our physical education curriculum must be more than just exercise and recreation, and we cannot let students opt out on the grounds that they get physical exercise elsewhere. An analogy, perhaps not totally parallel, would be to allow students to skip English class if they read extensively or wrote poetry on their own or to give school credit toward an art requirement if they took painting lessons outside of school.
We want to encourage our students to take on outside activities, and we believe that there are rewards to be derived from these commitments. However they are elective, and therefore the school's requirements will remain intact.
|
